Posthuman Turn Research Articles

Memory and Environment

Abstract The story of memory studies has been told as a tale of booms and waves. Most recently, a fourth wave of memory studies, responding to the environmental, ecocritical and post-humanist turn in the humanities, has been heralded (Craps et al., 2018). This Special Issue aims to trace and reflect upon the developments that have led to this fourth phase. At the outset, however, it needs to be acknowledged that we consider how memory and different forms of environment have long been understood as interrelated. Firstly, environments have featured as metaphors to focus attention on contexts of different kinds that are pertinent to acts of remembering. Secondly, environments have been considered as the background settings for memory processes: the places in which memory work is done. Thirdly, environments have been considered a functional parts of memory processes – where an environment serves as a media carrier of memory content that is actively involved in the transmission process. Although we chart how significant recent shifts in dominant modes of defining the term “environment” have impacted the field of memory studies and contributed to developments that have been construed as a fourth wave of memory studies, we argue that such a the fourth wave of memory studies does not represent a paradigmatic shift in our understanding of the relationship between memory and environment, but rather a shift in emphasis. As we move from memory place to mnemonic space to planetary memory (Bond et al., 2017; Chakrabarty & Latour, 2021; Crownshaw, 2014), the most significant shifts in our understanding of memory pertain to epistemology, category and scale. These altered frames of perception invite us to understand memory and environment as embedded, co-constitutive and co-constructed. Whilst there has been a consensus within the field of memory studies that only humans have the ability to “remember in ways that link individual remembering to cultural frameworks” (Kansteiner, 2002), a stronger emphasis on exploring the role of non-human entities in memory processes stands to challenge this conviction.

Between remembrance and forgetfulness: heart perception, oneness and the human-landscape relationship in a Bashkir Sufi circle

ABSTRACT wIn this article, I explore human-landscape and human-nature relationships from the perspective of Sufi ontologies by examining how Sufi Muslims revive the sacred landscape in Bashkortostan. I foreground an alternative mode of knowing, the heart perception, to analyze how they experience the landscape’s aliveness. I argue that this mode of experiencing the natural environment goes further than the idea of the sentience and agency of non-humans in the post-humanist turn and the literature on sentient landscapes. Indeed, Sufi ontologies foreground the presence of the Divine in human-landscape and human-nature relationships, shedding light on how my interlocutors differentiate between humans with an ‘open’ or a ‘closed heart’ to warn of the dangers of forgetting their ancestors’ knowledge and care for nature. By foregrounding the heart perception, I explore this diversity of human beings and ways of relating to the landscape between remembrance and forgetfulness.

Transhumanism and One Health

Abstract In this article, we draw on an interdisciplinary seminar at the University of Basel in the spring semester 2023. The seminar firstly discussed technical transhumanism between improving human lives through technological innovation and breathtaking advances in artificial intelligence (AI). Secondly, integrative approaches to health such as One Health have a transhumanist dimension, meaning that the interaction of human and animal health contributes to human health and development. As technological and biological dimensions of transhumanism raise philosophical, anthropological and ethical questions, we ask what is specifically human and what kind of future human-technology interactions is societally acceptable. With the rapid recent development of AI, questions arise about algorithms taking over human intellectual functions. Transhumanism can be described as a current of a posthumanist turn that generally asks where the limits of the human body and also of human existence lie. From an anthropological point of view a controversial discussion is held ‘beyond the human’ about blurring of the boundaries between humans, animals and nature. The One Health approach demands that animals should not suffer in place of humans and that the health of humans, animals, plants and the environment must be promoted simultaneously. This places the One Health approach in a tension and dilemma between conflicting ethical and purely human demands for the protection and welfare of animals, as well as the legitimate demands for animal food and sheer survival in many areas of the world. A biological transhumanism certainly has less of a claim to surpass specifically human performance and thus stands less or not at all in the more gnostic technological current of technical transhumanism, which replaces human labour and suddenly achieves the ability to turn against humans. One Health impact statement Integrative approaches to health such as One Health have a transhumanist dimension, meaning that the interaction of human and animal health contributes to human health and development. The One Health approach demands that animals should not suffer in place of humans and that the health of humans, animals, plants and the environment must be promoted simultaneously. This places the One Health approach in a tension and dilemma between conflicting ethical and purely human demands for the protection and welfare of animals, as well as the legitimate demands for animal food and sheer survival in many areas of the world. Because of the high variability of the culturally-religiously shaped human-animal-environment relationship, such a transdisciplinary, participatory consensus would need to be contextually adapted, that is, to geographically, culturally-religiously distinct situations.Keywords: Transhumanism, Technical, Biological, One Health, Anthropology, Ontology, Ethics

