After the Human
Culture, Theory and Criticism in the 21st Century

It showcases how posthumanism has transformed the humanities and what new work is now possible in light of this unsettling.

Sherryl Vint (Edited by)

9781108836661, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 10 December 2020

260 pages
15 x 23 x 2.5 cm, 0.59 kg

'… a lucid and reasonably complete picture of where we are right now with regard to posthumanism.' Steven Shaviro, Science Fiction Studies

After the Human provides a comprehensive overview of how a range of philosophical, ethical, and political ideas under the framework of posthumanism have transformed humanities scholarship today. Bringing together a range of interdisciplinary scholars and perspectives, it puts into dialogue the major influences from philosophy, literary study, anthropology, and science studies that set the stage for a range of new questions to be asked about the relationship of the human to other life. The book's central argument is that posthumanism's challenge to and disruption of traditional humanist knowledge is so significant as to presage a sea-change from the humanities into the posthumanities. After the Human documents the emergence of posthumanist ideas in the fractures within traditional disciplines, examines the new objects of analysis that thus came into prominence, and theorizes new interdisciplinary methods of study that followed.

Introduction Sherryl Vint
Section I. After Humanism: 1. Historicizing Posthumanism Veronica Hollinger
2. Poststructuralism and the End(s) of Humanism Stefan Herbrechter
3. Postmodernism Jonathan Boulter
4. Embodiment and Affect Michael Richardson
5. Requiem for a Digital Humanist Marcel O'gorman
Section II. New Objects of Enquiry: 6. Machines, AIs, Cyborgs, Systems Bruce Clarke
7. Animals Susan Mchugh
8. Life 'itself' Nadine Ehlers
9. The Anthropocene Gerda Roelvink
10. The Inorganic Magdalena Zolkos
Section III. Posthumanities: 11. More-than-Human Biopolitics Sonja Van Wichelen
12. New Materialisms Stacy Alaimo
13. Speculative Realism: the Human and Non-Human Divide Brian Willems
14. Race and the Limitations of 'the Human' Mark Minch-De Leon
15. Speculative Fiction Sherryl Vint
16. Aesthetic Manipulation of Life Ionat Zurr and Oron Catts.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], Social & political philosophy [HPS], Literary reference works [DSR], Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH], Literary theory [DSA]