Ebook: Posthuman Glossary

If art, science, and the humanities have shared one thing, it was their common engagement with constructions and representations of the human at the centre of their respective realms. 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, to name but a few significant markers of our time—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.
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 attempts to create an understanding of the altered meanings of art vis-à-vis critical present-day developments. It aims to bridge multiple missing links across disciplines, terminologies, constituencies and critical communities. A completely original work which will unlock the terms of the posthuman for students and researchers alike.
What could terms such as ‘altergorithm’, ‘rewilding’, ‘negentropy’ and ‘techno-animalism’ possibly have in common? The answer lies in the pages of this book: they are all neologisms that attempt to come to terms with the complexities of the posthuman predicament. This glossary rests on the working definition of the posthuman as a field of enquiry and experimentation that is triggered by the convergence of post-humanism on the one hand and post-anthropocentrism on the other. Post-humanism focuses on the critique of the Humanist ideal of ‘Man’ as the universal representative of the human, while post-anthropocentrism criticizes species hierarchy and advances bio-centred egalitarianism. The convergence of these two strands is producing a dynamic new field of scholarship right now. Accordingly, in this Posthuman Glossary we take the term ‘posthuman’ to mark the emergence of a trans-disciplinary discourse that is more than the sum of posthumanism and post-anthropocentrism, and points to a qualitative leap in a new – perhaps ‘post-disciplinary’ – critical direction.
This volume is both an attempt to reflect the current state of posthuman scholarship – by providing a selection of key terms and authors – and a critical intervention in the field. The critical part tends to emphasize two main dimensions: the first is the significance of the neo-materialist approaches and of monistic process ontologies in contemporary critical posthuman theory. The second is an ethical concern for the relationship between new concepts and real-life conditions, with strong emphasis being placed throughout the volume on the need for creative responses to the current challenges. This ethical passion drives the volume and it also helps shape its affective tone, in terms of accountability, the respect for diversity and the conviction that critique and creativity work in tandem.
The volume features practising artists as well as activists, academics and independent scholars; it addresses head-on uncomfortable questions and inconvenient truths, in the hope of opening up a public discussion about life on this planet at this particular point in time.