Hemingway and Posthumanism

Ernest Hemingway is often recognised for his contributions to the intellectual and artistic experimentation of his day, including modernism, primitivism, naturalism and creative nonfiction. He has also long been situated in debates about the environment, often receiving criticism for his hunting practices and taken as iconic of an aggressive masculinity. This collection considers another influential artistic and intellectual formation that has particular resonance for reading Hemingway, despite postdating his life by more than a decade: posthumanism. The contributions highlight the many resonances between Hemingway’s life and writing and the notions of posthumanism, including, for example: Hemingway’s emphasis on a human creaturely life; his insistence on human participation in genuine ecologies; his use of and writing about technologies and prosthetics (as in cases of injury); and his scepticism about forces of modernity, economic development, labour norms and more. The collection also shows how investigating Hemingway alongside posthumanism can yield new insights about this author and contribute to posthumanist thought and practice.