Space and Language of the Cruel: Interrelational Affectivity and the Material in the Context of Contemporary Gothic Latin American Writing

Abstract

In this paper I bring together the theoretical frameworks of critical posthumanism, new materialisms and affect theory in an attempt to elucidate the agency of the material, specifically of space, in the new reconfigurations offered by the posthumanist decentring of the Human. Attending to a focus on literary language, the paper explores two short stories by female Latin American authors, therefore exploring critical posthumanism in the context of contemporary Gothic literature rather than the more common themes of the environmental or technological Other. It will be seen that an attention to materiality unveils the porosity characterising the borders between the different ontological categories, thus rendering them subject to the possibility of being infiltrated. Exploring contexts of haunting and the uncanny, instances of intrusion will serve as an illustration of not only the material quality of affect but also the new entanglements where space gains agency as a producer of meaning.