BEYOND EARTHLY ECOLOGY: A POST-HUMAN ECOCRITICAL STUDY OF ENVIRONMENTAL INTERDEPENDENCE IN ANDY WEIR'S PROJECT HAIL MARY
Keywords:
Posthuman Ecocriticism, Environmental Interdependence, Multispecies Relationality, Dark Ecology, Interspecies Solidarity, Scalar Ecological Consciousness, Astro-Ecocriticism, Speculative Fiction, Geocentrism, SymbiogenesisAbstract
This paper examines interdependence and posthuman ecological subjectivity in the context of Andrew Weir's Project Hail Mary (2021), which is a major missing element in current work in the field of ecocritical studies of speculative fiction. The post-human turn in Eco-criticism is the background of this study because the anthropocentric and geocentric environmental frameworks are challenged by multispecies theory, dark ecology and scalar ecological thought. This study aims to analyze interspecies ecological interdependence of Grace and Rocky, to look at how the novel goes beyond the bounds of the terrestrial world to explore ecological consciousness, and to explore Astrophage as an ecologically ambiguous character who challenges the binaries of symbiosis threat. The theoretical framework is being inspired by Braidotti's post-human relationality, Haraway's multispecies ethics, Heise's sense of planet and Morton's dark ecology. The data analysis technique used in the study is literature analysis, which is conducted in a qualitative manner by performing systematic close reading. The data collected was purposively sampled from 31 textual passages in the four thematic categories and complemented with 20 peer-reviewed secondary sources. Primary and secondary sources selection was done by purposive sampling. The results show that the novel structurally challenges anthropocentric subjectivity through interspecies solidarity, rejects geocentric ecological concepts with an interstellar scalar consciousness and creates the image of Astrophage as a dark ecological figure of irreducible ecological ambiguity. It is concluded that Project Hail Mary is a theoretically important contribution to the posthuman ecocritical texts.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Roshana Fatima, Amtual Musawar, Adeel Shahzada (Author)
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