Rethinking the Boundary Between Human and Nonhuman: Jeanette Winterson’s <i>The stone gods</i> as a Transgression Experiment

Zhang Jin; Wang Weiwei

doi:doi:10.11648/j.ijla.20200802.11

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Rethinking the Boundary Between Human and Nonhuman: Jeanette Winterson’s The stone gods as a Transgression Experiment

Zhang Jin, Wang Weiwei

Published in International Journal of Literature and Arts (Volume 8, Issue 2)

Received: 27 February 2020 Accepted: 11 March 2020 Published: 31 March 2020

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Abstract

As a world-famous writer, Jeanette Winterson, as well as her novels, have been well-known for her lesbian theme and love theme. Little attention has been paid to the theme of transgression. However, studies have shown that transgression experiment is also the key theme through all of the novels by Jeanette Winterson. In the Stone Gods, she still keeps this narrative style and gives an attempt to stir the people to re-evaluate the boundary between human and nonhuman, attracting much more attention to the issues of transgression experiment and the result after transgression. In this paper, based on the Jenks’ theory of transgression, we found out that there are two ways that (1) broadening the definition of body;(2) breaking the boundary between human and environment, which could be accepted to attempt to explore the issues of boundary between human and nonhuman to examine whether the boundary could be crossed in The Stone Gods. In these ways, it is found out that the real aim when Winterson regards the novel as a transgression experiment is to not merely break a rule, rebel against normative social and cultural constraints, but rather lead a dynamic trend in cultural production and diverse discourse, in order to stimulate readers to have dynamic thought about everything.

Published in	International Journal of Literature and Arts (Volume 8, Issue 2) This article belongs to the Special Issue Humanity and Science: China’s Intercultural Communication with the Outside World in the New Era
DOI	10.11648/j.ijla.20200802.11
Page(s)	33-38
Creative Commons	This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright	Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Jeanette Winterson, The stone gods, Transgression Experiment, Human and Nonhuman

References

[1]	Onega, S. (2006). Jeanette Winterson. Manchester: Manchester University Press. p. 3.
[2]	Yazgünoğlu, K, Y. (2016). Posthuman “Meta (l) morphoses” in JeanetteWinterson’s The Stone Gods. ©Ecozon. vol. 3.
[3]	Stonebrook, S. (2009). ‘There was no Us and Them’: Environmental Justice and Discursive Struggle in Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods (Master’s thesis). the University of Kansas.
[4]	Weiss, M. (2013). Jeanette Winterson’s Stone Gods as Trans-world and Trans-gender Dystopia. The Asian Conference on Cultural Studies 2013 Official Conference Proceedings.
[5]	Topsakal, G. (2014). Ecocritical Reflections in Jeanette Winterson’s the Stone Gods and Maggie Gee’s the Ice People: Redefining the Center in Relation to Margins Through Ecological Thinking. Middle East Technical University.
[6]	McCulloch, F.(2012). ‘Boundaries. Desire’: Philosophical Nomadism in Jeanette Winterson’s The Powerbook and The Stone Gods. Cosmopolitanism in Contemporary British Fiction.
[7]	Damien Gibson. (2016). From Master (y) Narratives to Matter Narratives: Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods. http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/endconstruction/stonegods.
[8]	Jenks, C. (2003). Transgression. New York: Taylor & Francis Group. pp. 2-63.
[9]	Winterson, J. (2007). The Stone Gods. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. pp. 9-39.
[10]	Haraway, D. J. (Ed.). (1985). A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-feminism in the Late Twentieth Century. In Simians, cyborgs, and women: The reinvention of nature. New York: Routledge.
[11]	Barnett, T. (2003) The Cyborg and the Garden: Aspects of Jeanette Winterson’s Techno-Curiosity. Celebrating Diversity in Research. Vol. 3. No. 1. p. 43.
[12]	Antakyalıoğlu, Z.(2012). Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods: A Postmodern Warning. Gaziantep Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi (http://sbe.gantep.edu.tr). Vol. 3. p. 980.
[13]	Else, L & Harris, E. (2007) Science in Fiction: Interview with novelist Jeanette Winterson. In search of grand theory of me. New Scientist.
[14]	Alaimo, S & Hekman, S. (2008). Material Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p. 198.
[15]	AN Devers.（2019）. “Weird science: Jeanette Winterson talks writing, teaching and queer visions of the future”. https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/jeanette-winterson-profile-frankisstein.

