Performing the (Non)Human: A Tentatively Posthuman Reading of Dionne Brand’s Short Story 'Blossom'

Abstract

The article offers a reading of Dionne Brand’s short story "Blossom" through a problematization of the (liberal humanist) notion of the 'human'. The eponymous character refuses to fit into the limited categories and life-scripts prepared for her by Canada's social and institutional environment and ends up as a priestess of the goddess Oya. This, the article concludes, allows Blossom to escape the modern Western socio-political discourses of authenticized and stabilized identities based on race, gender, religion, cultural background, and Western-inflected 'humanity'.