Posthumanism or post-humanism is an idea in continental philosophy and critical theory responding to the presence of anthropocentrism in 21st-century thought. It encompasses a wide variety of branches, including:
- Antihumanism: a branch of theory that is critical of traditional humanism and traditional ideas about the human condition, vitality and agency.
- Cultural posthumanism: a branch of cultural theory critical of the foundational assumptions of humanism and its legacy that examines and questions the historical notions of "human" and "human nature", often challenging typical notions of human subjectivity and embodiment and strives to move beyond archaic concepts of "human nature" to develop ones which constantly adapt to contemporary technoscientific knowledge.
- Philosophical posthumanism: a philosophical direction that draws on cultural posthumanism, the philosophical strand examines the ethical implications of expanding the circle of moral concern and extending subjectivities beyond the human species.
- Posthuman condition: the deconstruction of the human condition by critical theorists.
- Posthuman transhumanism: a transhuman ideology and movement which, drawing from posthumanist philosophy, seeks to develop and make available technologies that enable immortality and greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities in order to achieve a "posthuman future".
- AI takeover: A variant of transhumanism in which humans will not be enhanced, but rather eventually replaced by artificial intelligences. Some philosophers and theorists, including Nick Land, promote the view that humans should embrace and accept their eventual demise as a consequence of a technological singularity. This is related to the view of "cosmism", which supports the building of strong artificial intelligence even if it may entail the end of humanity, as in their view it "would be a cosmic tragedy if humanity freezes evolution at the puny human level".
- Voluntary Human Extinction, which seeks a "posthuman future" that in this case is a future without humans.
Transhumanism is a philosophical and intellectual movement which advocates the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies that can greatly enhance longevity and cognition.
Nancy Katherine Hayles is an American postmodern literary critic, most notable for her contribution to the fields of literature and science, electronic literature, and American literature. She is the James B. Duke Distinguished Professor Emerita of Literature, Literature, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences at Duke University.
The environmental humanities is an interdisciplinary area of research, drawing on the many environmental sub-disciplines that have emerged in the humanities over the past several decades, in particular environmental literature, environmental philosophy, environmental history, science and technology studies, environmental anthropology, and environmental communication. Environmental humanities employs humanistic questions about meaning, culture, values, ethics, and responsibilities to address pressing environmental problems. The environmental humanities aim to help bridge traditional divides between the sciences and the humanities, as well as between Western, Eastern, and Indigenous ways of relating to the natural world and the place of humans within it. The field also resists the traditional divide between "nature" and "culture," showing how many "environmental" issues have always been entangled in human questions of justice, labor, and politics. Environmental humanities is also a way of synthesizing methods from different fields to create new ways of thinking through environmental problems.
The Penn State University Press, also known as The Pennsylvania State University Press, is a non-profit publisher of scholarly books and journals. Established in 1956, it is the independent publishing branch of the Pennsylvania State University and is a division of the Penn State University Library system.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to humanism:
Rosi Braidotti is a contemporary philosopher and feminist theoretician. Born in Italy, she studied in Australia and France and works in the Netherlands.
Cary Wolfe is an American academic. He teaches English at Rice University. He has written on topics from American poetry to bioethics. He has been a voice in debates on animal studies and advocates a version of the posthumanist position. He is series editor for Minnesota Press's Posthumanities Series. He was born and grew up in North Carolina.
Arthur Kroker is a Canadian author, editor, educator and researcher of political science, technology and culture.
Posthuman or post-human is a concept originating in the fields of science fiction, futurology, contemporary art, and philosophy that means a person or entity that exists in a state beyond being human. The concept aims at addressing a variety of questions, including ethics and justice, language and trans-species communication, social systems, and the intellectual aspirations of interdisciplinarity.
Eclipse Phase is a science fiction horror role-playing game with transhumanist themes. Originally published by Catalyst Game Labs, Eclipse Phase is now published by the game's creators, Posthuman Studios, and is released under a Creative Commons license.
Posthuman Records was an American record label specializing in industrial rock and electronic music, founded by Marilyn Manson in 2000. It was a vanity label operating under the parent company Priority Records. The label was Marilyn Manson's first vanity label. Posthuman Records is now defunct.
Stefan Herbrechter is a freelance writer, academic, researcher and translator. Until 2014, he was Reader in Cultural Theory and Director of Postgraduate Studies (Media) at Coventry University. In 2015, he was a Senior Fellow at the IKKM in Weimar. Currently, he is a research fellow at Coventry University, Leeds Trinity University and Privatdozent at Heidelberg University.
Oliver Krüger is a German professor in Religious studies at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland).
Transhumanist politics constitutes a group of political ideologies that generally express the belief in improving human individuals through science and technology. Specific topics include space migration, and cryogenic suspension. It is considered the opposing ideal to the concept of bioconservatisim, as Transhumanist politics argue for the use of all technology to enhance human individuals.
Posthumanization comprises "those processes by which a society comes to include members other than 'natural' biological human beings who, in one way or another, contribute to the structures, dynamics, or meaning of the society." Posthumanization is one of the key phenomena studied by those academic disciplines and methodologies that identify themselves as "posthumanist", including critical, cultural, and philosophical posthumanism. Its processes can be divided into forms of non-technological and technological posthumanization.
Dr. T T Sreekumar is an Indian writer, social and literary critic, and political analyst. He is currently working in The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad as Head of the Department, at the School of Interdisciplinary Studies and also serves as the Director of EMMRC. He is a bilingual author of several books and articles in Malayalam and English, and pens a fortnightly column since 2014 in Madhyamam.
Vegan studies or vegan theory is the study of veganism, within the humanities and social sciences, as an identity and ideology, and the exploration of its depiction in literature, the arts, popular culture, and the media. In a narrower use of the term, vegan studies seeks to establish veganism as a "mode of thinking and writing" and a "means of critique".
Debashish Banerji is a Bengali scholar. He writes in English and specializes in Integral Yoga, Indian Philosophy and Psychology, Art History and Cultural Theory. He is the Haridas Chaudhuri Professor of Indian Philosophies and Cultures and the Doshi Professor of Asian Art at the California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, where he also chairs the department of East-West Psychology.
Emilian Raychev Kavalski is a Bulgarian political scientist and the NAWA Chair Professor at the Complex Systems Lab in the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. He is the book series editor for Routledge’s Rethinking Asia and International Relations series, and an Editor of the journal Asian Studies Review. Prior to joining the Jagiellonian University in September 2021, he was the Li Dak-Sum Chair Professor in China-Eurasia Relations and International Studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (2018-2021). In 2006, he completed his PhD in International Relations at the Loughborough University. Kavalski was a Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the Western Sydney University (2008-2013), and then a Research Associate Professor of Global Studies at the Australian Catholic University (2014-2018).
