Overview

Theorizes an alternative form of masculinity in global literature that is less egocentric and more sustainable, both in terms of gendered and environmental power dynamics. Contemporary novelists and filmmakers like Kazuo Ishiguro (Japanese-British), Emma Donoghue (Irish-Canadian), Michael Ondaatje (Sri Lankan-Canadian), Bong Joon-ho (South Korean) and J.M. Coetzee (South African-Australian) are emblematic of a transnational phenomenon that Robinson Murphy calls “castration desire.” That is, these artists present privileged characters who nonetheless pursue their own diminishment. In promulgating through their characters a less egocentric mode of thinking and acting, these artists offer a blueprint for engendering a more other-oriented global relationality. Murphy proposes that, in addition to being an ethical prerogative, castration desire’s “less is more” model of relationality would make life livable where veritable suicide is our species’ otherwise potential fate. “Castration desire” thus offers an antidote to rapacious extractivism, with the ambition of instilling a sustainable model for thinking and acting on an imminently eco-apocalyptic earth. In providing a fresh optic through which to read a diversity of text-types, Castration Desire helps define where literary criticism is now and where it is headed. Castration Desire additionally extends and develops a zeitgeist currently unfolding in critical theory. It brings Leo Bersani’s concept “psychic utopia” together with Judith Butler’s “radical egalitarianism,” but transports their shared critique of phallic individualization into the environmental humanities. In doing so, this book builds a new framework for how gender studies intersects with environmental studies.

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Reviews

In Castration Desire, Robinson Murphy matches close reading of the text with serious and original thinking about power and powerlessness, using ideas around castration with subtlety and sharp insight. His book offers a new reading of the novels and films under consideration, but more than that, it opens space for a new way of seeing character itself, especially male character, and power dynamics in fiction. * Colm Tóibín, Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities, Columbia University, USA * Inspiring in its dexterous interdisciplinary reading of film, art, and literary fiction, Castration Desire takes its readers to the unexpected terrain where queerness, masculinity, and ecological concerns intersect to present a new mode of being. Dispelling many misconceptions about castration through a conversation with current thinkers and artists, Murphy offers us a robust study that will inspire the next generation of literary critics. * Naminata Diabate, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, Cornell University, USA * This book’s transdisciplinary impulse is one of its many strengths, together with its focus on dismantling neoliberal essentialisms and offering an innovative lens from which to re-think the notion of sustainability today.Castration Desire offers a significant contribution to the fields of queer theory and contemporary literary studies, with many provocations that have the potential of revolutionizing contemporary queer and literary studies in necessary ways. * Libe García Zarranz, Associate Professor of Literature in English, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway *

Author Information

Robinson Murphy is Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, USA.

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