MLR 11: POSTHUMANIST STUDIES

I. The “post-human condition”:

refers to the effect of the collective impact technologies have on what constitutes a human
being and “our sense of human existence”
source: Robert Pepperell, The Posthuman Condition (1995)

II. New perspectives for the analysis of human-technology relations:

• increasing enmeshing of human and technological entities: hybrid, fluid identities
(cosmetic and plastic surgery, genetic engineering, cognitive and bio-technological
enhancement, transplantation, etc.)
• science and technology studies, media studies, anthropology, feminist studies
and the philosophy of technology: a need for richer conceptualizations of technology
than the old dualistic Human-Machine paradigm (the Self versus the technological Other)
• technologies: treated as a political and cultural phenomenon, social activity,
and mediating entities – new frameworks for the study

III. Major concern of posthumanism:

the idea that advanced and emerging biotechnologies, from genomics to assisted reproduction
to neuroscience, have an impact upon our very understanding of what it means to be human

IV. Posthuman:
ambiguous term, various interpretations – as an entity, idea, era, discourse
major meanings of the term:
a) the idea that advanced and emerging biotechnologies have an impact upon our very
understanding of what it means to be human
b) the end of a certain period (humanism) and marking a new era in which we are losing
or have already lost some essential tie to nature and have become open to technological
modification
c) “someone whose basic capacities so radically exceed those of present humans as to be
no longer unambiguously human by our current standards” (Nick Borstrom 2003)
d) any form of convergence of the human and technological (Robert Pepperell)
e) the possibility of modifying, of enhancing, “our complex evolved natures”, by means
of biotechnology
f) a discourse which “articulates our hopes, fears, thoughts, and reflection at the post millenarian
time haunted by the prospects of technology’s apparently essential and causal link
with the finiteness of the human as biological, cognitive, informational, and autonomous
integrality” (Herbrechter and Callus 2003)
V. Humanism:
• the study of this individual subject and the composite features we now recognize
as human
• it treats the human subject as the center of the world, which is influenced by the human’s
thoughts and actions
• the freedom of the individual to pursue his choice is treated as central to the human
subject
• rationality is also this ‘essence’ of the human – his ability to think about himself, be sure
of himself – that distinguishes him (supposedly) from all other forms of life, and aliens

a posthuman – “a being that has at least one posthuman capacity greatly exceeding the maximum
attainable by any current human being without recourse to new technological means”

VI. Posthumanism: two major strands:

1) transhumanism:
• “intensification of humanism”
• focus on the techno-modifications of the human, arguing that those modifications will
improve humanity
• humans are self-contained, rational, perfectible and can transcend their own
limitations
• “it holds that current human nature is improvable through the use of applied science
and other rational methods, which may make it possible to increase human health-span,
extend our intellectual and physical capacities, and give us increased control over our own
mental states and moods”
• extension of the Enlightenment, belief in progress
2) critical posthumanism:
• rejects both human exceptionalism (the idea that human are unique creatures)
and human instrumentalism (that human have a right to control the natural world)
• a radical reworking of humanism, it seeks to move beyond the traditional
humanist ways of thinking about the autonomous, self-willed individual agent in order
to treat the human itself as an assemblage, co-evolving with other forms of life,
enmeshed with the environment and technology
• rejects the view of the human as exceptional, separate from other life forms
and usually dominant/dominating over these other forms
• it sees the uniquely human abilities, qualities, consciousness and features as evolving
in conjunction with other life forms, technology and ecosystems
• this means critical posthumanism does not see the human as the center of all things: it sees
the human as an instantiation of a network of connections, exchanges, linkages
and crossings with all forms of life
VII. Major features of posthumanist approach:
• non-hierarchical and decentralizing: rejects the hierarchical structure with man
as a superior being
• post-anthropocentric: man no longer in the center; a nod in an infinite network of relations
• treating technology as a form of mediation and not an instrument
• non-dualistic and deconstructionist: technologies of the self – dismantle the self/other
relationship
• non-human difference as interesting as human difference

VIII. Optimistic and pessimistic approaches to posthumanism:

1) transhumanists – theorists and futurists (Nick Bostrom, Julian Savulescu, James Hughes, Ray
Kurzweil, Hans Moravec) who argue that the human condition should be improved via the
use of new technologies where this is possible
2) bioconservatists – political philosophers and bioethicists (Francis Fukuyama, Leon Kass, George
Annas, Michael Sandel) who are skeptic about technological transformations of the living
world, and argue for a strict regulation of new biotechnologies; the widespread use
of emerging biotechnologies may introduce new forms of inequality and discrimination
and violate a fundamental human essence

