A Feminist Companion to the Posthumanities

A Feminist Companion to the Posthumanities
Author: Cecilia Åsberg
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2018-05-17
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3319621408

This companion is a cutting-edge primer to critical forms of the posthumanities and the feminist posthumanities, aimed at students and researchers who want to catch up with the recent theoretical developments in various fields in the humanities, such as new media studies, gender studies, cultural studies, science and technology studies, human animal studies, postcolonial critique, philosophy and environmental humanities. It contains a collection of nineteen new and original short chapters introducing influential concepts, ideas and approaches that have shaped and developed new materialism, inhuman theory, critical posthumanism, feminist materialism, and posthuman philosophy. A resource for students and teachers, this comprehensive volume brings together established international scholars and emerging theorists, for timely and astute definitions of a moving target – posthuman humanities and feminist posthumanities.

The Postworld In-Between Utopia and Dystopia

The Postworld In-Between Utopia and Dystopia
Author: Katarzyna Ostalska
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2021-12-29
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000509966

This collection of essays offers global perspectives on feminist utopia and dystopia in speculative literature, film, and art, working from a range of intersectional approaches to examine key works and genres in both their specific cultural context and a wider, global, epistemological, critical background. The international, diverse contributions, including a Foreword by Gregory Claeys, draw upon posthumanism, speculative realism, speculative feminism, object-oriented ontology, new materialisms, and post-Anthropocene studies to propose alternative perspectives on gender, environment, as well as alternate futures and pasts rendered in fiction. Instead of binary divisions into utopia vs dystopia, the collection explores genres transcending this dichotomy, scrutinising the oeuvre of both established and emerging writers, directors, and critics. This is a rich and unique collection suitable for scholars and students studying feminist literature, media cultural studies, and women’s and gender studies.

Feminist Theory and International Law

Feminist Theory and International Law
Author: Emily Jones
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2023-01-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000831043

Feminist approaches to international law have been mischaracterised by the mainstream of the discipline as being a niche field that pertains only to women’s lived experiences and their participation in decision-making processes. Exemplifying how feminist approaches can be used to analyse all areas of international law, this book applies posthuman feminist theory to examine the regulation of new and emerging military technologies, international environmental law and the conceptualisation of the sovereign state and other modes of legal personality in international law. Noting that most posthuman scholarship to date is primarily theoretical, this book also contributes to the field of posthumanism through its application of posthuman feminism to international law, working to bridge the theory and practice divide by using posthuman feminism to design and call for legal change. This interdisciplinary book draws on an array of fields, including philosophy, queer and feminist theories, postcolonial and critical race theories, computer science, critical disability studies, science and technology studies, marine biology, cultural and media studies, Indigenous onto-epistemologies, critical legal theory, political science and beyond to provide a holistic analysis of international law and its inclusions and exclusions. This interdisciplinary book will appeal to students and scholars with interests in legal, feminist and posthuman theory, as well as those concerned with the contemporary challenges faced by international law.

Feminist Posthumanism in Contemporary Science Fiction Film and Media

Feminist Posthumanism in Contemporary Science Fiction Film and Media
Author: Julia A. Empey
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2023-08-24
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1501398415

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.

Posthuman Glossary

Posthuman Glossary
Author: Rosi Braidotti
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 577
Release: 2018-02-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1350030236

If art, science, and the humanities have shared one thing, it was their common engagement with constructions and representations of the human. Under the pressure of new contemporary concerns, however, we are experiencing a “posthuman condition”; the combination of new developments-such as the neoliberal economics of global capitalism, migration, technological advances, environmental destruction on a mass scale, the perpetual war on terror and extensive security systems- with a troublesome reiteration of old, unresolved problems that mean the concept of the human as we had previously known it has undergone dramatic transformations. The Posthuman Glossary is a volume providing an outline of the critical terms of posthumanity in present-day artistic and intellectual work. It builds on the broad thematic topics of Anthropocene/Capitalocene, eco-sophies, digital activism, algorithmic cultures and security and the inhuman. It outlines potential artistic, intellectual, and activist itineraries of working through the complex reality of the 'posthuman condition', and creates an understanding of the altered meanings of art vis-à-vis critical present-day developments. It bridges missing links across disciplines, terminologies, constituencies and critical communities. This original work will unlock the terms of the posthuman for students and researchers alike.

