Oriental Scholar

The ‘Oriental Scholar’ is part of China’s ‘Talents Program’, through which, after peer-review, I was conferred the title of Distinguished Professor, and allocated a 3-year-grant to set up a research team and conduct research on 20th and 21st century British, American and comparative literature, critical theory, psychoanalysis and memory/trauma/Holocaust studies as well as the condition of the Humanities in the 21st century.

Team members: Zengjing Li (PhD student), Ling Chen (PhD student), Zihao Liu (PhD student), Ronrong Qian (PhD student), Laurent Milesi (Professor), Lanlan Du (Professor), Cheng Li (Senior Lecturer)

Research Output

Edited Journal Issues

  • Arleen Ionescu, Laurent Milesi and Edward Waysband (eds), Word and Text – A Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics 13: ‘Speculations of the Unconscious: Encounters between Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Literature and the Arts’ (2023), 190 pp. [ESCI, Scopus]
  • Laurent Milesi and Radu Vancu (eds), Word and Text – A Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics 12: ‘“Make It New” Once Again: Experimental Trends in 21st-Century Poetry in English’ (2022), 180 pp. [ESCI, Scopus]
  • Laurent Milesi and Rodolfo Piskorski (eds), Word and Text – A Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics 11: ‘Animality and Textuality’ (2021), 222 pp. [ESCI, Scopus]
  • Arleen Ionescu, Ioana Galleron and Lanlan Du (eds), Word and Text – A Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics 10: ‘The New Humanities in the “Post-University”’ (2020), 239 pp. [ESCI, Scopus]
  • Arleen Ionescu, Laurent Milesi and Biwu Shang (eds), Word and Text – A Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics 9: ‘Postclassical Narratology: Twenty Years Later’ (2019), 206 pp. [ESCI, Scopus]

Edited Books

  • Arleen Ionescu and Maria Margaroni (eds), Arts of Healing: Cultural Narratives of Trauma, London and New York: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2020, 281 pp.+ xxxviii; Hardcover ISBN 978-1-78661-097-3, electronic book 978-1-78661-098-0. Reviewed by: Iro Filippaki, in Synthesis 13 (2020): 141-149; Zoë E. Sprott, in ‘Annual Bibliography of Works about Life Writing, 2020’, Biography 44.1 (2021): pp. 220-222; Ágota Márton, in Style 56.1-2 (2022): pp. 101-105, DOI: 10.5325/style.56.1-2.0101
  • Lanlan Du and Arleen Ionescu (eds), Introduction to English Literature: The Short Story and the Novel 英语文学导论 （短篇故事与小说卷）, Shanghai: Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press, 2020, 253 pp.

Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals 

  • ‘Narrative Agency in Maurice Blanchot’s Récits? A Case Study on Death Sentence and Awaiting Oblivion (I)’, Philologica Jassyensia XIX.1 (37) (2023): pp. 187-202 [ESCI]
  • (with Li Feng), ‘犹太文学与大屠杀研究的跨学科探索 ———阿琳·艾欧纳斯库教授访谈录’(An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Jewish Literature and Holocaust Studies: An Interview with Professor Arleen Ionescu), 山东外语教学 (Shandong Foreign Language Teaching) 44.3 (2023): pp. 1-9; DOI: 10.16482/j.sdwy37-1026.2023-03-001
  • Arleen Ionescu, ‘Towards an Affective Ludo-ethics of Re-enactment: Witnessing in Attentat 1942’, Parallax 28.2 (2022): pp. 213-229; DOI: 10.1080/13534645.2023.2184951 [AHCI/SSCI]
  • Arleen Ionescu, ‘Samuel Beckett and E. M. Cioran: The Passion for Ruins’, Transilvania 1 (January 2023): pp. 23-37; DOI.: 10.51391/trva.2023.01.02 [Scopus]
  • Arleen Ionescu, ‘Hospitality in Shanghai: The Russian Jewish Community as Hosts and Polish Jewish Refugees as Guests during WW2’, SLOVO 35.2 (Fall 2022): pp. 1-25; DOI: 10.14324/111.444.0954-6839.1297 [AHCI]
  • Arleen Ionescu, ‘Performing Irony: Eugène Ionesco’s Battles with His Critics’, Dacoromania Litteraria 9 (2022): pp. 9-30; DOI: 10.33993/drl.2022.9.9.30 [Scopus]
  • Cristina A. Bejan and Arleen Ionescu, ‘Trauma, Affect, Memory and 21st-Century Poetry’, Word and Text – A Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics 12 (2022): pp. 151-160; DOI: 10.51865/JLSL.2022.11 [ESCI, Scopus]
  • Arleen Ionescu, ‘Layers of Memory in Kuznetsov’s and Trubakov’s Babi Yar Narratives’, Eastern European Holocaust Studies, special issue on A. Kuznetsov, ed. Leona Toker (online, 2022): pp. 1-19; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/eehs-2022-0012
  • Arleen Ionescu, ‘Anathematizing Barthes and Admiring Beckett with Eugène Ionesco’, Paragraph: A Journal of Modern Critical Theory 45.2 (2022): pp. 187-202; DOI: 10.3366/para.2022.0396 [AHCI]
  • Arleen Ionescu and Laurent Milesi, ‘Re-Membering – A Plea for Togetherness’, Oxford Literary Review 44.1 (2022): pp. 110-20; DOI: 10.3366/olr.2022.0380 [AHCI]
  • Arleen Ionescu, ‘“Channels of Interference”: Maurice Blanchot and Emil Cioran’, Primerjalna književnost 45.1 (2022): pp. 189-208; DOI: 10.3986/pkn.v45.i1.11 [AHCI]
  • Arleen Ionescu, ‘Makarenko’s and Țurcanu’s Re-Education Projects: Debunking a Myth in Romanian Historiography’, Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and History of Ideas 20.1 (2022): pp. 1-26; DOI: 10.1353/pan.2022.0004 [AHCI]
  • Arleen Ionescu, ‘Blanchot in Infinite Conversation(s) with Beckett’, Journal of Modern Literature 44.3 (2021): pp. 76-92; DOI: 10.2979/jmodelite.44.3.06 [AHCI]
  • Arleen Ionescu, Li Cheng, ‘Chinese Libraries in the COVID-19 Era: A Case Study’, Romània Orientale 33, ed. Ioana Bot and Angela Tarantino (2020): pp. 211-220
  • Cheng Li and Fekede Menuta, ‘A Review of Patrik Svensson’s Big Digital Humanities: Imagining a Meeting Place for the Humanities and the Digital’, Word and Text – A Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics 10 (2020): pp. 7-26 [ESCI, Scopus]
  • Laurent Milesi, ‘The Remediation of (Post-)Humanities’, Word and Text – A Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics 10 (2020): pp. 126-142 [ESCI, Scopus]
  • Arleen Ionescu, Du Lanlan, ‘Chinese Versions of the Uncanny’, Oxford Literary Review 42.2 (2020): pp. 205-209; DOI: 10.3366/olr.2020.0320 [AHCI]
  • Arleen Ionescu, ‘From Virginia Woolf to Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu: Adaptation, Intertextuality or Zeitgeist?’, National Central University Journal of Humanities 70 (2020): pp. 1-44
  • Arleen Ionescu, ‘The New Humanities in the “Post-University”: Introduction’, Word and Text – A Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics 10 (2020): pp. 7-26 [ESCI, Scopus]
  • Arleen Ionescu, ‘Postclassical Narratology: Twenty Years Later’, Word and Text – A Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics 9 (2019): pp. 5-34 [ESCI, Scopus]
  • Arleen Ionescu, ‘The “Differend” of Shoes: van Gogh, Beckett, Wiesel, Levi and Holocaust Museums’, Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and History of Ideas 17.2 (2019): pp. 255-277, DOI: 10.1353/pan.2019.0017 [AHCI]
  • Arleen Ionescu, ‘Witnessing Horrorism: the Piteşti Experiment’, SLOVO 32.1 (2019): pp. 53-74, DOI: 10.14324/111.0954-6839.086 (AHCI)

Forthcoming

  • Arleen Ionescu, ‘Healing Future Generations: Witnessing in Memoirs of Shanghai Refugees during WW2’, Life Writing, ed. Stefanie Hofer and Idit Gil (under review) [AHCI]
  • Arleen Ionescu, ‘Memorial Objecthood: The Testimonial Lives of Holocaust Objects’, Parallax 29.2 (2023) [AHCI/SSCI]