IX. Posthumanism: typology according to Tamar Sharon:

source: Human Nature in the Age of Technology (2014)
1) dystopic posthumanism:
• an objection to the use of technology to modify or enhance humans beyond
broadly accepted natural and cultural limits
• George Annas, American bioethics: Crossing human rights and health boundaries
• Francis Fukuyama, Our posthuman future: Consequences of the biotechnology revolution
• Jurgen Habermas, The future of human nature
• literary examples: dystopian literature (M.T. Anderson Feed, Kazuo Ishiguro Never Let
Me Go)
2) liberal posthumanism:
• an endorsement of bio- and enhancement technologies for self-modification and self-
improvement, grounded mainly in an individual rights framework
• Nick Borstrom, In defense of posthuman dignity
• J.J. Hughes, Citizen cyborg: Why democratic societies must respond to the redesigned
human of the future
3) radical posthumanism:
• the view that bio- and enhancement technologies, by undermining the fixity of categories
like “nature” and “the human”, contribute to a deconstruction of humanist
and Enlightenment narratives based in human uniqueness and call for a radical
rethinking of what it means to be human
 • interdisciplinary approach: cultural theory, cyborgology, feminist studies, science and
technology studies
• Rosi Braidotti, Transpositions: On nomadic ethics
• N. Katherine Hayles, How we became posthuman: Virtual bodies in cybernetics,
literature and informatics
4) methodological posthumanism:
• the development of analytical tools and frameworks that can (better) describe
and highlight the zones of intersection and interaction between humans
and technologies that play an essential part in human experience
• it also introduces two crucial notions for the analysis of posthuman technologies:
- an emphasis on materiality, or the study of the concrete development and
formation of particular technologies and their impact on human experience
(as opposed to more traditional transcendental perspectives of technology)
- technological mediation – the understanding that technologies are not neutral
instruments or intermediaries but rather active mediators that contribute to shaping
the relation between users and their environment

X. Posthumanist studies in literature and culture: goals:

• theories critical of the foundational assumptions of humanism and human
subjectivity: man’s centeredness, exclusivity, rationality, autonomy, independence, unitary
subjectivity, and the right to control other species – technology exposes the limitation
of the Enlightenment project
• explore the nature of the human in the age of advanced biotechnology, genetic
engineering and computers with all its implications – political, social, ontological,
environmental, cognitive, biological
• explore human subjectivity as an assemblage, co-evolving with machines
and animals (the human in this critical posthumanist outlook is a ‘dynamic hybrid’
of ‘ontologically different elements’)
• use interdisciplinary methodologies: cognitive studies, philosophy, disability studies,
animal studies, monster studies, cybernetics and consciousness studies to explore the non-
hierarchical notion of subjectivity and interspecies relations
• recontextualize the human system as having ‘become-with’ other life forms

XI. Posthumanism and literature:

source: Katherine Hayles How we Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature
and Informatics
examination of the embodiment in narratives related to technology: 3 questions
1) how did we lose bodies from information?
2) how the cyborg became the icon of the post-World War II?
3) how we became posthuman?
 An Analysis of Philip K. Dick’s novels: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Ubik, “How to Build
a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later”?
• the android is an object for cultural appropriation in the late twentieth century
• androids are associated with unstable boundaries between self and world (androids
in his fiction undermine the distinction between human and non-human)
• Dick’s explorations of the political dimension of android-human interactions: androids made
into slaves

XII. Feminism and posthumanism:

Donna Harraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto” (1984):
• the concept of the cyborg used to exemplify a rejection of rigid boundaries separating
“human” from “animal” and “human” from “machine”
• the breakdown of three boundaries due to evolution and technology:
1) between human and animal
2) animal-human and machine
3) physical and non-physical
• “The cyborg does not dream of community on the model of the organic family, this time without
the oedipal project. The cyborg would not recognize the Garden of Eden; it is not made of mud
and cannot dream of returning to dust.”
• the metaphor of a cyborg to encourage feminists to move beyond the problematic
categories of Western traditions (dualisms of the self/other, natural/artificial,
male/female, body/soul and the limitations of traditional gender, feminism, and politics) –
cyborg as an example of confusion in categories

XIII. Areas of potential study:

• science fiction literature and film: cloning, AI, avatars, androids, cyborgs (Philip K. Dick Do
Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?/ Blade Runner, Stanislaw Lem’s fiction, Richard Powers –
Galatea 2.2)
• utopian/dystopian writing/art/film (apocalyptic literature, speculative literature,
futuristic narrations about ecological disasters, nuclear wars, alien invasions, cloning – I am
a Legend, Transcendence, Prometheus, Black Mirror Series, Kazuo Ishiguro (Never Let Me Go),
Margaret Atwood (Oryx and Crake), Anderson’s Feed
• representations of technology in popular culture (Comic Hero Narratives – Woverine,
Ironman, Batman)
• the changing discourse on technology (sports and biotechnological enhancement –
e.g. Oscar Pistorius; discourse on GMO, cloning, humanoid robots)