Africanfuturism, the Posthuman Turn, and the Black Cyborg in Nnedi Okorafor’s Noor (2021)

Africanfuturism, the Posthuman Turn, and the Black Cyborg in Nnedi Okorafor’s Noor (2021)

Post-human Bodies in Atwood’s Oryx and Crake

This paper analyses the human bodies as a site of both aesthetics as well as politics in post-human turn in the novel Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. Questions related to what is a body, who controls it, and what relation does it have to morality at techno-science culture share a negotiation between machine and morality. After the advent of popular culture, the concept of body as cogent and self-bounded entity is blurry one as the discourse of ‘what is a beautiful body’ reflects a growing concern with different approaches of body aesthetics. As seen the novel, Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, we see Crakers— the genetically modified humans as an outcome of Crake’s aesthetics and politics. Jimmy’s father’s involvement in Pigoon Projects designed with the intention of providing human organs for transplantation and Crake’s involvement in creating Crakers—whom Crake had programmed to die at 30 open a new avenue for discussion regarding human identity. Such dimension of body aesthetics is precarious leading to ethical question as progress in science does not only enhance body, it also poses a threat to humanity in entirety. This research is qualitative and interpretive in nature. So, as a researcher, I have brought theoretical insights related to trans-humanism and post-humanism developed by Fukuyama, Braidotti. In the paper, I conclude that though new version of body aesthetics poses a threat to the world itself, it helps to understand how humans have co-evolved with other companion species. Thus, it contributes on the discussion of literary engagement and literary understanding of post humanism.

The Human, Non-human Affective Entanglements: A Posthuman Perspective of an ESOL Classroom

In the age of Anthropocene, we problematize the multitudes of affordances of humanism that we are ultimately entwined by and within. Education is a discipline that always placed predominance to the human centredness ignoring several non-human and non-living objects that also form a part of teaching and learning. However, the humanistic notions of hierarchies have undergone radical changes. The locus in a classroom is no longer regulated by teachers and in a multicultural, multilingual classroom, the interaction between teacher, learners, materials and methods are evolving continually redefining the power relations. This essay highlights how every assemblage (an assemblage being a random clubbing of several human and non-human elements) is unique and in a state of flux to act and react with various human and non-human elements within/outside classroom territories. Designed as an autoethnographic study, by analysing the major tenets of posthumanism and by connecting them with English language education, this article argues for a posthuman turn in English language teaching and learning by examining the research diary entries of the author to identify how the entanglement of affect, rhizome and assemblage results in deterritorialization. Episodes and anecdotes from an ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) teaching context in England serve as primary data. This autoethnographic study reveals the agential assemblages in the classrooms which problematize the singular agency of the teacher as the reservoir of knowledge and discusses how the power structure in the classroom is altered when learners and their affective assemblages influence the teacher and the very practice of teaching.

