The queer time of ecogothic

This article proposes that ecogothic fiction makes use of queer time in order to explore the unusual temporal experiences and interpersonal relations that emerge from a sense of curtailed ecological future. Whereas the concept of queer time has so far been used to map asynchronous human experiences, ecogothic fiction extends those relations to encompass the nonhuman. Through close analysis of K-Ming Chang’s 2020 novel Bestiary, the article identifies a queer historiography that emerges from reading polluted environments for suppressed histories–not only histories of environmental harm but also those of queer desire and colonial violence. In essence, ecogothic fiction uses degraded environments as instruments for accessing alternative modes of time, including speculative histories, evolutionary timescales and nonhuman futures.<p></p>