About

The transformative potential of the posthuman is undeniable.

Technoscientific cultures, global economic challenges, looming environmental disaster, the spread of digitalisation, the rise of biomedia and the erosion of traditional demarcations between human and nonhuman all call for alternative ways of thinking about humanity and its environments.

Posthumanism is a paradigm emerging from the challenges to humanism, humanity and the human that these developments pose. It responds to anthropocentrism, speciesism and biopolitics, and informs new creative practices like bioart and electronic literature. It impacts institutional changes across the life sciences, new media, the digital humanities and the posthumanities. It reflects the ways in which people’s lives are reshaped in the embracing of digital lifestyles, virtualisation and moves towards various kinds of prosthesization and human enhancement.

Critical posthumanism investigates and contextualizes the transformative potential of these developments and relates them to past and existing traditions, ideas and practices. The academics, artists and writers connected by the Critical Posthumanism Network share the conviction that the decentring and critiques of the human implied in posthumanism offer paradigms that speak searchingly of the immediate present and of imminent futures. At the same time those very paradigms will also benefit from a self-critical and historicizing move bearing upon prefigurations, disavowals and alternative/emergent scenarios of the human, nonhuman, posthuman.

Currently the Network’s principal activity is a Genealogy of the Posthuman. This is an online, independently published resource currently based in the UK (ISSN 2632-5004). For the latest news and discussion around critical posthumanism, please see our public Facebook Group. We regularly post updates on new entries to the Genealogy of the Posthuman on the Genealogy‘s official Facebook Page, and on our Twitter account using the hashtag #CPNGenealogy.

General Editors

Ivan Callus Department of English, Faculty of Arts, University of Malta

Stefan Herbrechter, Heidelberg University

Manuela Rossini Independent researcher, Switzerland

Editors

Megen de Bruin-Molé Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton

Marija Grech Department of English, Faculty of Arts, University of Malta

Christopher John Müller Department of Music, Media, Communication and Cultural Studies, Macquarie University

Advisors

Nicole Anderson Department of Music, Media, Communication and Cultural Studies, Macquarie University

Marie-Luise Angerer Media Studies, University of Potsdam & The SENSING research college at ZeM

Neil Badmington School of English, Communication and Philosophy, Cardiff University

Sonia Baelo-Allué Department of English and German, University of Zaragoza

Monika Bakke Philosophy Department, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań

Rosi Braidotti Utrecht University

Mónica Calvo-Pascual Department of English and German, University of Zaragoza

Marco Caracciolo Ghent University

Wendy Hui Kyong Chun School of Communication, Simon Fraser University

Bruce Clarke Department of English, Texas Tech University

Claire Colebrook Department of English, Penn State University

James Corby Department of English, University of Malta

Elaine Graham Theology and Religious Studies, University of Chester

Richard Iveson Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Queensland

Vicki Kirby School of Social Sciences and International Studies, The University of New South Wales

Nidesh Lawtoo Universiteit Leiden

Laurent Milesi Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Tanja Nusser Department of German Studies, University of Cincinnati

Jussi Parikka Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton

Helena Pedersen Department of Child and Youth Studies, Stockholm University

Christopher Peterson School of Humanities and Communication Arts, Western Sydney University

Mads Rosendahl Thomsen Department of Aesthetics and Communication, University of Aarhus

R.L. Rutsky Department of Cinema, San Francisco State University

Danielle Sands School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Royal Holloway, University of London

Paul Sheehan Department of English, Macquarie University

Lynn Turner Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths College, London

Sherryl Vint Department of English, University of California, Riverside

Jeff Wallace Department of Humanities, Cardiff Metropolitan University

Russel West-Pavlov Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures, University of Tübingen

Louise Whiteley Medical Museion, Copenhagen

Cary Wolfe Center for Critical and Cultural Theory, Rice University

Contributors

Mario Aquilina University of Malta

Jon Baldwin London Metroplitan University

Monika Bakke Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań

Stefan Baumgarten Universität Graz

Caro Birch University of KwaZulu-Natal

Ruben Borg Hebrew University

Bernd Bösel University of Potsdam

Aaron Bradshaw University College London 

Ron Broglio Arizona State University

Marco Caracciolo Ghent University

Nancy Carranza University of California, Riverside

Olga Cielemęcka Linköping University

Annie Chester University of Edinburgh

Wendy Hui Kyong Chun Simon Fraser University

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen Arizona State University

Christine Daigle Brock University

Lisa Diedrich Stony Brook University

María Ferrández-Sanmiguel University of Zaragoza

Rolf Goebel The University of Alabama in Huntsville

S.E. Gontarski Florida State University

Elaine Graham University of Chester 

Marija Grech University of Malta

Julius Greve University of Oldenburg

Martin Grünfeld Medical Museion & NNF Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen

Heidi Hart Utah State University

Line Henriksen IT University of Copenhagen

Stefan Herbrechter Coventry University

Alex Hogue Coastal Carolina University

Apple Zefelius Igrek Oklahoma State University

Arleen Ionescu Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Richard Iveson Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Queensland

Zakiyyah Iman Jackson University of Southern California

Joseph Jenner King’s College London

Sanna Karkulehto University of Jyväskylä

Russell J. A. Kilbourn Wilfrid Laurier University

Vicki Kirby The University of New South Wales

Aino-Kaisa Koistinen University of Jyväskylä

Małgorzata Kowalcze Pedagogical University of Cracow

Edgar Landgraf Bowling Green State University

Nidesh Lawtoo Leiden University

Siobhan Lyons Macquarie University

Brian McCormack York University, Toronto

Anna McFarlane University of Glasgow

Anthony Miccoli Western State Colorado University

Laurent MilesiShanghai Jiao Tong University

Mehdi Mohammadi The University of New Mexico

Alan S. Montroso The George Washington University

Christopher John Müller Department of Music, Media, Communication and Cultural Studies, Macquarie University

Pramod K. Nayar University of Hyderabad, India

Helena Pedersen Stockholm University

Jean-Michel Rabaté University of Pennsylvania

Manuela Rossini University of Basel

R.L. Rutsky San Francisco State University

Kameron Sanzo University of California, Riverside

David Shaw Concordia University

Steven Swarbrick Baruch College, The City University of New York

Alexander Thomas University of East London

Mike Toggweiler Walter Benjamin Kolleg, University of Berne

Sherryl Vint University of California, Riverside

Jeff Wallace Cardiff Metropolitan University

Kari Weil Wesleyan University

Michelle Westerlaken Malmö University

Poppy Wilde Birmingham City University