Posthumanism: An Introduction

ABOUT THE COURSE: This course is an introduction to one of the most dominant schools of thought in the Humanities and Social Sciences today, with visible impact on computer sciences, legal studies and other disciplines. It examines the origins, key concepts and the central tenets of the school, while drawing from literary texts and, where necessary, popular genres like cinema and comics. It explores the philosophical consequences of a posthumanist vision, especially in terms of robot-ethics, care and the Anthropocene.INTENDED AUDIENCE: Undergrad and postgrad students

Week 1:Contexts
Lesson 1: Contexts 1: Technologies
Lesson 2: Contexts 2: Humanism and its Critiques:Feminism, Critical Race Theory, Postcolonialism
Lesson 3: Contexts 3: The Environment
Lesson 4: Transhumanism
Lesson 5: Popular Posthumanism

Week 2:Critical Posthumanism: Genealogies
Lesson 1: New Materialism
Lesson 2: Human-Animal Studies
Lesson 3: Consciousness / Cognition Studies and the Posthuman
Lesson 4: Feminist Epistemologies/Ethics
Lesson 5: Disability / Trauma Studies

Week 3:Posthuman Bodies
Lesson 1: Cyborgs I
Lesson 2: Cyborgs II
Lesson 3: Posthuman Biology
Lesson 4: Biocapitalism
Lesson 5: Biocapitalism/Cyborgs in Contemporary Literature

Week 4:The Nonhuman
Lesson 1: The Humanimal
Lesson 2: Vegetal Life
Lesson 3: Multispecies Thinking
Lesson 4: Transcorporeality
Lesson 5: Deep Time

Week 5:Posthuman Aesthetics
Lesson 1: Posthuman Art SymbioticA/BioArt
Lesson 2: Posthuman Performance Arts
Lesson 3: Extended Bodies / MetaHumans
Lesson 4: Literary Posthumanisms I [Posthumanism in Literary History: Early Modern to the 20th Century]
Lesson 5: Literary Posthumanisms II [Sci-fi and Feminist Speculative Fiction]

Week 6:Posthuman Subjects: Politics and Ethics
Lesson 1: Posthuman Subjects – I
Lesson 2: Posthuman Subjects – II [Allo-persons and ersatz humans]
Lesson 3: Posthuman spaces
Lesson 4: Robot Philosophy and Ethics
Lesson 5: Posthuman Ethics and Contemporary Literature

Week 7:Posthumanism and the Anthropocene
Lesson 1: The Environment and Posthumanism
Lesson 2: Conservation and Sustainability
Lesson 3: Extinction(s)
Lesson 4: Posthumanism and the Pandemic
Lesson 5: Posthumanism and Anthropocene in Contemporary Literature

Week 8:Alter-bodies and Enhancement
Lesson 1: Corporeal Enhancement
Lesson 2: Social Enhancement
Lesson 3: Moral Enhancement I
Lesson 4: Moral Enhancement II
Lesson 5: Moral Enhancement and Contemporary Literature