Screening The Posthuman

Author : Missy Molloy
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0197538568
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.62/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Screening the Posthuman written by Missy Molloy and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-05-23 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From AI to climate change, recent technological, ecological, cultural, and social transformations have unsettled established assumptions about the relationship between the human and the more-than-human world. Screening the Posthuman addresses a heterogenous body of twenty-first century films that turn to the figure of the "posthuman" as a means of exploring this development. Through close analyses of films as diverse as Kûki ningyô [Air Doll] (dir. Hirokazu Koreeda 2009), Testrol és lélekrol[On Body and Soul] (dir. Ildiko Enyedi 2017) and Nomadland (dir. Chloé Zhao 2020), this wide-ranging volume shows that, while often identified as the remit of science fiction, the "posthuman on screen" crosses filmic genres, national contexts, and industrial settings. In the process, posthuman cinema emphasizes humanity's entanglement in broader biological, technological, and social worlds and exposes new models of subjectivity, politics, community, relationality and desire. In advancing these arguments, Screening the Posthuman draws on scholarship associated with critical posthumanist theory-an ongoing project unified by a decentering of the "human". As the first systematic, full-length application of this body of scholarship to cinema, Screening the Posthuman advocates for a rigorous posthumanist critique that avoids both humanist nostalgia and transhumanist fantasy in its attention to the excitements and anxieties of posthuman existence.

Author : Anat Pick
Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 1782382275
Total Pages : 303 pages
Book Rating : 4.70/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Screening Nature written by Anat Pick and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2013-11-01 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Environmentalism and ecology are areas of rapid growth in academia and society at large. Screening Nature is the first comprehensive work that groups together the wide range of concerns in the field of cinema and the environment, and what could be termed “posthuman cinema.” It comprises key readings that highlight the centrality of nature and nonhuman animals to the cinematic medium, and to the language and institution of film. The book offers a fresh and timely intervention into contemporary film theory through a focus on the nonhuman environment as principal register in many filmic texts. Screening Nature offers an extensive resource for teachers, undergraduate students, and more advanced scholars on the intersections between the natural world and the worlds of film. It emphasizes the cross-cultural and geographically diverse relevance of the topic of cinema ecology.

Author : Rosi Braidotti
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 0745669964
Total Pages : 202 pages
Book Rating : 4.60/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Posthuman written by Rosi Braidotti and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-07-11 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Posthuman offers both an introduction and major contribution to contemporary debates on the posthuman. Digital 'second life', genetically modified food, advanced prosthetics, robotics and reproductive technologies are familiar facets of our globally linked and technologically mediated societies. This has blurred the traditional distinction between the human and its others, exposing the non-naturalistic structure of the human. The Posthuman starts by exploring the extent to which a post-humanist move displaces the traditional humanistic unity of the subject. Rather than perceiving this situation as a loss of cognitive and moral self-mastery, Braidotti argues that the posthuman helps us make sense of our flexible and multiple identities. Braidotti then analyzes the escalating effects of post-anthropocentric thought, which encompass not only other species, but also the sustainability of our planet as a whole. Because contemporary market economies profit from the control and commodification of all that lives, they result in hybridization, erasing categorical distinctions between the human and other species, seeds, plants, animals and bacteria. These dislocations induced by globalized cultures and economies enable a critique of anthropocentrism, but how reliable are they as indicators of a sustainable future? The Posthuman concludes by considering the implications of these shifts for the institutional practice of the humanities. Braidotti outlines new forms of cosmopolitan neo-humanism that emerge from the spectrum of post-colonial and race studies, as well as gender analysis and environmentalism. The challenge of the posthuman condition consists in seizing the opportunities for new social bonding and community building, while pursuing sustainability and empowerment.

Author : Pramod K. Nayar
Publisher : Polity
ISBN 13 : 0745662404
Total Pages : 193 pages
Book Rating : 4.04/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Posthumanism written by Pramod K. Nayar and published by Polity. This book was released on 2014 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This timely book examines the rise of posthumanism as both a material condition and a developing philosophical-ethical project in the age of cloning, gene engineering, organ transplants and implants. Nayar first maps the political and philosophical critiques of traditional humanism, revealing its exclusionary and ‘speciesist’ politics that position the human as a distinctive and dominant life form. He then contextualizes the posthumanist vision which, drawing upon biomedical, engineering and techno-scientific studies, concludes that human consciousness is shaped by its co-evolution with other life forms, and our human form inescapably influenced by tools and technology. Finally the book explores posthumanism’s roots in disability studies, animal studies and bioethics to underscore the constructed nature of ‘normalcy’ in bodies, and the singularity of species and life itself. As this book powerfully demonstrates, posthumanism marks a radical reassessment of the human as constituted by symbiosis, assimilation, difference and dependence upon and with other species. Mapping the terrain of these far-reaching debates, Posthumanism will be an invaluable companion to students of cultural studies and modern and contemporary literature.