Reconfiguring Human, Nonhuman and Posthuman in Literature and Culture

Reconfiguring Human, Nonhuman and Posthuman in Literature and Culture
Author: Sanna Karkulehto
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2019-07-10
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0429516193

The time has come for human cultures to seriously think, to severely conceptualize, and to earnestly fabulate about all the nonhuman critters we share our world with, and to consider how to strive for more ethical cohabitation. Reconfiguring Human, Nonhuman and Posthuman in Literature and Culture tackles this severe matter within the framework of literary and cultural studies. The emphasis of the inquiry is on the various ways actual and fictional nonhumans are reconfigured in contemporary culture – although, as long as the domain of nonhumanity is carved in the negative space of humanity, addressing these issues will inevitably clamor for the reconfiguration of the human as well. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/reconfiguring-human-nonhuman-posthuman-literature-culture-sanna-karkulehto-aino-kaisa-koistinen-essi-varis/e/10.4324/9780429243042, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Transdisciplinary Feminist Research

Transdisciplinary Feminist Research
Author: Carol Taylor
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 466
Release: 2020-05-17
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0429576331

What is feminist transdisciplinary research? Why is it important? How do we do it? Through 19 contributions from leading international feminist scholars, this book provides new insights into activating transdisciplinary feminist theories, methods and practices in original, creative and exciting ways – ways that make a difference both to what research is and does, and to what counts as knowledge. The contributors draw on their own original research and engage an impressive array of contemporary theorising – including new materialism, decolonialism, critical disability studies, historical analyses, Black, Indigenous and Latina Feminisms, queer feminisms, Womanist Methodologies, trans studies, arts-based research, philosophy, spirituality, science studies and sports studies – to trouble traditional conceptions of research, method and praxis. The authors show how working beyond disciplinary boundaries, and integrating insights from different disciplines to produce new knowledge, can prompt important new transdisciplinarity thinking and activism in relation to ongoing feminist concerns about knowledge, power and gender. In doing so, the book attends to the multiple lineages of feminist theory and practice and seeks to bring these historical differences and intersections into play with current changes, challenges and opportunities in feminism. The book’s practically-grounded examples and wide-ranging theoretical orbit are likely to make it an invaluable resource for established scholars and emerging researchers in the social sciences, arts, humanities, education and beyond.

When Species Meet

When Species Meet
Author: Donna J. Haraway
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 439
Release: 2013-11-30
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1452913536

In 2006, about 69 million U.S. households had pets, giving homes to around 73.9 million dogs, 90.5 million cats, and 16.6 million birds, and spending more than 38 billion dollars on companion animals. As never before in history, our pets are truly members of the family. But the notion of “companion species”—knotted from human beings, animals and other organisms, landscapes, and technologies—includes much more than “companion animals.” In When Species Meet, Donna J. Haraway digs into this larger phenomenon to contemplate the interactions of humans with many kinds of critters, especially with those called domestic. At the heart of the book are her experiences in agility training with her dogs Cayenne and Roland, but Haraway’s vision here also encompasses wolves, chickens, cats, baboons, sheep, microorganisms, and whales wearing video cameras. From designer pets to lab animals to trained therapy dogs, she deftly explores philosophical, cultural, and biological aspects of animal–human encounters. In this deeply personal yet intellectually groundbreaking work, Haraway develops the idea of companion species, those who meet and break bread together but not without some indigestion. “A great deal is at stake in such meetings,” she writes, “and outcomes are not guaranteed. There is no assured happy or unhappy ending-socially, ecologically, or scientifically. There is only the chance for getting on together with some grace.” Ultimately, she finds that respect, curiosity, and knowledge spring from animal–human associations and work powerfully against ideas about human exceptionalism.

The Posthuman

The Posthuman
Author: Rosi Braidotti
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2013-07-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0745669964

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.