Toxic Exposure: Chemicals in Contemporary Global Fiction

Agrochemical use has long been a foundational tool to insulate plants against disease and improve yields in global agriculture, yet the 20th century brought with it a slew of changes to farming practices, like the introduction of genetically modified crops and sludge fertilizers produced from human waste in cities, the increasing use of which has raised alarms about the possible adverse impacts on human and environmental health. In response, authors and filmmakers from around the world, such as Samanta Schweblin of Argentina and Jessica Oublié of France, have begun sowing doubt about the safety of modern agricultural methods through an array of narrative forms. While many of these works of fiction are well-studied within their regional contexts, they are rarely examined together, rendering this global body of work as-yet unrecognized as a growing genre. To that end, this seminar opens space for a transnational, interdisciplinary conversation on toxic fictions. We ask how a diverse array of artistic forms including  novels, films, series, short stories, plays, poetry, and graphic narratives grapple with the effects of chemical use on local populations and the transnational companies that supply them. By distilling the shared features of the genre and examining its points of divergence, our seminar unearths what toxic fictions from around the world can tell us about the trouble brewing beneath the soil.

This seminar invites papers on 20th- and 21st-century fiction from around the world on topics including, but not limited to: agricultural methods; farming communities; pesticide exposure; toxicity; the production and consumption of food; ecocritical theory; genre theory; the impacts of exposure on marginalized populations [environmental (in)justice]; alternative food cultivation; and utopian and dystopian fiction.