Author : N. Katherine Hayles
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226321398
Total Pages : 364 pages
Book Rating : 4.94/5 ( download)

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Download or read book How We Became Posthuman written by N. Katherine Hayles and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-05-15 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this age of DNA computers and artificial intelligence, information is becoming disembodied even as the "bodies" that once carried it vanish into virtuality. While some marvel at these changes, envisioning consciousness downloaded into a computer or humans "beamed" Star Trek-style, others view them with horror, seeing monsters brooding in the machines. In How We Became Posthuman, N. Katherine Hayles separates hype from fact, investigating the fate of embodiment in an information age. Hayles relates three interwoven stories: how information lost its body, that is, how it came to be conceptualized as an entity separate from the material forms that carry it; the cultural and technological construction of the cyborg; and the dismantling of the liberal humanist "subject" in cybernetic discourse, along with the emergence of the "posthuman." Ranging widely across the history of technology, cultural studies, and literary criticism, Hayles shows what had to be erased, forgotten, and elided to conceive of information as a disembodied entity. Thus she moves from the post-World War II Macy Conferences on cybernetics to the 1952 novel Limbo by cybernetics aficionado Bernard Wolfe; from the concept of self-making to Philip K. Dick's literary explorations of hallucination and reality; and from artificial life to postmodern novels exploring the implications of seeing humans as cybernetic systems. Although becoming posthuman can be nightmarish, Hayles shows how it can also be liberating. From the birth of cybernetics to artificial life, How We Became Posthuman provides an indispensable account of how we arrived in our virtual age, and of where we might go from here.

Author : Julia A. Empey
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1501398423
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.21/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Feminist Posthumanism in Contemporary Science Fiction Film and Media written by Julia A. Empey and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2023-08-24 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Feminist Posthumanism in Contemporary Science Fiction Film and Media: From Annihilation to High Life and Beyond places posthumanism and feminist theory into dialogue with contemporary science fiction film and media. This essay collection is intimately invested in the debates around the posthuman and the critical posthumanities within a feminist critical-theoretical framework. In this posthumanist light, science fiction as a genre allows for new imaginings of human-technological relations, while it can also be the site of a critique of human exceptionalism and essentialism. In this way, science fiction affords unique opportunities for the scholarly investigation of the relevance and relative applicability of specific posthumanist themes and questions in a particularly rich and wide-ranging popular cultural field of production. One of the reasons for this suitability is the genre's historically longstanding relationship with the critical investigation of gender, specifically the position and relative empowerment of women. The original analyses presented here pay close attention to audiovisual style (including game mechanics), facilitating the critical interrogation of the issues and questions around posthumanism. Where typically the mention of SF in the posthumanist context calls to mind a whole set of (often clichéd) tropes-the cyborg, technologically augmented bodies, AI subjectivities, etc.-this volume's thirteen chapters analyze specific examples of contemporary SF cinema that engage in meaningful ways with the burgeoning field of critical posthumanism, and that utilize such films to interrogate posthumanist and feminist as well as humanistic ideas.

Author : Rosi Braidotti
Publisher : Polity
ISBN 13 : 9781509535262
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.68/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Posthuman Knowledge written by Rosi Braidotti and published by Polity. This book was released on 2019-08-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The question of what defines the human, and of what is human about the humanities, have been shaken up by the radical critiques of humanism and the displacement of anthropomorphism that have gained currency in recent years, propelled in part by rapid advances in our knowledge of living systems and of their genetic and algorithmic codes coupled with the global expansion of a knowledge-intensive capitalism. In Posthuman Knowledge, Rosi Braidotti takes a closer look at the impact of these developments on three major areas: the constitution of our subjectivity, the general production of knowledge and the practice of the academic humanities. Drawing on feminist, postcolonial and anti-racist theory, she argues that the human was never a neutral category but one always linked to power and privilege. Hence we must move beyond the old dualities in which Man defined himself, beyond the sexualized and racialized others that were excluded from humanity. Posthuman knowledge, as Braidotti understands it, is not so much an alternative form of knowledge as a critical call: a call to build a multi-layered and multi-directional project that displaces anthropocentrism while pursuing the analysis of the discriminatory and violent aspects of human activity and interaction wherever they occur. Situated between the exhilaration of scientific and technological advances on the one hand and the threat of climate change devastation on the other, the posthuman convergence encourages us to think hard and creatively about what we are in the process of becoming.

