Posthumanist and Ecocritical perspectives are prominent within the research field of Literary Studies at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics at Stockholm University.

In recent years, research within the humanities has increasingly been dedicated to subjects and materials previously excluded from its disciplines. Non-human beings and phenomena such as animals, plants, weather, ecosystems, and material things have been explored in ways that were formerly reserved for manifestations of human cultures, and human representations of these things are examined from new perspectives. Simultaneously, historically prevalent Western ideas about what is human and what it means to be a human are questioned.

Several of our scholars use posthumanist and ecocritical perspectives to conduct literary research within areas such as new materialism, animal studies, eco- and zoopoetics, thing theory, and cognitive studies. Philosophical fields and movements such as phenomenology, ontology, and poststructuralism are scrutinized by engaging posthumanist and ecocritical themes, for example the Anthropocene, cyborgs, artificial intelligence, and anthropomorphism. Our research is dedicated to different kinds of literary materials, for example digital poetry, picture books, modernist novels, and early-modern French literature.

The focus on posthumanism and ecocriticism is also reflected in our courses, many of which are devoted to or contain elements of these perspectives.