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Journey through the rabbit hole into unexplored theoretical territory as Lewis Carroll's beloved Alice navigates the boundaries between human and nonhuman across literature and film. This groundbreaking study examines how Carroll's Victorian masterpieces and six major screen adaptations (1966-2016) anticipate today's critical posthuman thought. From Victorian scientific debates to contemporary concerns about ecological collapse and algorithmic governance, Alice emerges as a revolutionary figure constantly in flux-relational, affective, and materially embedded.
Each chapter pairs a different Alice adaptation with illuminating theoretical frameworks-from Braidotti's affirmative ethics to vital materialism-revealing how these reimaginings address shifting configurations of humanity across time.
This volume will be of interest to scholars and readers of literary and film studies, Victorian literature, feminist theory, and environmental humanities, offering a fresh perspective on childhood, trauma, embodiment, and Anthropocene politics through the looking glass of Carroll's enduring creation. Alice's adventures were never just about Wonderland-they were always about reimagining what it means to be human.
List of contents
Acknowledgements iii
Contents iv
List of Abbreviations vi
Chapter 1 Prologue 1
Posthumanism and the Posthuman Turn in Critical Theory 4
The Emergence of the Victorian Posthuman 12
Chapter 2 Alice through the Posthuman Glass 18
Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral? "A Fabulous Monster!" 20
"It's my own invention!" 24
Life Is but a Dream, but Whose Dream? 28
Affective and Becoming Alice 31
"'Let's fight till six, and then have dinner,' said Tweedledum.": Games of Entanglement and Becoming
34
"Off With Their Heads!": The Inhuman and the Politics of Death 36
Conclusion 40
Chapter 3 Childhood Through the Looking Glass and Becoming-Minoritarian in Jonathan Miller's
Alice in Wonderland (1966) 42
Reimagining Alice and Reconfiguring the Human in the 1960s 43
Growing Up and the Becoming-Child 46
Becoming Through the Looking Glass 51
The Natural Child and Becoming-Animal 53
Conclusion 57
Chapter 4 Posthumanous Alice: Death as Becoming-Imperceptible in Claude Chabrol's Alice ou la
Dernière Fugue (1977) 59
Reimagining Alice Amidst the Nouvelle Vague, Second-Wave Feminism and 1970s France 60
Minoritarian Becomings: Alice's Becoming-Woman/Animal 64
Between Life and Death, Transparency and Opacity, Towards Becoming-Imperceptible 67
Conclusion 73
Chapter 5 Entangled Materialities, Vibrant Becomings and the Agency of Assemblages in Jan
Švankmajer's Alice (1988) 74
Dream, Childhood, and The Subject of Alice 76
Thing-Power and Vibrant Becomings: Becoming-Animate, Becoming-Thing, Becoming-Animal 79
Becoming-Machine, Becoming-a-Body-Without-Organs 88
Conclusion 92
CONTENTS v
Chapter 6 Becoming-Heroine and the Technological Posthuman in Nick Willing's Alice (2009) 93
Cyborg Subjectivity, Networked Affect and the Happy Hearts Casino 95
Becoming-Heroine in the Twenty-First-Century Sci-fi Action Film 106
Conclusion 113
Chapter 7 Becoming-Alice in Underland and Greta's Muchness in the Anthropocene: Disney
Reimaginings of Alice (2010, 2016) 115
"You've lost your muchness": Becoming-Heroine in the 2010s 118
"Who are you?": Becoming-Alice and the Disney Franchise 123
"We're All Mad Here": Posthuman and Post-anthropocentric Becomings in the Anthropocene 128
Conclusion 140
Chapter 8 Epilogue 142
Bibliography 145
Filmography 153
About the author
Irene Stoukou is Postdoctoral Researcher and Adjunct Lecturer, School of English Language and Literature, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