Author : Cary Wolfe
Publisher : U of Minnesota Press
ISBN 13 : 1452942714
Total Pages : 538 pages
Book Rating : 4.11/5 ( download)

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Download or read book What Is Posthumanism? written by Cary Wolfe and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2013-11-30 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to think beyond humanism? Is it possible to craft a mode of philosophy, ethics, and interpretation that rejects the classic humanist divisions of self and other, mind and body, society and nature, human and animal, organic and technological? Can a new kind of humanities—posthumanities—respond to the redefinition of humanity’s place in the world by both the technological and the biological or “green” continuum in which the “human” is but one life form among many? Exploring how both critical thought along with cultural practice have reacted to this radical repositioning, Cary Wolfe—one of the founding figures in the field of animal studies and posthumanist theory—ranges across bioethics, cognitive science, animal ethics, gender, and disability to develop a theoretical and philosophical approach responsive to our changing understanding of ourselves and our world. Then, in performing posthumanist readings of such diverse works as Temple Grandin’s writings, Wallace Stevens’s poetry, Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark, the architecture of Diller+Scofidio, and David Byrne and Brian Eno’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, he shows how this philosophical sensibility can transform art and culture. For Wolfe, a vibrant, rigorous posthumanism is vital for addressing questions of ethics and justice, language and trans-species communication, social systems and their inclusions and exclusions, and the intellectual aspirations of interdisciplinarity. In What Is Posthumanism? he carefully distinguishes posthumanism from transhumanism (the biotechnological enhancement of human beings) and narrow definitions of the posthuman as the hoped-for transcendence of materiality. In doing so, Wolfe reveals that it is humanism, not the human in all its embodied and prosthetic complexity, that is left behind in posthumanist thought.

Author : Anya Heise-von der Lippe
Publisher : University of Wales Press
ISBN 13 : 1786831082
Total Pages : 275 pages
Book Rating : 4.88/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Posthuman Gothic written by Anya Heise-von der Lippe and published by University of Wales Press. This book was released on 2017-11-01 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Posthuman Gothic is an edited collection of thirteen chapters, and offers a structured, dialogical contribution to the discussion of the posthuman Gothic. Contributors explore the various ways in which posthuman thought intersects with Gothic textuality and mediality. The texts and media under discussion – from I am Legend to In the Flesh, and from Star Trek to The Truman Show, transgress the boundaries of genre, moving beyond the traditional scope of the Gothic. These texts, the contributors argue, destabilise ideas of the human in a number of ways. By confronting humanity and its Others, they introduce new perspectives on what we traditionally perceive as human. Drawing on key texts of both Gothic and posthumanist theory, the contributors explore such varied themes as posthuman vampire and zombie narratives, genetically modified posthumans, the posthuman in video games, film and TV, the posthuman as a return to nature, the posthuman’s relation to classic monster narratives, and posthuman biohorror and theories of prometheanism and accelerationism. In its entirety, the volume offers a first attempt at addressing the various intersections of the posthuman and the Gothic in contemporary literature and media.

Author : Kevin Warwick
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
ISBN 13 : 9780252072154
Total Pages : 334 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book I, Cyborg written by Kevin Warwick and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now available for the first time in America, I, Cyborg is the story of Kevin Warwick, the cybernetic pioneer advancing science by upgrading his own body. Warwick, the world's leading expert in cybernetics, explains how he has deliberately crossed over a perilous threshold to take the first practical steps toward becoming a cyborg--part human, part machine--using himself as a guinea pig and undergoing surgery to receive technological implants connected to his central nervous system. Believing that machines with intelligence far beyond that of humans will eventually make the important decisions, Warwick investigates whether we can avoid obsolescence by using technology to improve on our comparatively limited capabilities. Warwick also discusses the implications for human relationships, and his wife's participation in the experiments. Beyond the autobiography of a scientist who became, in part, a machine, I, Cyborg is also a story of courage, devotion, and endeavor that split apart personal lives. The results of these amazing experiments have far-reaching implications not only for e-medicine, extra-sensory input, increased memory and knowledge, and even telepathy, but for the future of humanity as well.