Hi everyone my name is Francesca Ferrando and I'm a professor here at NYU's program of liberal studies. My main focus, my main research interest is Posthumanism, specifically Philosophical Posthumanism. So I am very very excited to be talking with you today about this specific aspect of Posthumanism that we define as post-humanism.
As I have explained in my previous video, Posthumanism as a movement can be defined in three ways: as a post-humanism, a post-anthropocentrism, and a post-dualism. In my next video I’m going to clarify what I mean by post-anthropocentrism, and in the last video of this miniseries of the posthuman I am going to talk about post-dualism.
So let's talk about post-humanism. What do we mean when we say that Posthumanism as a movement is a post-humanism? In a very simple way we address the fact that the human is not one single notion but a plural notion--humans. There is not one type of human but many types of humans. Think again for instance of the categories of class, race, gender, and ethnicity. We can use here, for instance, a nationality; we can add creed, we can add dis/ability. So on one side the human is not one but many, but we also see that not every human is considered as human as others. One example here, for instance is the history of slavery, during which some humans were considered objects or property of other humans, so much so that the masters could actually legally kill the slaves. So in this example we have a dualism in which some humans, in this case the masters, were considered more human than others – the slaves. So we have a plus (+) here and a minus (-) here. Another example is the Conquista, when the discovery of America happened. I am right now based in New York, so it's definitely very related to the geographic area I am studying in right now. And at the time, for instance, there was all this discourse from the Spaniards about the Native Americans. And the question was, “Are these people human?” Because if they’re human, from a Christian perspective, they could not be enslaved. But if they were not human--if they were subhumans--then they could be enslaved. Again, we can bring many many examples. For example, the history of classism: Think about Marx and the separation between the bourgeoise and the proletariats. Think of gender and the separation between women and men and how much men were considered superior to women from a very ancient time--as with the Greeks for instance. For race, I give the example of slavery. Think of the construction of the West and East. You can think of Edward Said and the idea that the East was constructed in order to create an identity for the West. And also in that specific dualism, the West was considered the "plus" or superior, and the East was considered the "minus" or the barbarian, while the West would be civilized. For nationality, think of all of the discourse right now happening again in this and many other countries. In Europe, think of the migrants and how these people are dehumanized, often placed in enclosed locations where they cannot leave. Again, some humans are considered more human than others. Think of dis/ability. Think of the history of the "freak shows" according to which some humans with different bodies were placed on stage for other people to laugh at or be surprised. And think of creed. Think about islamophobia in the U.S. So again there are so many examples that you can bring about to show that not every human is being considered as human as others.
Now, where does the tradition, where does the genealogy of this notion come into discussion? In our second video about Transhumanism we located the roots of Transhumanism in the Enlightenment. And we also said that the tradition, the genealogy of the posthuman was different. In fact, the philosophical genealogy of the Posthumanism discourse can be traced to post-modernism. We are thinking about the 1970s; between the 70s and the 90s we have different waves of post-modernism. We can think of post-modernism and later of post-post-modernists and the idea addressed by post-modernism: that the human was not one but many and the human was deconstructed through different axes of reflection and analysis. Think for instance also of the connection of post-modernism and the political arena--feminism, critical race studies, post-colonialism. People began to hear the voices of the human others, so the humans that were not considered as human were bringing their voices into the discourse and saying “Wait a second, until now we have been represented by others and not by ourselves. Now we are going to bring about our voice to discuss who we are. We are going to bring our perspective, our standpoint in the open discussion.” The personal is political, as we saw with feminism. All of these human voices brought their perspectives into the open discussion, into the conversation, into politics, into philosophy, into academia.
Now, if Posthumanism can be defined as a deconstruction of the human (and of course here we are thinking in philosophical terms), there is something that is still kept intact. So we are deconstructing the human through category of ethnicity or race or gender or class. But there is something kept intact which is the notion of the human itself. Of course we can already claim that in the 70s some philosophers addressed the notion of the human itself as problematic. We can refer to Michel Foucault and the notion of the Death of Man, but, in general, between the 70s and the 90s, the time of post-modernism, the human itself as a notion was deconstructed as many, so the human was not anymore just one single subject. It could no longer be represented as one single subject that historically had been white, male, able, etc. You can keep adding layers here. But the problem of the human itself--how can we leave this notion intact? Where did this notion come from? It was only partially addressed by, for instance, Michel Foucault and the wave of Antihumanism that was born out of this reflection. So in our next video we're going to address the notion of post-anthropocentrism and see what that notion brings into the conversation.
