3 Stories from the Chthulucene

Abstract

“3 Stories from the Chthulucene” attempts to work through some of the theoretical framework outlined in Donna Haraway’s Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (2016). The term “Chthulucene” derives from H. P. Lovecraft’s science-fictional tentacled being, the Cthulhu. Haraway theorizes the Chthulucene as an alternative to dominant notions of our time as the Anthropocene. Rather than seeing humans as separate from the environment and acting on it, Chthulucene theorists see humans as part of an intricate web of relations between human and more-than-human life, where humans act through the environment. The methodology used in this article is research-creation, specifically creation as research. This article begins with three autofictional vignettes that aim to play with research questions such as: How might Haraway’s concept of “tentacular thinking" impact the way narrative is structured? Is there an accessible way to write Haraway’s theories so that they are approachable but still “writerly"? How can writer and reader together (re)imagine utopias, in particular queer utopias, so that they are still situated strongly in the present? A supplementary essay follows these three vignettes and attempts to tease out some of these findings within a more typically academic format.