Cognition and Intelligence After the Post-Human Turn Insights from the Brain-Gut Axis

This article discusses how the post‑human turn in science and society is framing cognition, mind and intelligence taking as empirical case the gut‑brain axis developed within microbiome science. The article brings into dialogue authors from different disciplines that deal with the relationship between cognition and posthumanism, with the aim to indicate posthumanism’s potential but also to warn about the risk of its – more or less conscious – engulfment into a neoliberal framework. Bringing into dialogue an ontoepistemic and a sociopolitical analysis – debates that are too often kept separated – the article indicates that the ‘becoming environmental’ of cognition, mind and intelligence, far from simply being a dehumanizing gesture that causes anthropocentrism to crumble, is still a very human endeavour, deeply rooted in human history and its varied desires and political aspirations.

Back to the Supernatural via the Posthumanist Turn

Back to the Supernatural via the Posthumanist Turn

Connecting Humans and Non-Humans

A recent trend in public health campaigns has been to include non-human health data to capture all relevant variables related to human well-being. This specific approach is the foundation of the World Health Organization restructuring in the early 2000s as they adopted the “one health” framework. Politically, this movement is influential and draws significant health funding globally. "One health" is characterized by a multi-disciplinary collaboration between medical, veterinary, and health sciences. Similarly, the post-human turn in medical anthropology recognizes that viewing the non-human contributions to the cultural construction of health as symbolic does not adequately address how non-humans and nature independently contribute to human health realities. Ethnographic studies of the non-human perspective shed light on how humans are not the only beings that influence culturally constructed reality, nor are they exclusively in control of cultural phenomena. Theoretical trends in anthropology and public health seemingly converge; however, an artificial academic barrier between the sciences and social sciences remains. As these two disciplines are coming closer together through their data, breaking down structural barriers that prevent the successful integration of knowledge has potential to improve human health outcomes. Methodological concessions will have to occur on all sides to make the inclusion of the social sciences in public health possible. Doing so can bring academia closer to a comprehensive scientific understanding of human health.

Re/humanizing Education and the Posthuman Turn

Abstract: Recent scholarship has interrogated the place of the human, humanism, and humanization in educational thinking. Methodologically positioned as an act of educational theorizing based on literature review, the current paper seeks to add to that body of work by comparing two emerging areas of study: critical posthumanism and work aiming to re/humanize education. First, I describe critical posthumanism as a movement beyond anthropocentrism and European humanism, but one that maintains the subject and the human as meaningful categories. Second, I describe re/humanizing as a reclaiming of the category of the human within neoliberal education systems that seek to diminish it. I then compare critical posthumanism and re/humanizing, highlighting their mutual movements toward equity and relationality before focusing on their different emphases and visions for systemic change. I conclude by suggesting a value in further interrogations of the human in education and by discussing the subjective nature of this paper.

Philosophical Posthumanism: A Renewed Worldview and a Methodological Framework for Critical Analysis

Abstract Exponential technological advances capture the zeitgeist of contemporary society. Machines are increasingly gaining agency, which helps in the deconstruction of the humanist notion of humans. Society takes a posthuman turn with large-scale human–machine imbrication and nonhuman agency. The posthuman turn is also reflected in the academic world, which is seriously contemplating the integration of posthumanities. The philosophical posthumanism of Francisca Ferrando is a posthuman theory with three constituent elements: post-humanism, post-anthropocentrism, and post-dualism. Post-humanism revisits the definition of human that has given rise to marginalization within the human species. Post-anthropocentrism critiques the human superiority and exceptionalism that have led to the marginalization of other species. Post-dualism revisits the dualistic mindset that allows hierarchical sociopolitical constructions. Ferrando presents a vision of a posthuman utopian society that recognizes pluralistic voices within the human species on egalitarian terms, accepts and values the agency of nonhuman actors, and sheds the dualistic view of life that keeps humans and nonhumans on either side of the binary system. Philosophical posthumanism can be suitable as a methodological framework to analyze the posthuman discourses in literary works, specifically in science fiction.