Again if you are interested in these topics I advice you to visit my website which is www.posthuman.org.
I look forward to seeing you in our next video and thank you so much.
As I have explained in my previous video, Posthumanism as a movement can be defined in three ways: as a post-humanism, a post-anthropocentrism, and a post-dualism. In my next video I’m going to clarify what I mean by post-anthropocentrism, and in the last video of this miniseries of the posthuman I am going to talk about post-dualism.
So let's talk about post-humanism. What do we mean when we say that Posthumanism as a movement is a post-humanism? In a very simple way we address the fact that the human is not one single notion but a plural notion--humans. There is not one type of human but many types of humans. Think again for instance of the categories of class, race, gender, and ethnicity. We can use here, for instance, a nationality; we can add creed, we can add dis/ability. So on one side the human is not one but many, but we also see that not every human is considered as human as others. One example here, for instance is the history of slavery, during which some humans were considered objects or property of other humans, so much so that the masters could actually legally kill the slaves. So in this example we have a dualism in which some humans, in this case the masters, were considered more human than others – the slaves. So we have a plus (+) here and a minus (-) here. Another example is the Conquista, when the discovery of America happened. I am right now based in New York, so it's definitely very related to the geographic area I am studying in right now. And at the time, for instance, there was all this discourse from the Spaniards about the Native Americans. And the question was, “Are these people human?” Because if they’re human, from a Christian perspective, they could not be enslaved. But if they were not human--if they were subhumans--then they could be enslaved. Again, we can bring many many examples. For example, the history of classism: Think about Marx and the separation between the bourgeoise and the proletariats. Think of gender and the separation between women and men and how much men were considered superior to women from a very ancient time--as with the Greeks for instance. For race, I give the example of slavery. Think of the construction of the West and East. You can think of Edward Said and the idea that the East was constructed in order to create an identity for the West. And also in that specific dualism, the West was considered the "plus" or superior, and the East was considered the "minus" or the barbarian, while the West would be civilized. For nationality, think of all of the discourse right now happening again in this and many other countries. In Europe, think of the migrants and how these people are dehumanized, often placed in enclosed locations where they cannot leave. Again, some humans are considered more human than others. Think of dis/ability. Think of the history of the "freak shows" according to which some humans with different bodies were placed on stage for other people to laugh at or be surprised. And think of creed. Think about islamophobia in the U.S. So again there are so many examples that you can bring about to show that not every human is being considered as human as others.
Now, where does the tradition, where does the genealogy of this notion come into discussion? In our second video about Transhumanism we located the roots of Transhumanism in the Enlightenment. And we also said that the tradition, the genealogy of the posthuman was different. In fact, the philosophical genealogy of the Posthumanism discourse can be traced to post-modernism. We are thinking about the 1970s; between the 70s and the 90s we have different waves of post-modernism. We can think of post-modernism and later of post-post-modernists and the idea addressed by post-modernism: that the human was not one but many and the human was deconstructed through different axes of reflection and analysis. Think for instance also of the connection of post-modernism and the political arena--feminism, critical race studies, post-colonialism. People began to hear the voices of the human others, so the humans that were not considered as human were bringing their voices into the discourse and saying “Wait a second, until now we have been represented by others and not by ourselves. Now we are going to bring about our voice to discuss who we are. We are going to bring our perspective, our standpoint in the open discussion.” The personal is political, as we saw with feminism. All of these human voices brought their perspectives into the open discussion, into the conversation, into politics, into philosophy, into academia.
Now, if Posthumanism can be defined as a deconstruction of the human (and of course here we are thinking in philosophical terms), there is something that is still kept intact. So we are deconstructing the human through category of ethnicity or race or gender or class. But there is something kept intact which is the notion of the human itself. Of course we can already claim that in the 70s some philosophers addressed the notion of the human itself as problematic. We can refer to Michel Foucault and the notion of the Death of Man, but, in general, between the 70s and the 90s, the time of post-modernism, the human itself as a notion was deconstructed as many, so the human was not anymore just one single subject. It could no longer be represented as one single subject that historically had been white, male, able, etc. You can keep adding layers here. But the problem of the human itself--how can we leave this notion intact? Where did this notion come from? It was only partially addressed by, for instance, Michel Foucault and the wave of Antihumanism that was born out of this reflection. So in our next video we're going to address the notion of post-anthropocentrism and see what that notion brings into the conversation.
Again if you are interested in these topics I advice you to visit my website which is www.posthuman.org.
I look forward to seeing you in our next video and thank you so much.
