JOURNAL 2i | IDENTITY AND INTERMEDIALITY STUDIES
CALL FOR PAPERS — Nº 2 (2020) : POSTHUMAN FIGURES: BODY AND MACHINE THRESHOLDS
Deadline for submissions of contributions: 31st May 2020
Editors: Cristina Álvares, Sérgio Guimarães de Sousa e Ana Lúcia Curado
https://revistas.uminho.pt/index.php/2i/index
Presentation
In Nous, animaux et humains, Tristan Garcia argues that the concept of human underlying modern humanism experiences a deep crisis produced by two opposing tendencies: an internal one which fragments the human ‘we’ into multiple communitarian ‘we’ (ethnic, religious, racial, gender, sexual orientation); and a wide-ranging tendency which extends the circle of the ‘we’ to other animal species and even to the whole of life.
Added to this, the unrestrained technological-digital triumph prompts a reformulation of the meaning of human. The ‘we’ bonds with technology and its constant ‘becoming’ in increasingly intimate and imperceptible ways. This explains how this tendency, which includes in the domain of the human condition what modern humanism excluded, incorporates not only other living beings but also machines. Humans maintain with the latter various and ever more intense forms of interaction, of interdependency, of continuity, of hybridization (cybernetic, bionic, and robotic). The exponential development of NBIC technologies is a powerful contributor to the reinvention of the human through genetic manipulation or neural circuit digitization.
Based on the advances of technological science, posthumanism and affiliated currents advocate a genuine (trans)mutation of human beings capable of decisively overcoming their physical and genetic vulnerabilities, and their brain’s limitations. H+ declares the obsolescence of Man as we know it and proclaims an evolutionary acceleration by way of an anthropological-technological reformation of our species’ characteristics that may ultimately lead to the abandonment of the biological body and its replacement by a mechanical body or a virtual life. Following on the path of augmented reality the posthuman is an augmented human whose youth and vigour are highly durable, who (re)creates himself and his progeny, with no diseases and ready for amortality, in control of its emotions and passions, with an extra ability for pleasure and art; in short, a human raised to the superior level of technological-digital excellence, whose impact and effects are still far from being comprehensible in their full reach.
All of this implies a drastic redefinition of human frontiers toward increasing perfectibility. While some of the implications of this redefinition appear to be positive and laudable others give cause to scepticism and reservations: does the re-foundation of human properties imply that a robot sapiens is human? Where is the line drawn between perfectibility and monstrosity? How to equate the coexistence of humanity with superior forms of technological hegemony? What will become of the solidarity of those living on the Earth-Ark in the face of h+ manifestations? Is posthumanism a new anthropocentrism based on theo-technological postulates such as the invulnerability and/or unlimited mutability of human life?
Main topics covered in this issue of the journal
- The posthuman in literature and/or in intermedialities
- Posthuman and genres : Sci Fi, fantasy, post-apocalyptic, nano-fiction…
- The posthuman between scientific thought and mythical thought
- Posthumanism and animalism
- Posthuman sexualities
Working languages: texts proposed for publication are accepted, alternatively written in Portuguese, English, French or Spanish.
Submission guidelines and stylesheet https://revistas.uminho.pt/index.php/2i/about/submissions