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Fasa och förundran i den fantastiska novellen

Abstract

The Thing in You. Fear and Fascination in the Fantastic Short Story

This article explores a number of short stories by three authors – the Argentinian writer Julio Cortázar, and the two Swedish writers Stig Dagerman and Karin Tidbeck – from a posthumanist standpoint. By examining how the emergence of the liminal state of the fantastic in these stories is tied to a particular treatment of things, posthumanist notions of distributed cognition and the agency of things are linked to the aesthetics of the fantastic. Experience and subjectivity in the fantastic short story are shown to be matters of co-production. Furthermore, the argument is made that the fantastic presupposes a participatory reading practice, obviating the material involvement of a reader.