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APA Style

Zhang Jin, Wang Weiwei. (2020). Rethinking the Boundary Between Human and Nonhuman: Jeanette Winterson’s The stone gods as a Transgression Experiment. International Journal of Literature and Arts, 8(2), 33-38. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200802.11

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ACS Style

Zhang Jin; Wang Weiwei. Rethinking the Boundary Between Human and Nonhuman: Jeanette Winterson’s The stone gods as a Transgression Experiment. Int. J. Lit. Arts 2020, 8(2), 33-38. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20200802.11

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AMA Style

Zhang Jin, Wang Weiwei. Rethinking the Boundary Between Human and Nonhuman: Jeanette Winterson’s The stone gods as a Transgression Experiment. Int J Lit Arts. 2020;8(2):33-38. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20200802.11

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@article{10.11648/j.ijla.20200802.11,
  author = {Zhang Jin and Wang Weiwei},
  title = {Rethinking the Boundary Between Human and Nonhuman: Jeanette Winterson’s The stone gods as a Transgression Experiment},
  journal = {International Journal of Literature and Arts},
  volume = {8},
  number = {2},
  pages = {33-38},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ijla.20200802.11},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200802.11},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijla.20200802.11},
  abstract = {As a world-famous writer, Jeanette Winterson, as well as her novels, have been well-known for her lesbian theme and love theme. Little attention has been paid to the theme of transgression. However, studies have shown that transgression experiment is also the key theme through all of the novels by Jeanette Winterson. In the Stone Gods, she still keeps this narrative style and gives an attempt to stir the people to re-evaluate the boundary between human and nonhuman, attracting much more attention to the issues of transgression experiment and the result after transgression. In this paper, based on the Jenks’ theory of transgression, we found out that there are two ways that (1) broadening the definition of body;(2) breaking the boundary between human and environment, which could be accepted to attempt to explore the issues of boundary between human and nonhuman to examine whether the boundary could be crossed in The Stone Gods. In these ways, it is found out that the real aim when Winterson regards the novel as a transgression experiment is to not merely break a rule, rebel against normative social and cultural constraints, but rather lead a dynamic trend in cultural production and diverse discourse, in order to stimulate readers to have dynamic thought about everything.},
 year = {2020}
}

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TY  - JOUR
T1  - Rethinking the Boundary Between Human and Nonhuman: Jeanette Winterson’s The stone gods as a Transgression Experiment
AU  - Zhang Jin
AU  - Wang Weiwei
Y1  - 2020/03/31
PY  - 2020
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200802.11
DO  - 10.11648/j.ijla.20200802.11
T2  - International Journal of Literature and Arts
JF  - International Journal of Literature and Arts
JO  - International Journal of Literature and Arts
SP  - 33
EP  - 38
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2331-057X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200802.11
AB  - As a world-famous writer, Jeanette Winterson, as well as her novels, have been well-known for her lesbian theme and love theme. Little attention has been paid to the theme of transgression. However, studies have shown that transgression experiment is also the key theme through all of the novels by Jeanette Winterson. In the Stone Gods, she still keeps this narrative style and gives an attempt to stir the people to re-evaluate the boundary between human and nonhuman, attracting much more attention to the issues of transgression experiment and the result after transgression. In this paper, based on the Jenks’ theory of transgression, we found out that there are two ways that (1) broadening the definition of body;(2) breaking the boundary between human and environment, which could be accepted to attempt to explore the issues of boundary between human and nonhuman to examine whether the boundary could be crossed in The Stone Gods. In these ways, it is found out that the real aim when Winterson regards the novel as a transgression experiment is to not merely break a rule, rebel against normative social and cultural constraints, but rather lead a dynamic trend in cultural production and diverse discourse, in order to stimulate readers to have dynamic thought about everything.
VL  - 8
IS  - 2
ER  -

