Transhumanism/Posthumanism

Nietzsche’s Pharaonic Thought: Hieroglyphic Transduction

by Nandita Biswas Mellamphy (UWO)

Forthcoming in Horst Hutter, ed., Becoming Loyal to the Earth: Ecology and Life-Affirmation in Nietzsche’s Vision -- Nietzsche’s Teaching as a Therapy for Political Culture (London: Continuum Books, 2012).

Nietzsche's Transhumanism

by Paul S. Loeb

The Silver Age Superhero as Psychedelic Shaman

by Scott Jeffery

This is an extended version of a paper I delivered at at the 2011 Transitions conference. Aspects of this paper are touched on briefly in the paper, "Producing and Comsuming the Posthuman Body in Superhero Narratives", which also provides more detailed context, but ‘Psychedelic Shaman’ goes into more detail about one specific type of posthuman body found in superhero comics (and the discourse of posthumanism more generally) which I dub the Cosmic Body.

ABSTRACT

In this paper I present some preliminary work from my thesis on the posthuman body in superhero... more ABSTRACT

In this paper I present some preliminary work from my thesis on the posthuman body in superhero comics. It begins with a brief overview of the discourse of posthumanism, how it is used in three different but overlapping realms- philosophy/critical theory, techno-scientific practice, and speculative fiction. For instance the 1938 debut of Superman can be read as part of a wider discourse of the posthuman that takes in popularised Nietzschean ideas and the eugenics movement as a figuration of posthuman corporeality that my thesis ironically dubs, “the Perfect Body”. This paper however deals with Silver Age comics and the “psychedelic” or “Cosmic Body”. It first addresses how the nascent counterculture of the early sixties adopted Marvel comics. The increased use of psychedelic drugs by certain sections of this movement helped foster a vision of a psychedelically evolved post-humanity marked by a form of ‘cosmic consciousness’. Such groups ‘poached‘ the imagery of superheroes as evolutionary blueprints for this transformation as well as adopting terms like freak and mutant to designate their new posthuman identity. A mutual influence, psychedelic imagery found its way into the comics. Intuitively, in the cases of Ditko and Kirby, but apparently quite deliberately by the time of Engelhart‘s Dr. Strange and Starlin‘s Warlock and Captain Marvel in the early seventies. The paper then goes on to consider the superhero as shamanic figure, with particular reference to its influence on the Human Potential Movement that grew out of the counterculture. The paper concludes by discussing how this confluence of mysticism and science, or the modern and pre-modern, can still be found in the superhero comic book, and how the psychedelic posthuman body invites fresh consideration of the lines that separate the body from the mind, reason from irrationality, drugs from technology and superhero fictions from reality.

Producing and Consuming the Posthuman Body in Superhero Narratives

by Scott Jeffery

What follows is a written up version of a paper I presented at the 2011 British Sociological Asscoiation Annual Conference and in a longer form as a departmental presentation earlier that year. It gives an overview of some of the main concepts I'm working with in my thesis. Its tempting to work it up fully into a journal paper but information wants to be free. So borrow and steal from this if you feel the need. But it would be good if you cite me anyway!

For over seventy years the superhero comic book has presented narratives of the posthuman body. In these stories the... more For over seventy years the superhero comic book has presented narratives of the posthuman body. In these stories the posthuman body has been put to work as patriotic propaganda, used to explore notions of morality and identity, and, in more recent years, used to interrogate, however crudely, the workings of the military industrial complex. These developments have been paralleled outside of comic books by a wider discourse of posthumanism, which has taken both popular and academic forms, but shares in both cases an emphasis on the impact of science and technology on the human body. This paper highlights three of these intersections between the comic book posthuman and the wider discourse of the posthuman. The Golden Age of superheroes of the thirties and forties are understood in terms of the eugenics movement, the Silver Age of the sixties in terms of the psychedelic counter-culture of that time, and the contemporary superhero in terms of a globalised military/industrial complex and the emerging technologies it is funding and building. This paper demonstrates how the science-fictional discourse of superhero comics both influences and is influenced by these wider discourses.

Transhumanisme en posthumanisme. Voorbij de mens door techniek. Een reflectie op onze technologische toekomst

by Pieter Lemmens

Geschreven voor het Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst, Febr. 2009

