Fugitive, Cryptic, Queer: Fungal Forms of Belonging

This abstract has open access
Abstract Summary
No other organism better represented the nebulous boundary between botany and zoology in the Victorian imagination than fungus. For the first half of the nineteenth century, it was not clear whether fungi should be classed with plants or animals. Although, by the end of the century, the taxonomic confusion was resolved by creating a new third kingdom, fungi were still figured as “quasi-animals.” Hunger for flesh—as well as a resemblance to flesh—continued to animate fungus in the Victorian imagination. As animacy structures hierarchical logic, the animatedness of fungus became an important testing ground for the taxonomic ranking of quasi-animals and quasi-plants in the Victorian period. Taking a long view of mycological history, this paper will consider how fungi model fugitive, cryptic, and queer forms of belonging that open the body and the body politic to modes of collectivity that trouble the equation of ecology with holistic closure. Even as mycological research helped to police biological hierarchies, fungal life also indexed the difficulty of pinning down lifeforms that flourished in the interstices of taxonomic orderings, creating a space where alternative narratives of life, intimacy, and relationality could emerge. As this paper will show, the geographies of desire and belonging created through fungal intimacies make it impossible to speak of either the self-contained individual or ecology in the singular. Open and plural, selves and worlds proliferate, contaminate, and interpenetrate through the infectious touch of fungal relations.
Abstract ID :
HSS582
Submission Type
Chronological Classification :
19th century
Self-Designated Keywords :
Victorian, Fungi, Ecology, Queer, Intimacy, Animacy
Newcastle University, Lecturer in Victorian Literature

Abstracts With Same Type

Abstract ID
Abstract Title
Abstract Topic
Submission Type
Primary Author
HSS575
Aspects of Scientific Practice/Organization
Organized Session
Prof. Anna Graber
HSS355
Technology
Organized Session
Francesco Cassata
HSS587
Medicine and Health
Organized Session
Chantal Marazia
HSS872
Thematic Approaches to the Study of Science
Organized Session
Dr. Alison Kraft
HSS5847
Biology
Organized Session
Dr. Dominik Huenniger
HSS512
Aspects of Scientific Practice/Organization
Organized Session
Alrun Schmidtke
83 visits