I Am Atlas

Abstract

I Am Atlas is a metafictional novel that investigates disembodiment and body politics. Set within a science fiction universe, the novel follows the story of a man whose family-tragedy unhinges his reality. The novel uses the device of metafiction to analyse the reader’s relationship with text and the displacement that occurs during the reading process. It asks the reader to question conventional notions of physiology and being, while discussing the social constructions that inform their subjectivity. The novel is prefaced by an exegesis entitled “Just Filling Space: An Investigation of Disembodiment in I Am Atlas” that uses postmodernist theory to deconstruct the novel’s approach to issues of disembodiment.