Speaker
Description
The zone of exception is a modern figure of speculative literature that conjures imaginary spaces where natural and social laws are suspended—from the boundaries of species and the stability of ecologies to the very laws of physics, a simultaneity and indistinction of violations that run against the ancient separations of phusis and nomos and demand to be read in the light of a conjoined nature–culture. A cultural–historical formation that belongs neither to utopia/dystopia nor to progressive science fiction, it is a narrative mode characterized above all by the unique subjective affects it brings into play, what Lorraine Daston calls “cognitive affects”, specifically tailored to registering order-violation. In its scenarios of confronting an unknown that generates epistemological challenges first and foremost, the zone narrative has concrete contemporary relevance—not only in its resonance with the climate crisis, but also insofar as it opens out to ideas of extraction: what cannot be known may nevertheless be exploited for resources, echoing economic histories of unfettered imperial prospecting and the displacement of auratic objects. With these preliminary features in mind, and toward a more detailed theoretical characterization, this paper offers a comparative exploration of the zone narrative through cases such as the Strugatsky Brothers’ Roadside Picnic, Brian Catling’s Vorrh series, Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation, and the video game Disco Elysium.
| Keywords | natural law, cognitive affect, speculative fiction, extraction |
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