Counterfactuality as a Polyphonic Assemblage. Entangled Human and Nonhuman Stories of Early Modern Sciences in Neal Stephensona??s The Baroque Cycle

摘要

In recent science-fiction literature, we can witness a proliferation of new counterfactual narrativeswhich take the 17th century as their point of departure. Unlike steampunk narratives, however, their aim is notto criticise the socio-political effects caused by contemporary technological development. Such authors as NealStephenson or Ian Tregillis, among others, are interested in revisiting the model of development in Westernsocieties, routing around the logic of progress. Moreover, they demonstrate that modernity is but an effect ofmanifold contingent and indeterminate encounters of humans and nonhumans and their distinct temporalities.Even the slightest modification of their ways of being could have changed Western societies and cultures.Thus, they necessitate a rather non-anthropocentric model of counterfactuality which is not tantamount to thetraditional alternative histories which depart from official narratives of the past.By drawing on contemporary multispecies ethnography, I put forward a new understanding of counterfactualitywhich aims to reveal multiple entangled human and nonhuman stories already embedded in the seemingly unifiedhistory of the West. In this context, the concept of “polyphonic assemblage” (Lowenhaupt-Tsing) is employed toconceptualize the contingent and open-ended encounters of human and nonhuman historical actors which cutacross different discourses and practices. I analyse Stephenson’s The Baroque Cycle to show the entangled storiesof humans and nonhumans in 17th century sciences, hardly present in traditional historiographies. In particular,Stephenson’s depiction of quicksilver and coffeehouse as nonhuman historical actors is scrutinized to show theirvital role in the production of knowledge at the dawn of modernity.