The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction

In The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, visionary author Ursula K. Le Guin retells the story of human origin by redefining technology as a cultural carrier bag rather than a weapon of domination. Hacking the linear, progressive mode of the Techno-Heroic, the Carrier Bag Theory of human evolution proposes: ‘before the tool that forces energy outward, we made the tool that brings energy home.’ Prior to the preeminence of sticks, swords and the Hero’s long, hard, killing tools, our ancestors’ greatest invention was the container: the basket of wild oats, the medicine bundle, the net made of your own hair, the home, the shrine, the place that contains whatever is sacred. The recipient, the holder, the story. The bag of stars. This influential essay opens a portal to terra ignota: unknown lands where the possibilities of human experience and knowledge can be discovered anew. With a new introduction by Donna Haraway, the eminent cyberfeminist, author of the revolutionary A Cyborg Manifesto and most recently, Staying with the Trouble and Manifestly Haraway. With images by Lee Bul, a leading South Korean feminist artist who had a retrospective at London's Hayward Gallery in 2018.

Ursula K. Le Guin was a celebrated and beloved author of science-fiction, non-fiction, poetry and children's books. Her ground-breaking works, including the Earthsea Trilogy and the Left Hand of Darkness, were enormously influential and drew on cultural anthropology, feminism and Taoism among other themes. Donna J. Haraway is the author of the revolutionary 'Cyborg Manifesto' and Distinguished Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the author of several books including most recently, Staying with the Trouble and Manifestly Haraway. Lee Bul is an artist working across a diverse range of media, examining myths and folklore and exploring universal themes such as utopian desire. Her many solo exhibitions have included the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul and The Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 2019, Lee Bul received the Ho-Am Prize for The Arts, which is awarded to people of Korean heritage who have contributed to the enrichment of culture and arts for humankind.