Stephanie Posthumus
Associate Professor
![Stephanie Posthumus Stephanie Posthumus](https://www.mcgill.ca/langlitcultures/files/langlitcultures/styles/medium_focal__220_x_220_/public/img_1090.jpeg?itok=XQzPlG4g)
stephanie.posthumus [at] mcgill.ca
Constructing an ecological perspective for examining 20th and 21st Century French literary texts has been the main goal of her work since she finished her doctoral thesis in 2003. As Prof.Posthumus argues, ecocriticism, while based on a concern for global environmental problems, is not transferable from one national literature to another. The traditions, philosophies, and representations of the non-human world that influence and are influenced by literature create important cultural differences that do not allow for a global ecocritical perspective. To build a French ecocriticism, she draws on ideas such as l’écosophie (Félix Guattari), la nature-culture (Bruno Latour), and le contrat naturel (Michel Serres). Her monograph, French Écocritique: Reading Contemporary French Theory and Fiction Ecologically (2017), as well as many of her articles demonstrate the use of French eco-theory to analyze questions of nature, environment, and landscapes in contemporary French novels.
A second branch of her work looks at representations of animals and plants in contemporary Francophone literature from France and Québec. Researching different disciplinary work on animals, from philosophy (Jacques Derrida, Élisabeth de Fontenay, Dominique Lestel) to ethology (Boris Cyrulnik, Georges Chapouthier), from literary criticism (Lucile Desblache, Anne Simon) to animal ethics (Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer), Prof. Posthumus aims to define the animal question with respect to the French contemporary context. Her co-edited volume, French Thinking about Animals (2015) brings together leading animal studies scholars in the French-speaking world to discuss these questions. Her work in plant studies has emerged more recently in the context of Québécois literature and her own gardening practices. Two recent contributions, Entre les feuilles: Explorations de l'imaginaire botanique contemporain (2024) and Mouvantes et émouvantes: les plantes à travers le récit (2024), explore the ways in which plants teach us to notice, move and cohabit in their own time and space. The relationships between local, regional, and cultural differences in a global landscape are at the heart of Prof. Posthumus’s work on ecocriticism, animal and plant studies.
In addition, Prof. Posthumus has been leading a research project on the convergences of the digital and the environmental humanities. Awarded a SSHRC Connections grant in 2013, she brought together scholars interested in exploring the ways in which digital technologies can be used to disseminate cutting edge research in the environmental humanities. An integral part of the project, the Digital Environmental Humanities platform serves three main functions: 1) it acts as a hub for researchers in this emerging field; 2) it provides examples of analytic approaches such as topic modelling and mapping; and 3) it features pedagogical tools (DEH syllabi, guidebook blog entries) and digital exhibits of environmental humanities research in Canada. Working with digital texts and exploring new reading environments, Prof. Posthumus examines the philosophical assumptions upon which the human/machine binary has been built. In this way, she seeks to develop a posthumanist approach to rethinking our relationship to animals, plants, machines, and nature's others.
Monographs
Posthumus, Stephanie, Rachel Bouvet, Jean-Pascal Bilodeau, Noémie Dubé. Entre les feuilles: Explorations de l’imaginaire botanique contemporain, Québec: Presses de l’université du Québec, 2024.
Posthumus, Stephanie. Greg Garrard, Axel Goodbody, George Handley.Climate Change Scepticism: A Transnational Ecocritical Analysis. Bloomsbury Academic Press: London/NewYork, 2019.
Posthumus, Stephanie. French Écocritique: Reading Contemporary French Theory and Fiction Ecologically. Toronto: UP Toronto, 2017.
Posthumus, Stephanie. La Nature et l’écologie chez Claude Lévi-Strauss, Michel Serres, Michel Tournier. Saarbruck: Éditions universitaires européennes, 2010.
Edited Volumes and Journal Issues
Posthumus, Stephanie and Rachel Bouvet, eds. “Plant Studies/Études végétales,” L’Esprit Créateur, 60.4 (2020).
Posthumus, Stephanie and Anne-Rachel Hermetet, eds. “Ecological In(ter)ventions in the Francophone World.” Ecozon@ 10.2 (2019).
Posthumus, Stephanie and Daniel Finch-Race, eds. French Ecocriticism: From the Early Modern Period to the Twenty-First Century, Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2017.
Recent Articles and Book Chapters
Posthumus, Stephanie. "Le chant des plantes à travers textes et images,” in Mouvantes et émouvantes: les plantes à travers le récit, eds. Rachel Bouvet and Stéphanie Posthumus. Presses universitaires de Montréal, collection “Cavales,” 2024. 193-2010.
Posthumus, Stephanie, Rachel Bouvet and Gabriel Gaudette, “Transformation, transmission, affranchissement : les nouvelles pratiques agricoles à travers la bande dessinée (Davodeau, Lemardelé, de Francqueville),” Revue des sciences humaines, 349.1 (2023): 135-173.
Posthumus, Stephanie, Yannick Guéguen and Rachel Bouvet. “Méta-botanica : réflexion autour d’un art végétal audio-tactile,” L’Entre-deux. Special issue : “Sensibilités végétales : par-delà art et nature.” 12.2 (2022): 1-24. Online, open access journal.
Posthumus, Stephanie. “État présent : L’Écocritique est-elle encore possible?” Trans. Jean-Christophe Cavallin. Fabula. Littérature Histoire Théorie. Ecopoétique pour des temps extrêmes. Nov. 27 (2021).
Posthumus, Stephanie and Anne Simon. Interview with Lucas Hollister. “Conversation questions for Profs. Anne Simon and Stephanie Posthumus,” Contemporary French and Francophone Studies. Special Double Issue: Frontiers of Ecocriticism,” 25.1 (2021): 16-41.
Posthumus, Stephanie and Anne-Rachel Hermetet. “Retours du végétal dans Herbes et golems de Manuela Draeger (Antoine Volodine) et Ruines-de-Rome de Pierre Senges,” L’Esprit Créateur 60.4. (2020): 94-106.
Posthumus, Stephanie. “Posthuman Conjectures: Animal and Ecological Sciences in Marie Darrieussecq’s Dystopian Fictions,” Dalhousie French Studies. Special issue: Précisions sur les sciences dans l’œuvre de Marie Darrieussecq 115 (2020): 41-54.
Posthumus, Stephanie. “État présent : Is écocritique Still Possible?” French Studies, 73.4 (2019): 598-616.
Posthumus, Stephanie. “Eco-Animal Assemblages in French Contemporary Theory,” in Texts, Animals, Environments. Zoopoetics and Environmental Poetics, eds. Sebastian Schönbeck, Frederike Middelhoff, Catrin Gersdorf, Roland Borgards. Frieburg: Rombach Verlag, 2018. 55-70.
Posthumus, Stephanie. Interivew. “Un contrat mondial longue durée.” Philosophie Magazine. “Le monde selon Michel Serres,” Hors série 39. October 2018. 51-4.