9.5 Posthumanism and animal studies

Posthumanism challenges traditional ideas about human uniqueness and superiority. It questions the separation between humans and other beings, emphasizing our interconnectedness with technology, animals, and the environment.

Animal studies examines human-animal relationships from various angles. It explores animal cognition, ethics, and representation in culture. Posthumanism and animal studies intersect in their critique of human exceptionalism and focus on interspecies connections.

Posthumanism definition and origins

• Posthumanism is a philosophical and cultural movement that challenges traditional humanist assumptions about human uniqueness, agency, and centrality in the world
• It questions the binary distinctions between human and nonhuman, nature and culture, and subject and object that have shaped Western thought since the Enlightenment
• Posthumanism emerged in the late 20th century as a response to advances in technology, biology, and ecology that blurred the boundaries of the human

Humanism vs posthumanism

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• Humanism is a worldview that places humans at the center of meaning, value, and knowledge, emphasizing human reason, autonomy, and progress
• Posthumanism critiques the anthropocentric bias of humanism, arguing that humans are not separate from or superior to other forms of life but are entangled in complex networks of relations with nonhuman beings and forces
• While humanism sees the human as a unified, rational subject, posthumanism views the human as a fluid, decentered, and hybrid entity shaped by technology, biology, and culture

Philosophical roots of posthumanism

• Posthumanism draws on various philosophical traditions that challenge humanist assumptions, such as poststructuralism, phenomenology, and process philosophy
• Poststructuralists like Michel Foucault and Donna Haraway critique the notion of a stable, autonomous human subject and emphasize the discursive and material forces that shape subjectivity
• Phenomenologists like Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Francisco Varela explore the embodied and enactive nature of cognition and perception, blurring the boundary between mind and body
• Process philosophers like Alfred North Whitehead and Gilles Deleuze conceive of reality as a dynamic, relational process rather than a collection of discrete entities

Key posthumanist thinkers and texts

• Donna Haraway's "A Cyborg Manifesto" (1985) is a seminal text that uses the figure of the cyborg to challenge binary oppositions between human and machine, nature and culture, and gender and identity
• N. Katherine Hayles' "How We Became Posthuman" (1999) traces the history of cybernetics and information theory to argue that the posthuman subject is a hybrid of embodiment and information
• Cary Wolfe's "What is Posthumanism?" (2010) provides an overview of the field, exploring its implications for animal studies, disability studies, and bioethics
• Rosi Braidotti's "The Posthuman" (2013) develops a affirmative, feminist vision of posthumanism that embraces difference, multiplicity, and becoming

Posthumanism and the animal question

• Posthumanism challenges the anthropocentric assumption that humans are the only beings worthy of ethical and political consideration, arguing that animals and other nonhuman entities have intrinsic value and agency
• It critiques the ways in which humanism has justified the exploitation and domination of animals, from factory farming to scientific experimentation to habitat destruction
• Posthumanism seeks to reconceptualize human-animal relations in more equitable, sustainable, and compassionate ways, recognizing the interdependence and kinship between species

Anthropocentrism critique in posthumanism

• Anthropocentrism is the belief that humans are the most important and valuable beings in the universe, and that everything else exists for human benefit or use
• Posthumanism critiques anthropocentrism as a form of speciesism that privileges human interests over those of other beings and ignores the ecological and ethical consequences of human actions
• It argues that anthropocentrism is not only morally unjustified but also unsustainable in an era of climate change, mass extinction, and resource depletion

Animal subjectivity and agency

• Posthumanism challenges the Cartesian view of animals as mindless machines, arguing that many species have complex cognitive, emotional, and social capacities that deserve recognition and respect
• It draws on ethology, animal cognition studies, and philosophy to explore the ways in which animals communicate, learn, play, and cooperate with each other and with humans
• Posthumanism emphasizes the agency and intentionality of animals, viewing them as active subjects rather than passive objects of human control or projection

Human-animal relations reimagined

• Posthumanism imagines new forms of human-animal relations based on empathy, care, and coexistence rather than domination, exploitation, or anthropomorphism
• It explores alternative models of multispecies flourishing, such as rewilding, animal sanctuaries, and interspecies communities
• Posthumanist thinkers like Donna Haraway and Anna Tsing emphasize the entangled, symbiotic nature of human-animal relations, using concepts like "companion species" and "arts of living on a damaged planet"

Posthumanist approaches to literature

• Posthumanism offers new ways of reading and interpreting literature that challenge anthropocentric assumptions and highlight the agency and perspectives of nonhuman beings
• It explores how literary texts can represent animal subjectivities, interspecies encounters, and posthuman forms of narration and embodiment
• Posthumanist literary criticism draws on insights from animal studies, ecocriticism, and science and technology studies to analyze the ways in which literature reflects and shapes our understanding of the more-than-human world

Nonhuman perspectives in fiction

• Posthumanist fiction often adopts the perspectives of nonhuman characters, such as animals, plants, objects, or artificial intelligences, to challenge human-centered ways of seeing and knowing
• Examples include Barbara Gowdy's "The White Bone", which is narrated from the perspective of African elephants, and Richard Powers' "The Overstory", which features trees as central characters
• By imagining the world from nonhuman points of view, these texts cultivate empathy, curiosity, and humility towards other forms of life and intelligence