Reviews and Review Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals

  • Arleen Ionescu and Laurent Milesi, Review-Essay, ‘A Tale of Two Theories: John Pier, ed, Contemporary French and Francophone Narratology, Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2020’, Style, 57.1 (2023): pp. 90-107; DOI: 10.5325/style.57.1.0090 [AHCI]
  • Laurent Milesi and Arleen Ionescu, ‘“Committing Poetry”: A Review of Timothy Yu (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Twenty-First-Century American Poetry, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021’, Word and Text – A Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics 12 (2022): pp. 168-181; DOI: 10.51865/JLSL.2022.13 [ESCI, Scopus]
  • Arleen Ionescu, ‘Tangled Temporal Dimensions in the Post-Theory Era’, Philologica Jassyensia XVIII.1 (35) (2022): pp. 324-328
  • Arleen Ionescu, ‘Review of Panorama comunismului în România, ed. Liliana Corobca’, Slavic Review 81.1 (2022): pp. 224-26, DOI: 10.1017/slr.2022.108 [AHCI/SSCI]
  • Arleen Ionescu and Laurent Milesi, ‘Mircea Mihăieş, O noapte cu Molly Bloom. Romanul unei femei (A Night with Molly Bloom: The Novel of a Woman)’, James Joyce Quarterly 59.1 (Fall 2021): pp. 163-169; DOI: 10.1353/jjq.2021.0048 [AHCI]
  • Rongrong Qian, ‘Review of The New Irish Studies’, English Studies 102.6 (2021): pp. 876-878; DOI: 10.1080/0013838X.2021.1952723 [AHCI]
  • Arleen Ionescu, ‘Review of Leona Toker, Gulag Literature and the Literature of Nazi Camps: An Intercontextual Reading’, Style 54.2 (2020): pp. 258-264; DOI: 10.5325/style.54.2.0258 [AHCI]
  • Arleen Ionescu, ‘Review of Cristina A. Bejan, Intellectuals and Fascism in Interwar Romania: The Criterion Association’, SLOVO 33.1 (2020): pp. 27-29; DOI: 10.14324/111.0954-6839.099 [AHCI]
  • Arleen Ionescu, ‘Review of Vladimir Tismăneanu and Marius Stan, Romania Confronts Its Communist Past: Democracy, Memory, and Moral Justice’, Memory Studies 12.4 (October 2019): pp. 473-476; DOI: 10.1177/1750698019855897c [AHCI/SSCI]

Book Chapters

  • Arleen Ionescu, ‘The Essay as Brinkmanship: Cioran’s Fragment, Aphorism and Autobiography’, in The Edinburgh Companion to the Essay, ed. Mario Aquilina, Nicole Wallack and Bob Cowser, Jr., Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022, pp. 343-357; ISBN 978 1 4744 8602 6 (hardback), ISBN 978 1 4744 8603 3 (webready PDF), ISBN 978 1 4744 8604 0 (EPUB)
  • Arleen Ionescu and Zengjing Li, ‘The Limits of Humour: On COVID-19 Tendentious Jokes’, in Multimodal Communication and Soft Skills Development, ed. Maria-Ionela Neagu and Diana Costea, Berlin: Peter Lang, 2022, pp. 71-96; ISBN 978-3-631-87524-7 (Print), E-ISBN 978-3-631-87885-9 (E-PDF), E-ISBN 978-3-631-87886-6 (EPUB), DOI: 10.3726/b19917
  • Rongrong Qian, ‘Multimodality of Memory Manipulation in John Banville’s Shroud‘, in Multimodal Communication and Soft Skills Development, ed. Maria-Ionela Neagu and Diana Costea, Berlin: Peter Lang, 2022, pp. 113-121; ISBN 978-3-631-87524-7 (Print), E-ISBN 978-3-631-87885-9 (E-PDF)
  • Zengjing Li, ‘Multimodal Stylistics of Nicholas Royle’s Quilt’, in Multimodal Communication and Soft Skills Development, ed. Maria-Ionela Neagu and Diana Costea, Berlin: Peter Lang, 2022, pp. 123-142; ISBN 978-3-631-87524-7 (Print), E-ISBN 978-3-631-87885-9 (E-PDF)
  • Arleen Ionescu and Maria Margaroni, ‘Introduction’, in Arts of Healing: Cultural Narratives of Trauma, ed. Arleen Ionescu and Maria Margaroni, London and New York: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2020, pp. ix-xxxviii; Hardcover ISBN 978-1-78661-097-3, electronic book 978-1-78661-098-0
  • Arleen Ionescu, ‘Forgiving as Self-Healing? The Case of Eva Mozes Kor’, in Arts of Healing: Cultural Narratives of Trauma, ed. Arleen Ionescu and Maria Margaroni, London and New York: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2020, pp. 27-49; Hardcover ISBN 978-1-78661-097-3, electronic book 978-1-78661-098-0
  • Arleen Ionescu, ‘Language as Becoming: The Cases of Self-Translation of Samuel Beckett and E. M. Cioran’, inThe Time is Now: Essays on the Philosophy of Becoming, ed. Mihaela Gligor, Bucharest: Zeta Books, 2020, pp. 63-92; Print ISBN: 978-606-697-130-0

