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Working towards the Posthumanities

Rosi Braidotti 1

1Utrecht University

Candidate

ABSTRACT

Over the last thirty years in most advanced liberal democracies, the public criticism of the Humanities has been increasing and a largely negative consensus has emerged, especially among right–wing and populist political parties, that the Humanities are not financially viable, that they are a luxurious hobby for the privileged few and that they do not deserve public funding. In this article I will first contextualize this debate in the larger frame of the question about the role and function of the university in the Twenty–first century. I will subsequently go on to argue a case for the relevance of the “new” Humanities, which I refer to as “Posthumanities.” My general hypothesis is simple: the Humanities can and will survive their present predicament and contradictions to the extent that they will show the ability and willingness to undergo a major process of transformation in response to both new technological advances and on–going geo–political developments. We need schemes of thought and figurations that enable us to account in empowering terms for the changes and transformations currently under way. More importantly, we need a new definition of our subjectivity in the direction of posthumanist and postanthropocentric perspectives. In the main section of this paper I will give you some concrete examples of new trends in what I have called the “Posthumanities.”

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.