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Author Information

Zhang Jin

Center for Foreign Literature and Culture, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China
Wang Weiwei

School of Foreign Studies, Guangdong University of Finance & Economics, Guangzhou, China

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Plain Text BibTeX RIS

APA Style

Zhang Jin, Wang Weiwei. (2020). Rethinking the Boundary Between Human and Nonhuman: Jeanette Winterson’s The stone gods as a Transgression Experiment. International Journal of Literature and Arts, 8(2), 33-38. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200802.11

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ACS Style

Zhang Jin; Wang Weiwei. Rethinking the Boundary Between Human and Nonhuman: Jeanette Winterson’s The stone gods as a Transgression Experiment. Int. J. Lit. Arts 2020, 8(2), 33-38. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20200802.11

Copy | Download

AMA Style

Zhang Jin, Wang Weiwei. Rethinking the Boundary Between Human and Nonhuman: Jeanette Winterson’s The stone gods as a Transgression Experiment. Int J Lit Arts. 2020;8(2):33-38. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20200802.11

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@article{10.11648/j.ijla.20200802.11,
  author = {Zhang Jin and Wang Weiwei},
  title = {Rethinking the Boundary Between Human and Nonhuman: Jeanette Winterson’s The stone gods as a Transgression Experiment},
  journal = {International Journal of Literature and Arts},
  volume = {8},
  number = {2},
  pages = {33-38},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ijla.20200802.11},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200802.11},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijla.20200802.11},
  abstract = {As a world-famous writer, Jeanette Winterson, as well as her novels, have been well-known for her lesbian theme and love theme. Little attention has been paid to the theme of transgression. However, studies have shown that transgression experiment is also the key theme through all of the novels by Jeanette Winterson. In the Stone Gods, she still keeps this narrative style and gives an attempt to stir the people to re-evaluate the boundary between human and nonhuman, attracting much more attention to the issues of transgression experiment and the result after transgression. In this paper, based on the Jenks’ theory of transgression, we found out that there are two ways that (1) broadening the definition of body;(2) breaking the boundary between human and environment, which could be accepted to attempt to explore the issues of boundary between human and nonhuman to examine whether the boundary could be crossed in The Stone Gods. In these ways, it is found out that the real aim when Winterson regards the novel as a transgression experiment is to not merely break a rule, rebel against normative social and cultural constraints, but rather lead a dynamic trend in cultural production and diverse discourse, in order to stimulate readers to have dynamic thought about everything.},
 year = {2020}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - Rethinking the Boundary Between Human and Nonhuman: Jeanette Winterson’s The stone gods as a Transgression Experiment
AU  - Zhang Jin
AU  - Wang Weiwei
Y1  - 2020/03/31
PY  - 2020
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200802.11
DO  - 10.11648/j.ijla.20200802.11
T2  - International Journal of Literature and Arts
JF  - International Journal of Literature and Arts
JO  - International Journal of Literature and Arts
SP  - 33
EP  - 38
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2331-057X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200802.11
AB  - As a world-famous writer, Jeanette Winterson, as well as her novels, have been well-known for her lesbian theme and love theme. Little attention has been paid to the theme of transgression. However, studies have shown that transgression experiment is also the key theme through all of the novels by Jeanette Winterson. In the Stone Gods, she still keeps this narrative style and gives an attempt to stir the people to re-evaluate the boundary between human and nonhuman, attracting much more attention to the issues of transgression experiment and the result after transgression. In this paper, based on the Jenks’ theory of transgression, we found out that there are two ways that (1) broadening the definition of body;(2) breaking the boundary between human and environment, which could be accepted to attempt to explore the issues of boundary between human and nonhuman to examine whether the boundary could be crossed in The Stone Gods. In these ways, it is found out that the real aim when Winterson regards the novel as a transgression experiment is to not merely break a rule, rebel against normative social and cultural constraints, but rather lead a dynamic trend in cultural production and diverse discourse, in order to stimulate readers to have dynamic thought about everything.
VL  - 8
IS  - 2
ER  -

Copy | Download