Major Conference and Worshop Participations as Keynote speaker or by invitation (‘Titles of Papers Presented’)

  • Arleen Ionescu, Literature and Reception Studies: Approaches, Models, Practices, International Conference organized by the SUFE Centre for the Study of Text and Print Culture and the SUFE Literature Subject Group, School of Foreign Studies, October 2021, keynote speaker, ‘The Inter-War Reception of Virginia Woolf in Romania: Between Critical Hostility and Creative Hospitality’
  • Arleen Ionescu, Text Print Culture / The Reception of Aesthetics, Seminars of the SUFE Centre for the Study of Text and Print Culture and the SUFE Literature Subject Group, School of Foreign Studies, September 2021, ‘The Reception of Aesthetics: Imported Modernist Techniques in Romanian Literature’
  • Arleen Ionescu, Timpul. Perspective filosofice și teologice [Time: Philosophical and Theological Perspectives], Roundtable organized by Institutul de Istorie George Barițiu al Academiei Române, Filiala Cluj Napoca, March 2021, ‘Samuel Beckett’s and Emil Cioran’s Becoming’
  • Arleen Ionescu, International Conference Multimodal Communication and Soft Skills Development, University of Ploiești, ETSIAE, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and Université de la Manouba Tunis, November 2020: keynote speaker, ‘Multimodal Approaches to the Concept of Apocalypse’
  • Arleen Ionescu, Webinar on Apocalyptic Fiction, Prafulla Chandra College, affiliated to The University of Calcutta, July 2020, keynote speaker, ‘From Imagined to Real Contemporary Apocalypses’
  • Arleen Ionescu, Dialogue on the Frontiers of Contemporary Narratology between China and the West, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, December 2019, keynote speaker, ‘Narrative Agencies of Passivity and Passion in Maurice Blanchot’
  • Arleen Ionescu, 8th Annual International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference (IDRAC), The Sojourner Auditorium, Virtual Ability, Second Life, Aurora, Colorado, November 2019, ‘Reading the Personal and the Social in Disability Studies and Trauma Studies’

Major Conference Participations (‘Titles of Papers Presented’)