Human Enhancement, Prosthesis and Transhumanism

by Byron Kaldis

ABC-CLIO World Historical Encyclopedia

Deconstruction and Excision in Philosophical Posthumanism

by David Roden

I distinguish the ethics of transhumanism from a related metaphysical position which I refer to as “speculative... more I distinguish the ethics of transhumanism from a related metaphysical position which I refer to as “speculative posthumanism.” Speculative posthumanism holds that posthumans might be radically non-human and thus unintelligible in human terms. I claim that this transcendence can be viewed as analogous to that of the thing-in-itself in Kantian and post-Kantian European philosophy. This schema implies an impasse for transhumanism because, while the radically non-human or posthuman would elude evaluation according to transhumanist principles such as personal autonomy or liberal freedom, it is morally unacceptable for transhumanists to discount the possible outcomes of their favoured policies. I then consider whether the insights of critical posthumanists, who employ a cyborg perspective on human-technology couplings, can dissolve this impasse by “deconstructing” the opposition between the human and its prospective posthuman successors. By exhibiting its logical basis in the postructuralist philosophies of Derrida and Deleuze, I show that the cyborg perspective is consistent with both cyborg humanism and a modified speculative posthumanism. This modified account treats the alterity of the posthuman as a historically emergent feature of human and posthuman multiplicities that must be understood through their technical or imaginative synthesis, not in relation to a transcendental conception of the human.

Posthumanism and Instrumental Eliminativism

by David Roden

I distinguish transhumanism from posthumanism in both speculative and critical forms. I take the term ‘posthuman’ to... more I distinguish transhumanism from posthumanism in both speculative and critical forms. I take the term ‘posthuman’ to refer to hypothetical descendants of current humans that are no longer human in consequence of some history of technical augmentation, claiming that this might occur via technically induced changes in the structure of human cognition. In the remainder of this article I sketch one such scenario for posthuman technogenesis. It assumes what I call the ‘linguistic constitutivity thesis’: the claim that language is a cognitive tool necessary for the possession of structured propositional attitudes and their associated concepts. Given linguistic constitutivity, an augmentation that replaced public language with a powerful non-symbolic medium would remove the preconditions for propositional and conceptual thought. Lacking these preconditions, human minds would cease to exist. They would be replaced by posthuman minds with characteristic repertoire of non-propositional attitudes exploiting non-linguaformal media for mental representation.

“KNOW THYSELF”… AGAIN: Transhumanism, Psychoanalysis and Postmodernity

by Dustin Cohen

Published in Cyborg Subjects: Discourses on Digital Culture

As transhumanism and posthumanism lead us toward radically new bodies and forms of life, we should reflect on whether... more As transhumanism and posthumanism lead us toward radically new bodies and forms of life, we should reflect on whether something might be lost in the process. This reflection might come about through an engagement with the humanist discipline psychoanalysis.

PHD SYMPOSIUM “ANDROID AND EVE" - Tra biologia, medicina, tecnologia e… filosofia

by Francesca Ferrando

Published in Babel Rivista di Filosofia, Universita' di Roma Tre 2010

12-13 Novembre 2009. Si tiene a Vienna il Simposio rivolto ai PhD di tutto il mondo che si occupano di tematiche a... more 12-13 Novembre 2009. Si tiene a Vienna il Simposio rivolto ai PhD di tutto il mondo che si occupano di tematiche a cavallo tra biologia, medicina e tecnologia.
Il titolo è “Android & Eve”, un’interessante commistione di futuro interpretato al maschile (il femminile di “android” è “gynoid”), e di passato biblico-mitologico al femminile (Eva, la madre primigenia e curiosa)..

"(RE)PERFORMING THE POSTHUMAN" - Conferenza sulle Arti Postumane e sul Postumanesimo

by Francesca Ferrando

Published in Bollettino di Filosofia, Universita' di Roma Tre, Settembre 2010

Il 21-22 maggio 2010 si è svolto presso l'Universitá di Sussex (Brighton, Inghilterra), un Convegno sul Postumanesimo... more Il 21-22 maggio 2010 si è svolto presso l'Universitá di Sussex (Brighton, Inghilterra), un Convegno sul Postumanesimo e sulle Arti Postumane, per riflettere sui risvolti artistici di una tematica filosofica di grande attualitá, che segue, storicamente, l'ampio dibattito sulla Teoria Cyborg degli anni Novanta.

POSTUMANESIMO TRA ARTE E FILOSOFIA - Conferenza Internazionale sul Postumanesimo

by Francesca Ferrando

Published in Bollettino di Filosofia, Universita' di Roma Tre, November 2010

Dal 23 al 27 settembre Lesbos ha ospitato la Conferenza Internazionale sul Postumanesimo: “Audiovisual Posthumanism.... more Dal 23 al 27 settembre Lesbos ha ospitato la Conferenza Internazionale sul Postumanesimo: “Audiovisual Posthumanism. Aesthetics, Cultural Theory and the Art”, organizzata dall'Universitá dell'Egeo insieme all'Eurosa (The European Society for Aesthetics). Cinque giorni di sessioni mattutine, pomeridiane e performance serali, ospitate presso il Museo Archeologico: un perfetto invito lacaniano a riflettere sul ruolo dell'umano...
Molti i nodi tematici affrontati. Innanzitutto la differenza tra Postumanesimo e Transumanesimo - che crea spesso confusione - è stata interpretata e discussa da svariati punti di vista: teorico, artistico, storico.