O'Key, D orcid.org/0000-0002-2833-4999 (2018) Postscript, Posthuman: Werner Herzog's “Crocodile” at the End of the World. In: Animal Biography: Re-framing Animal Lives. Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature . Palgrave Macmillan , Basingstoke ISBN 9783319982878
Abstract
This chapter explores posthumanism, inscription, technics, and futurity in Werner Herzog’s 3D documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010). Specifically, I discuss the relationship between the film’s preoccupation with paleoart and the birth of humanity on the one side and its representation of the nonhuman animal on the other. I argue, first, that Cave of Forgotten Dreams ends with an animal biography. Herzog’s postscript pivots away from his film’s documentary style and narrates a speculative fiction: a posthuman future in which supposedly mutated albino crocodiles outlive humanity. And I argue, second, that this animal biography discloses the technical interpenetration of human and nonhuman life. By putting Herzog’s film in conversation with the work of Georges Bataille, Bernard Stiegler, and Jacques Derrida, I demonstrate how even this posthuman postscript is not post-script. The “script” of humanity survives its own destruction and lives on in the irradiated bodies of Herzog’s crocodiles.
Metadata
Item Type: | Book Section |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: | |
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2018. This is an author accepted version of a chapter published in Krebber A., Roscher M. (eds) Animal Biography. Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Werner Herzog; Posthumanism; Technics; Documentary; Georges Bataille; Bernard Stiegler |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Languages Cultures & Societies (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 02 Jan 2019 15:22 |
Last Modified: | 20 Oct 2020 00:38 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Palgrave Macmillan |
Series Name: | Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature |
Identification Number: | 10.1007/978-3-319-98288-5_10 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:136481 |