Perhaps more timely than ever, Margaret Atwoods Aesthetics offers novel perspectives on both contemporary and canonical topics in Atwoods work with a special focus on the intersections of literature and politics. Arguably, one of the most political writers of our times, Atwoods oeuvre subtly and overtly entangles readers in the dialectics of personal and political power asymmetries intrinsic to her aesthetic practices. The collection takes its cue from the concept of the artpolitical as coined by Crispin Sartwell, whose afterword addresses Atwoods aesthetic and imaginative material world-construction and explores the interrelationship between literatures and aesthetic as well as political systems in Atwoods works. Individual chapters of Margaret Atwoods Aesthetics contribute to increasingly burning questions concerning the relevance of literature today by drawing on a variety of critical perspectives, including Anthropocene studies, gender, intersectionality, the nonhuman and the posthuman, Mikhail Bakhtins carnivalesque, risk studies, nationhood, intermediality, and teaching. Chapters offer fresh views on some of Atwoods most prominent works, such as The Handmaids Tale and The Testaments and their transmedial adaptations, while other chapters focus on Atwoods latest publications as well as on under-researched works, including her graphic novels and her web-serialized publications. Margaret Atwoods Aesthetics provides unique insights into the aesthetic and political power of Atwoods oeuvre, arguing that literary and media representations and cultural adaptation practices contain a significant transformative potential that reaches beyond the page.