  • Arleen Ionescu, ICLA Congress 2022, panel ‘Minor Literature, Small Literatures, Literature in Small Nations’, University of Tbilisi, Georgia, July 2022: ‘Emil Cioran and Samuel Beckett: Stylistic Proximities’
  • Arleen Ionescu, ASEEES (Association of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies) Convention, New Orleans, December 2021: respondent to panel ‘The Novel of (Post)memory in Romania: Gender, Class, Affiliation’
  • Zengjing Li, Literature and Reception Studies: Approaches, Models, Practices, International Conference organized by the SUFE Centre for the Study of Text and Print Culture and the SUFE Literature Subject Group, School of Foreign Studies, October 2021: ‘Remapping the Uncanny in China: A Case Study of Can Xue’s Apple Tree in the Corridor’
  • Zengjing Li, International Conference Multimodal Communication and Soft Skills Development, University of Ploiești, ETSIAE, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and Université de la Manouba Tunis, November 2020: ‘Problematizing the Subject: Quilted Voices in Nicholas Royle’s Quilt’
  • Rongrong Qian, International Conference Multimodal Communication and Soft Skills Development, University of Ploiești, ETSIAE, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and Université de la Manouba Tunis, November 2020: ‘Multimodality of Memory Manipulation in John Banville’s Shroud’
  • Zengjing Li, The Second Forum of Frontiers of Contemporary English Literature (“第二届当代英语文学前沿问题研究高端论坛“), Renmin University of China, November 2020: ‘A Little (Real) World is Coming into Being: Telepathy and Death Drive in John Banville’s Ghosts’
  • Ling Chen, Literature and Reception Studies: Approaches, Models, Practices, International Conference organized by the SUFE Centre for the Study of Text and Print Culture and the SUFE Literature Subject Group, School of Foreign Studies, October 2021: ‘The Signifying Text: The Reception of Chanel Miller’s Know My Name In China’
  • Arleen Ionescu, International Conference French Theory in China, Shanghai University, October 2019: ‘Blanchot in Infinite Conversation(s) with Beckett’
  • Arleen Ionescu, The First International Conference on Techno Humanities and Forum for the 40th Anniversary of Journal of SJTU (Philosophy and Social Sciences), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, October 2019: ‘The New Humanities and the Academic Institution in the 21st Century’
  • Arleen Ionescu, International Forum on Identity and Representation in Translation and Interpreting, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, June 2019: ‘Writing in a Language That Is Not One’s Own’

Organized Events:

Guest lecture, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, School of Foreign Languages, 25 May 2019

Speaker: Dr. Maxime Philippe

Bio: Dr. Maxime Philippe is an Associate Researcher in the French Department at Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou. His primary research interests are in 20th century Francophone Literature and Culture, and History of Ideas. In 2013, he received the ‘Recherche au présent’ award at the 20th and 21st Century French and Francophone Studies International Colloquium in Atlanta. He has written about Antonin Artaud’s re-appropriation of art therapy in his artistic performances. His article ‘Artaud, l’hérétique’, in L’Esprit Créateur 55:3 (Fall 2013), tries to rethink the surrealist experience through the figure of the heretic, while the article ‘Antonin Artaud et la surréa-liste’, in Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, 18: 3 (June 2014), studies Artaud’s alternative writing practice of the list. His latest article ‘The Puppet and Its Master: Deconstruction as Ventriloquy’, in Word and Text. A Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics, 7 (Winter 2017), deals with Jacques Derrida’s readings of Artaud. His new research project focuses on the figure of the heretic in avant-garde movements.

Paper: ‘Poetry at the End of Time’

Keywords: (end of) poetry, postmodernism, Stéphane Mallarmé, Maurice Blanchot, Jacques Derrida

Abstract: Since the 19th century, the question of the disappearance or of the end of poetry has been raised repeatedly. In the light of the 20th century’s tragic events, the Holocaust, mass murders, world wars, the nuclear war and ecological catastrophes, what does the end of poetry signify for us nowadays? This presentation intends to compare Stéphane Mallarmé’s, Maurice Blanchot’s and Jacques Derrida’s respective views about the end(s) of poetry and its relationship to the end(s) of time and history. I will start by contrasting the positions of these three writers regarding Hegelian philosophy, more particularly Hegel’s characterization of the end of history and poetry. Then I will proceed to analyze the transformation undergone by Mallarmé’s experience through the filter of both Blanchot’s and Derrida’s interpretations, which influenced each other. Finally, I will assess the significance of Mallarmé’s poetry in the present postmodern and post-apocalyptic context.

Lecture followed by Workshop on the condition of higher education in the 21st century, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, School of Foreign Languages, 19 June 2019

Speaker: Dr. Daniel Funeriu

Bio: Dr. Daniel P. Funeriu is Former Minister of Education, Research, Youth and Sports of Romania (12/2009-02/2012), former Head of the Education and Research Department of the Romanian Presidency (03/2012-03/2014) and former Member of the European Parliament (2009). He graduated top of the class with Prof. J.-M. Lehn, a Nobel laureate in Strasbourg and worked in prestigious institutions in France, Great Britain, USA, Japan and Germany, before taking high level responsibilities in Romania. Originality, creativity, fearless and structured action complemented by solid communication allowed him to blend perfectly the two major activities that he undertook: top scientific research and governance. As the Romanian Minister of Education, his main reforms for higher education were the classification of all Romanian universities according to their performance, setting up research ethics legislation and the fight against plagiarism. During his mandate, Romania initiated the construction of the most powerful LASER in the world (ELI-NP) and his new, merit-based, grant system for research funding treated Sciences and the Humanities equally. He was in charge of the EU-financed 20 state-of-the-art new research institutes. In these crucial times of change, his drive is to increase societal cohesion through increasing organizations and people’s well-being. 

