{"title":"作为利维坦的莫斯科地铁:肉体和政治感染","authors":"Richard Boyechko","doi":"10.1016/j.ruslit.2023.04.001","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Since it was published, Dmitry Glukhovsky’s novel <em>Metro 2033</em><span> (2005), in addition to sequels and other novels, has also jumped across media boundaries to spawn comic books and video games. The story takes place following a nuclear holocaust which has left Earth’s surface uninhabitable, condemning some survivors to eke out a life underground in the subway network. The novel’s basic narrative concerns this last haven, imagined as a giant organism, being invaded by “чёрные” (“blacks” or “black ones”), the </span><em>homo novus</em> better adapted to life on the harsh planet. In this paper, I argue that Glukhovsky subverts this corporeal metaphor to call attention to the troubling implications of, on one hand, the militaristic description of the immune system, and on the other, national security imagined in immunological terms. At the same time, the viral logic of contagion also allows us to glimpse the central tenet of ecological thought, that “all beings are connected,” or as Donna Haraway likewise reminds us, that we are always already infected through our relations with human and non-human others. It is only when we allow for such mutual contagions that we have any hope of confronting the dire consequences of our technological progress.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":43192,"journal":{"name":"RUSSIAN LITERATURE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Moscow Metro as the Leviathan: Corporeal and Political Infections\",\"authors\":\"Richard Boyechko\",\"doi\":\"10.1016/j.ruslit.2023.04.001\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<div><p>Since it was published, Dmitry Glukhovsky’s novel <em>Metro 2033</em><span> (2005), in addition to sequels and other novels, has also jumped across media boundaries to spawn comic books and video games. The story takes place following a nuclear holocaust which has left Earth’s surface uninhabitable, condemning some survivors to eke out a life underground in the subway network. The novel’s basic narrative concerns this last haven, imagined as a giant organism, being invaded by “чёрные” (“blacks” or “black ones”), the </span><em>homo novus</em> better adapted to life on the harsh planet. In this paper, I argue that Glukhovsky subverts this corporeal metaphor to call attention to the troubling implications of, on one hand, the militaristic description of the immune system, and on the other, national security imagined in immunological terms. At the same time, the viral logic of contagion also allows us to glimpse the central tenet of ecological thought, that “all beings are connected,” or as Donna Haraway likewise reminds us, that we are always already infected through our relations with human and non-human others. It is only when we allow for such mutual contagions that we have any hope of confronting the dire consequences of our technological progress.</p></div>\",\"PeriodicalId\":43192,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"RUSSIAN LITERATURE\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.3000,\"publicationDate\":\"2023-05-01\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"RUSSIAN LITERATURE\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304347923000078\",\"RegionNum\":3,\"RegionCategory\":\"文学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"0\",\"JCRName\":\"LITERATURE, SLAVIC\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"RUSSIAN LITERATURE","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304347923000078","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERATURE, SLAVIC","Score":null,"Total":0}
Moscow Metro as the Leviathan: Corporeal and Political Infections
Since it was published, Dmitry Glukhovsky’s novel Metro 2033 (2005), in addition to sequels and other novels, has also jumped across media boundaries to spawn comic books and video games. The story takes place following a nuclear holocaust which has left Earth’s surface uninhabitable, condemning some survivors to eke out a life underground in the subway network. The novel’s basic narrative concerns this last haven, imagined as a giant organism, being invaded by “чёрные” (“blacks” or “black ones”), the homo novus better adapted to life on the harsh planet. In this paper, I argue that Glukhovsky subverts this corporeal metaphor to call attention to the troubling implications of, on one hand, the militaristic description of the immune system, and on the other, national security imagined in immunological terms. At the same time, the viral logic of contagion also allows us to glimpse the central tenet of ecological thought, that “all beings are connected,” or as Donna Haraway likewise reminds us, that we are always already infected through our relations with human and non-human others. It is only when we allow for such mutual contagions that we have any hope of confronting the dire consequences of our technological progress.
期刊介绍:
Russian Literature combines issues devoted to special topics of Russian literature with contributions on related subjects in Croatian, Serbian, Czech, Slovak and Polish literatures. Moreover, several issues each year contain articles on heterogeneous subjects concerning Russian Literature. All methods and viewpoints are welcomed, provided they contribute something new, original or challenging to our understanding of Russian and other Slavic literatures. Russian Literature regularly publishes special issues devoted to: • the historical avant-garde in Russian literature and in the other Slavic literatures • the development of descriptive and theoretical poetics in Russian studies and in studies of other Slavic fields.