Feminist Conspiracies, Security Aunties, and Other Surveillance State Fictions

This article investigates two recent fictional representations of the feminized US surveillance state and its “security feminists” (Grewal), with an eye towards limning what visions social transformation political life such make possible. It first examines Gish Jen’s 2020 novel The Resisters, considering how novel’s characterization as a snoopy suspicious Aunt maintains American liberal fantasies about value productive work institutionally-sanctioned responses to violence, even attempts find grounds for reinvigorating democratic commons. Jeff Vandermeer’s 2021 Hummingbird Salamander, in contrast, is social. Instead, unravels privatized figure mom” (Grewal) order experiment queer antisocial orientation might confront environmental institutional collapse reimagine idea “security” itself.