Empirischer Posthumanismus

Although posthumanism has arrived in cultural anthropology, there is still uncertainty regarding the methodological implementation and practicability of its postdualist, post-anthropocentric, post-humanist demands. This paper addresses these uncertainties asking what ethnographers can do to participate in or even advance the posthumanist project, which empirical methods are suitable for this purpose, or how they have to be transformed in the light of the posthumanist paradigm. The thesis pursued here is that due to their ethnographic orientation cultural anthropologist have always possessed a posthuman sensibility, which equips them well for the posthuman turn. Indeed, cultural anthropology and posthumanism can benefit from and complement each other to an empirical posthumanism. To explore the field of empirical posthumanism, anthropological positions that can be identified as empirical posthumanist are first discussed. In a further step, concrete methods are presented that have proven suitable in empirical posthumanist geo-centered studies conducted by the author in Kashubia. Then, it is clarified, how an empirical-posthumanistic approach affects the researcher’s attitude in the research process as well as the quality of the knowledge produced, and what implications it has for the research ethics.

Shift of Eco-Feminism towards Posthumanist Future: The Doris Lessing's Sci-fi Turn in Writing

After more than two decades of literary endeavors, Doris Lessing embarked on a captivating odyssey into the realm of science fiction, delving deep into the intricate tapestry that intertwines women and nature which features Eco-feminism during the 1980s. It dawned upon her that eco-feminism's ultimate destination transcends mere admonishment of androcentrism and anthropocentrism; rather, it aspires to forge an idyllic utopia for both humanity and our fragile ecosystems for the future. Nevertheless, this visionary landscape is not easily forged and demanding meticulous consideration of myriad factors due to the fact that the "rampant" development of technology alters the way we live in and we perceive the world. Therefore, the Doris Lessing sensed the change in literary realm and explored the futuristic path for human society which worth our attention. The thesis is going to analyze Lessing's writing shift and her key sci-fi work The Marriage Between Zone Three, Four and Five to figure out her path of building up the harmonious future and the significance of posthumanist turn.

Eco-caste Migrants in Kerala: A Posthumanist Reading of Veyilmarangal

With hundreds of people losing their houses and properties, climate change and its related disasters have changed the face of humanity. This has had a considerable impact on popular visual media such as film as well. From the conventional romanticized portrayal of nature in Malayalam films, a few contemporary Malayalam films have sensitized the ecological issues and the predicaments of its victims. This marks the shift from the idealized portrayal of landscape to the depiction of the fury of nature on human beings. Taking cues from a Posthumanist theoretical perspective, this article considers the Malayalam film Veyilmarangal (2020) directed by Dr. Biju Damodaran to analyse how caste divisions in the society surface during the climate catastrophe. To analyse the nuances of climate change and its posthuman turn, this article takes its insights from the domains of environmental casteism and climate displacement to explain what is used as ‘eco-caste migrants’ in this article. The term signifies the role of caste hierarchy among human and non-human entities during the ecological crisis, especially focusing on the experiences of the Dalits and other caste subalterns. The article also attempts to find parallels between the non-human group and sub-human group hierarchies in society and, thereby, analyse the intersectional casteism from the vantage point of Kerala society through the representation of eco-caste migrants in the film.

Asynchronous Instantaneity. The Posthuman Turn in the Romanian Literary System

Cultural globalisation, made possible by the enhancement of digital infrastructure, has led some scholars to reconsider the dynamics of core-periphery transfers, stressing the immediacy with which popular culture crosses national and linguistic borders. T

Literary and critical encounters with the Anthropocene: An interview with Seán Hand

