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Introduction

Not Just Another Period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 December 2024

Joseph Tabbi
Affiliation:
Universitetet i Bergen, Norway
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Summary

The posthuman is a field of multiple and often conflicting definitions, timeframes, subject positions, bodily alterations, and rearrangements of knowledge. For some, the posthuman is an extension of human powers and lifetimes; a realization of new possibilities for human nature (Huxley, 1957), perhaps even its “perfectibility” (Bostrom, 2005a, 2). For others, more historically minded, it is a dramatic departure from humanist and Enlightenment traditions that have settled in over the past 500 years: after all, if a humanist disposition emerged along with the Gutenberg Press, we should not be surprised if humanism approaches its end during our present postdigital era. Indeed, some of the “fundamental premises of the Enlightenment” are being questioned, in particular “the progress of mankind through a self-regulatory and teleological ordained use of reason and of secular scientific rationality allegedly aimed at the perfectibility of ‘Man’” (Braidotti, The Posthuman, 37; see also “A Theoretical Framework for the Critical Posthumanities,” 18).

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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  • Introduction
  • Joseph Tabbi, Universitetet i Bergen, Norway
  • Book: The Cambridge Introduction to Literary Posthumanism
  • Online publication: 04 December 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009256476.001
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  • Introduction
  • Joseph Tabbi, Universitetet i Bergen, Norway
  • Book: The Cambridge Introduction to Literary Posthumanism
  • Online publication: 04 December 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009256476.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Joseph Tabbi, Universitetet i Bergen, Norway
  • Book: The Cambridge Introduction to Literary Posthumanism
  • Online publication: 04 December 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009256476.001
Available formats
×