Une apocalypse, une genèse – ou les deux ? Regard et transposition dans The World Without Us d’Alan Weisman

The World Without Us (2007) imagines what would happen on Earth if humanity disappeared. The present article maintains that, rather than a scientific essay, Weisman’s text should be viewed as a work of fiction, as demonstrated by its phantasmatic, narrative framework. Drawing on Jacques Lacan’s notion of the gaze as well as the Heideggerian concept of transposition, the article explores the fundamental epistemological difficulties that arise whenever humans seek to imagine their own absence.