Forms of life: a literary formalist view on biological individuality

Abstract

This article argues for a formalist approach to biological individuality, bridging formalist ways of reading in cultural and literary studies with contemporary debates in the philosophy of biology. Central to this discussion is the idea that the question of what constitutes an individual, spanning across domains such as biology, politics, law, and literature, is essentially a question of form: the conditions by which we individualise enforce a specific pattern through which we interpret the world, whether it is the natural world, the social world, or the fictional world of a literary text. Taking this as a starting point, the article adopts a strategic formalist method as articulated by Caroline Levine, employing a close-reading method that asks how forms of individuality, whether they are phenomenal, theoretical, or cultural, operate as they move beyond their designated system of discourse; what they afford when they travel across dissimilar materials; and what occurs when they intersect with other forms, be they sociopolitical, poetic, or aesthetic. Considering literary and sociopolitical forms on the same plane of existence as theoretical forms of individuality enables a needed conversation on the affordances of forms in both the production of knowledge and in the cultural imagination.