This course will focus on what it means to be human in a time and place where human lives are intertwined with technology, where the byproducts of human creation are destroying plant and animal habitats, and where many human lives continue to be treated as expendable or uninhabitable.
Over the past 20-30 years, various posthumanist theories have emerged that rethink the generally accepted ideas about the role of humans in our world. Drawing on the ideas of postmodernism, critical science and technology studies, animal studies, postcolonial studies, environmental studies, disability studies, and new feminist materialism, posthumanist theorists have challenged anthropocentrism as well as humanist values such as autonomy, rationality, objectivity, and universality. equality.
This course will begin with an introduction to the various approaches to posthumanism and then return to works of contemporary literature that take our thinking beyond the human. Our readings will include theoretical works by Carrie Wolfe, Karen Barad, Rosie Braditotti, Donna Garaway, Stacey Alaimo, and Claire Colbrook, as well as literary works by Justin Torres, William Gibson, Octavia Butler, J. M. Coetzee, and Salvador Díaz. Coetzee, Salvador Plascencia, Suzanne Antonetta, and Alexis Pauline Gumbs, we will consider the ways in which misogyny, racism, and environmental toxicity demand a rethinking of the human condition, as well as ethical alternatives that emerge from traditions other than humanism. Assignments will include one in-class presentation, regular responses, a final paper at a conference, and a final exam.