Paper: ‘University Research Evaluation or How to Find a Common Scale for “Whales” and “Mosquitoes”’

Keywords: higher education, international rankings, top scientific research and governance, ethics in higher education, societal cohesion

Abstract: Institutional rankings have become very popular, both for the general public, eager to send their children to the ‘best’ universities in the world, and for decision-makers, eager to show the people that they have ‘objective’ criteria for resource allocation. However, despite their popularity, institutional evaluations are often misunderstood in their goal and methodology. Starting from the university and research institute’s ranking in Romania that was performed during my ministerial mandate, my conference will attempt to clarify how and why:

  • only very few universities and research institutes are happy with evaluation exercises;
  • paramount to the meaning of institutional evaluation is the very goal of the evaluation;
  • criteria must be chosen according to the only very few meaningful evaluation exercises that have been performed;
  • there is a strong system resistance to any kind of external evaluation;
  • evaluation exercises can lead to a significant increase in a university’s international reach;
  • evaluation exercises increase the internal pressure for reform within universities;
  • there is a constant need for methodological improvement between successive rounds of evaluations, in particular the difficult integration of the Humanities with Sciences;
  • unexpected surprises appear;
  • there is no such thing as a methodology that fits all ranking/classification exercises;
  • accept that errors can exist and provide correction mechanisms.

Daniel Funeriu’s keynote was meant to be an open discussion with members of SJTU, one of the leading universities in the world with extensive university ranking experience for the workshop that followed and which gathered PhD students, MA students and members of staff from the whole university.

Guest lecture, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, School of Foreign Languages, 30 September 2019

Speaker: Dr. Christopher John Müller

Bio: Dr. Christopher John Müller is a lecturer in Cultural Studies & Media at MMCCS (Department of Media, Music, Communication & Cultural Studies), Macquarie University, Australia. Broadly conceived, his research focuses on the intersection between technology, politics and affect. Relevant publications include: ‘Utopia Inverted: Günther Anders, Technology and the Social’, special edition of Thesis Eleven (August 2019); ‘Writing to Spare One’s Blushes: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Automation of Confidence’, in Shame and Modern Writing, ed. Julie Walsh and Barry Shiels (Routledge, 2018); Prometheanism: Technology, Digital Culture and Human Obsolescence (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). He is also part of the editorial team of the Genealogy of the Posthuman, a multi-authored online initiative (http://criticalposthumanism.net/genealogy/).

Paper: ‘The Postliterary and the Obsolescence of Human Beings: Günther Anders in the Anthropocene’

Keywords: Anthropocene, Günther Anders, posthumanism, postliterary, obsolescence

Abstract: In May 2019, The Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) voted to designate the Anthropocene a new geological epoch with the onset of the Atomic Age as a possible start date. The presence of manmade radioactive particles, the rationale runs, will allow humans of the future to clearly read the beginning of this new age from the geological record. Writing in 1956, German philosopher Günther Anders seems to anticipate this move, but with a logic that is diametrically opposed to that of the AWG. He declares the beginning of a new epoch because for him the first manmade nuclear explosion introduces an age in which the human will (or perhaps already has) vanished. For Anders, there will be no future human who could look back onto our age as past. In this lecture I will ask a deceptively simple question: what is meant by the term ‘human’ in these discussions? In answering this question, I turn to the curious properties of radioactive matter to transpose aspects of Anders’s thought onto what his major work, The Obsolescence of Human Beings (1956), introduces as the postliterary age. In my talk I will pay specific attention to the manner in which, for Anders, perception has turned into a form of literary imagination and fantasy that blinds us to the hidden chains of violence that shape technological mediation.

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