Introduction: Posthumanist Gender Theory—A Very Rough Account

Abstract

This special collection, edited by Anna Babka, Hildegard Kernmayer, Julia Lingl, and Marietta Schmutz cuts across current positions and developments within the frame of what can be called posthuman gender theory, thereby questioning humanist-epistemological categories that continue to shape Western societies and their systems of knowledge production. Posthuman gender theory inscribes itself into the discussion about a "conditio posthumana." Thereby, the traditional essentialism of a biologically based two-gender system is questioned anew. At the same time, the "humanistic" idea of the superiority of man (as a male subject of domination) gives way to a post-anthropocentric conception of reality, according to which binary hierarchical oppositions such as man/animal or man/machine dissolve. This collection among others comprises transdisciplinary examinations of novels, comics, and other cultural or social phenomena and aims to participate in the ongoing development of posthumanist thinking in relation to gender and queer theory formation.