This paper explores the multisensory aesthetics and mundane materiality in
Richard Powers’ Plowing the Dark and The Overstory, emphasizing their role in
challenging anthropocentric and ocularcentric cultural narratives. It examines
how Powers’ novels employ synesthetic descriptions to critique Cartesian dualism
and technoliberalism, presenting the body as inseparable from its material
and nonhuman environment. By intertwining virtual realities with ecological
consciousness, the analysis highlights Powers’ critique of the transcendence of
physicality and his focus on embodied vulnerability. The study further investigates
how Plowing the Dark contrasts technological escapism with the corporeality of
human experience, while The Overstory employs magical realism to emphasize
ecological interconnectedness and humility toward the natural world. Through
these multisensory strategies, Powers reframes literature’s potential to foster
embodied awareness and posthuman creativity, offering new perspectives on
environmental and technological debates.