Interspecies encounters and entanglements

• Posthumanist literature often depicts transformative encounters and relationships between humans and nonhumans that blur the boundaries between species and destabilize human identity
• Examples include Octavia Butler's "Xenogenesis" trilogy, which imagines human-alien hybridity, and Karen Joy Fowler's "We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves", which explores human-chimpanzee kinship
• These texts highlight the porous, mutable nature of the human and the ways in which we are shaped by our entanglements with other beings and environments

Posthuman narrative techniques and forms

• Posthumanist literature experiments with narrative techniques and forms that challenge linear, anthropocentric modes of storytelling and representation
• Examples include fragmented, polyvocal narratives that incorporate multiple human and nonhuman perspectives, such as David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas" and Italo Calvino's "Cosmicomics"
• Other posthumanist formal strategies include the use of nonhuman narrators, speculative fiction, and multimodal texts that blend verbal and visual elements to create immersive, defamiliarizing reading experiences

Animal studies as a field

• Animal studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the complex relationships between humans and animals from a variety of perspectives, including biology, philosophy, history, literature, and cultural studies
• It emerged in the 1990s as a response to growing concerns about animal welfare, species extinction, and environmental degradation, as well as new scientific insights into animal cognition and behavior
• Animal studies challenges the anthropocentric biases of traditional humanities and social science disciplines and seeks to develop more inclusive, multispecies approaches to knowledge and ethics

Development of animal studies

• Animal studies has its roots in the animal rights and environmental movements of the 1970s and 1980s, which challenged the exploitation and abuse of animals in industry, agriculture, and research
• It also draws on the work of pioneering animal scientists and ethologists like Jane Goodall, Frans de Waal, and Marc Bekoff, who revealed the complex social and cognitive abilities of many species
• In the 1990s and 2000s, animal studies began to coalesce as a distinct academic field, with the founding of journals like "Society and Animals" and "Anthrozoos", and the establishment of animal studies programs and conferences at universities around the world

Major concepts and debates

• One of the central concepts in animal studies is the notion of animal subjectivity, which recognizes that animals have their own experiences, emotions, and ways of being in the world that are worthy of ethical consideration
• Another key concept is the critique of speciesism, which is the belief that humans are superior to other animals and have the right to use them for their own purposes
• Animal studies also grapples with questions of animal agency, exploring the ways in which animals resist, negotiate, and shape their interactions with humans and other species

Animal studies and posthumanism intersections

• Animal studies and posthumanism are closely related fields that challenge anthropocentric assumptions about human uniqueness and superiority
• Both fields emphasize the entangled, co-constitutive nature of human-animal relations and the need for more inclusive, multispecies approaches to ethics and politics
• Posthumanism offers a broader philosophical framework for animal studies, situating the question of the animal within a larger critique of humanism and the nature-culture divide
• Animal studies, in turn, provides empirical and theoretical insights into the lives and experiences of nonhuman animals that can inform posthumanist theorizing and practice

Ethics and politics of posthumanism

• Posthumanism has important ethical and political implications for how we understand and relate to nonhuman beings and environments
• It challenges us to rethink our responsibilities and obligations towards other species, ecosystems, and future generations in light of the Anthropocene and the ongoing ecological crisis
• Posthumanism also offers new ways of imagining and enacting more just, sustainable, and compassionate forms of multispecies coexistence and flourishing

Posthumanism and environmentalism

• Posthumanism shares with environmentalism a critique of human exceptionalism and a concern for the wellbeing of nonhuman nature
• It extends the scope of environmental ethics beyond the protection of wilderness or endangered species to include the urban, domestic, and technological environments in which humans and nonhumans co-exist
• Posthumanist environmentalism emphasizes the active role of nonhuman agents in shaping and responding to environmental change, from microbial communities to artificial intelligences

Posthumanism, animal rights, and veganism

• Posthumanism supports the animal rights movement's critique of speciesism and its call for the moral and legal recognition of animals as sentient beings with inherent value
• It also resonates with the vegan ethic of avoiding the use of animal products and promoting plant-based alternatives as a way of reducing animal suffering and environmental harm
• At the same time, posthumanism questions the human-animal binary that underlies some animal rights discourse and calls for a more nuanced, contextual approach to interspecies ethics that recognizes the complex entanglements between humans, animals, and environments

Posthumanist futures and possibilities

• Posthumanism opens up new possibilities for imagining and creating alternative futures beyond the anthropocentric, capitalist, and colonial logics that have shaped the modern world
• It invites us to speculate about posthuman modes of being and relating, such as cyborg subjectivities, interspecies alliances, and multispecies communities
• Posthumanist futures may involve the use of advanced technologies to enhance human and nonhuman capacities, but they also require a fundamental reorientation of values, practices, and institutions towards greater empathy, responsibility, and ecological awareness
• Ultimately, posthumanism challenges us to embrace the radical alterity and interconnectedness of life on Earth and to work towards a more just, sustainable, and compassionate world for all beings