{"id":3408,"date":"2026-02-26T07:54:38","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T07:54:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newnatures.org\/greenhouse\/?p=3408"},"modified":"2026-05-18T17:33:53","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T17:33:53","slug":"online-book-talk-mckay-anthropofugal-fictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newnatures.org\/greenhouse\/events\/booktalk\/online-book-talk-mckay-anthropofugal-fictions\/","title":{"rendered":"Online book talk: McKay, Anthropofugal Fictions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-vimeo wp-block-embed-vimeo wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Greenhouse book talk: Robert McKay, Anthropofugal Fictions\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/1191505787?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"819\" height=\"461\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bob McKay, Professor of Contemporary Literature at University of Sheffield (UK), discussed his book <em><a href=\"https:\/\/edinburghuniversitypress.com\/book-anthropofugal-fictions.html\">Anthropofugal Fictions: Literature, Species Politics and Flight from Humanity<\/a><\/em> (Edinburgh University Press, 2026) in the Greenhouse environmental humanities book talk series on Monday, 11 May 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This book traces a radical politics of species across the work of four significant Anglophone authors of the late twentieth century: Brigid Brophy, Alice Walker, J.M. Coetzee and David Foster Wallace. Presenting an exciting and original perspective, Robert McKay argues that these literary figures tell&nbsp;<em>anthropofugal&nbsp;<\/em>stories, in which a tendency towards animals coincides with a desire to flee from humanity. Their writing disavows allegiance to humanity\u2019s various guises and ideals, dismissing human distinctiveness and disturbing human privilege to reimagine life with so-called animals. While deeply grounded in the practice of literary close reading,&nbsp;<em>Anthropofugal Fictions&nbsp;<\/em>is also a work of philosophy and theory that shows how doubts about species identity lie at the heart of live debates about gender, sexuality, race and ethics. It is a challenging and provocative account of what it means&nbsp;<em>not&nbsp;<\/em>to be human, and of living amongst animals without species difference as a legitimation of one\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bob McKay, Professor of Contemporary Literature at University of Sheffield (UK), discussed his book Anthropofugal Fictions: Literature, Species Politics and Flight from Humanity (Edinburgh University [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[17,18],"class_list":["post-3408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-booktalk","tag-books","tag-environment"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/newnatures.org\/greenhouse\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2026-05-11-McKay_pod-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newnatures.org\/greenhouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newnatures.org\/greenhouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newnatures.org\/greenhouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newnatures.org\/greenhouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newnatures.org\/greenhouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3408"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/newnatures.org\/greenhouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3468,"href":"https:\/\/newnatures.org\/greenhouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3408\/revisions\/3468"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newnatures.org\/greenhouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newnatures.org\/greenhouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newnatures.org\/greenhouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newnatures.org\/greenhouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}