Nature and Relationality in 'Het Tegenovergestelde van een Mens.' Or: Onto-Epist(l)emology, Cucumbers, and Writing

Abstract

In this paper, I read Lieke Marsman’s Het Tegenovergestelde van een Mens as an (eco-)autotheoretical text. I argue that even though the novel cites object-oriented ontologies, it does not merely draw from these works, but instead performs and complicates this theoretical discourse. The novel explores the onto-epistemological consequences of the assertions that nature and culture are entangled and that thinking is not transcendent but immersed in materiality. I therefore argue that the novel shares concerns with feminist materialisms, which theorize nature and culture as intertwined and co-constitutive.