)XQJRLG+RUURUDQG7KH&UHHSRI/LIH ߧ>@WKHIXQJLZKLFKRFFXS\VRFRQVLGHUDEOHDSODFHLQWKH YHJHWDEOHZRUOGIHHGOLNHDQLPDOV ZKHWKHUWKH\DUHIHUPHQWV VDSURSK\WHVRUSDUDVLWHVLWLVWRDOUHDG\IRUPHGRUJDQLF VXEVWDQFHVWKDWW…setting of both novels, the city of Ambergris, is a place where the original inhabitants, a race of sentient mushrooms called the gray caps, were forced underground. Vandermeer’s book is an oddity of form constituted by a thrice edited manu…RUJDQLVP DV/LJRWWLGRHV DVZHOODVSRUWUD\LQJWKHDZIXOSOLDELOLW\RIWKHIXQJDODQGWKHYHJHWDWLYH DV WKH LQHYLWDEOH FUHHS RI OLIH QRW DV OLIH DV DOZD\V HQGXULQJ EXW DV DOZD\V G\LQJ DV DOZD\V EHLQJ UHDG\WREHFRQVX…
Jeff Vandermeer
writer · 3 mentions across 1 reading
In this course
Vandermeer is a speculative fiction author best known for *Fungoid Horror and The Creep of Life*, works that use biological forms—particularly fungi and vegetative systems—as narrative protagonists to explore themes of agency, decay, and the blurred boundaries between life and non-life. The course readings invoke his fiction (particularly his invented city of Ambergris and its sentient fungal inhabitants) alongside Houellebecq and Ligotti to theorize how organic systems resist human interpretation and control, positioning the creep of vegetative life as a model for understanding algorithmic and computational processes that similarly operate beyond rational comprehension and human intentionality. His formal technique of unreliable, multiply-edited manuscripts mirrors the course's broader interest in how systems—biological, mechanical, or informatic—generate meaning through degradation and textual instability rather than through transparent design.
Mentioned in 1 reading
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