Abstract Seán Hand is Professor of French Studies at the University of Warwick and Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Europe) of the University of Warwick. His research mainly focuses on literature, ideas and related developments in France and other Western countries from the early twentieth century to the present day. In this wide-ranging interview, Hand points out that there is a competition of intellectual versions of the Anthropocene, such as Capitalocene, Plantationocene and Chthulucene. With regards to the situation of the Anthropocene, he argues that literary and critical studies should move beyond masterful exposition of a work and take up the task of calling attention to our actions, renewing our connection and commitment to the life-web we inhabit, and engaging critically with technologization discussions. Hand also discusses the relationships between the “post-human turn” and the “non-human turn” and suggests that while post-human is connected with a teleological notion of development into a “beyond”, non-human is more grounded in today’s, and yesterday’s, reality. As an analyst of Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy, he here maintains that while Levinas’s insights on alterity could not be unproblematically applied in dealing with the “Anthropocene”, Levinasian ethics and Anthropocene concerns could produce transformative insights and effects. Lastly, Hand gives inspiring suggestions on the career development of young scholars and emphasizes the importance of doing multi-disciplinary, inter-disciplinary and international studies.

Towards a posthuman turn in drag: Will the queer ever be human?

What is drag? (How) can we understand drag performance beyond gender? Given the growing trend in drag performance towards the un/gendered non/post/in/human, we reconsider what, precisely, makes a performance drag. Integrating insights from queer theory, performance studies and critical posthumanism, this editorial develops a framework to not only provide an orientation to the individual contributions of this Special Issue, but also argue for a larger theoretical turn in drag scholarship. We consider the composite materiality of and relationship between the human performer and their posthuman drag, and propose that the act of dragging, which can use, but does not exclusively rely on gender, constitutes a more expansive queer performance modality that makes the familiar strange, yet allows for recognition in what is otherwise unintelligible. Posthuman drag celebrates the abject, the marginal and the un/imaginable, shifts the focus from disaster to potentiality and imagines a future in which queers can be human.

The Double Repatriations of Cybernetics and Media Theory: Vilém Flusser and Heinz von Foerster

Abstract: Connecting the dots between Vilém Flusser and Heinz von Foerster, this essay explores the links and somewhat belated co-emergence of media theory and cybernetics as a vanishing mediator in modern literary history and the posthuman turn: first, media theory's cybernetic investments and re-deployments of certain concepts and, second, a much humbler claim for cybernetics, namely, its status as a media theory in all but name. Preeminently, the idea that there's no outside to the Whole, second-order observation, the key piece from von Foerster, is central to Flusserian thinking. There's always an observer observing, and that's in any type of epistemology that's a hard problem of complexity, like a problem that can't be easily resolved. The subject isn't a human per se but a knot and also a not of relations, as Flusser puts it, a juncture for various channels of information that also presents impedances. Von Foerster's transit is from physicist - interested in engineering and a systemic constructivism - to meta-physicist reaching into the impossibilities of the social sphere and cognition.

Este postumanismul un metamodernism? Convergențe și divergențe în poezia română contemporană

Romanian criticism has tended to use generational framing to delineate the boundaries of local poetic paradigms, which has also been the case for the Generation 2000 and Generation post-2000. If in the 1980’s a discussion about a Romanian postmodernism was put into debate, in 2018 the question regarding the emergence of a Romanian poetry metamodernism arises. In this context, I intend to trace in this paper the nuances of generational debates in order to outline to what extent this methodology succeeds in describing the mutations and the characteristics of recent poetry. With the posthuman turn and the possibilities for the emergence of metamodernism being debated, my paper addresses, on the one hand, the viability of metamodernism in recent poetry, and, on the other, possible points of conjunctions of posthumanism and metamodernism. The posthuman turn encompasses the post-2000 generation, while local discussions have also proposed metamodernism as a label for the post-2000 generation. The question I start from is to what extent, theoretically, is our local poetry metamodernist in its sensibility and specificity, and to what extent does posthumanism fit into a metamodernist heuristic label. Although the debate remains open insofar as the Romanian theoretical field seems rather refractory to transnational theoretical fictions, what I observe in this article is that metamodernism, as theoretically proposed, can be a viable alternative to the crisis of critical discourse.

New theoretical terrains in geographies of wellbeing: Key questions of the posthumanist turn

New theoretical terrains in geographies of wellbeing: Key questions of the posthumanist turn