Abstract

In Katherine Dunn’s novel Geek Love, the freaks do not hide. Geeks are sideshow performers who are the result of human interest in the manipulation of bodies. Dunn’s exploration of the human perception of freakish bodies should be studied in the context of posthumanism, which requires to give the body a more crucial role as the vehicle for perception of the spaces through which it moves. Particularly, I am writing to join the posthuman conversation to Dunn’s work using ideas primarily originating from thinkers who were influential to modern posthuman studies, including Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Michel Foucault as well as Carey Wolfe, Katherine Hayes, and Donna Haraway who are actively engaged in the posthuman discussion and have taken the chance to distinguish posthuman thought from other forms of literary criticism. By delving into the alignment of social and physical spaces through which freakish bodies exist and disappear, where they are safe and where they are in danger, we can we further understand what it means to be human.