Performing the (Non)Human

Abstract

The article, which originally appeared in “TransCanadiana: Polish Journal of Canadian Studies”, offers a posthuman reading of Dionne Brand’s short story Blossom. It starts with a general discussion on posthumanism, providing some critical insights about posthuman thought. It then offers a reading of Dionne Brand’s short story Blossom through a problematization of the (liberal humanist) notion of the ‘human’. In particular, it focuses on the specific language used in the story, the spatial categories employed by Brand, and the act of giving up one’s self‑possession to more‑than‑human powers as Blossom’s way to self‑empowerment. By becoming a priestess of the goddess Oya (or, indeed, the goddess herself), Blossom is able to escape the modern Western socio-political discourses of authenticized and stabilized identities based on race, gender, religion, cultural background, and Western‑inflected ‘humanity’.

Keywords

• Dionne Brand
• posthumanism
• more-than-human
• multiculturalism