Post-humanism refers to a new epoch or ontological break from humanism. The common interest among post-humanists is de-centering “the human” as the locus of agency, causality, and knowledge. According to Diane M. Keeling (2018), humanism affirms the following views of the human being:

1. autonomous from nature, given the intellectual faculties of the mind that control the body;
2. uniquely capable of and motivated by speech and reason;
3. an exceptional animal that is superior to other creatures.

Post-humanists critique these by arguing that they unwarrantedly privilege the human in various domains (welfare, ethics, exceptionalism, reason, and agency). Instead, post-humanists describe a vision of the world that does not start from a position prioritizing the human.

Post-humanism is linked to social and environmental justice, such as the “hybridity” of human and non-human interdependence (Haraway 1991; Latour 1993, 2004). It is argued that the dividing line between the human and non-human (animal) is difficult to delineate and highly permeable. The notion of human superiority and uniqueness over the non-human is therefore critiqued. Cary Wolfe explains that “debates in the humanities and social sciences between well-intentioned critics… almost always remain locked within an unexamined framework of speciesism” (2003, 1). According to Castree and Nash, post-humanism rejects the definition of the human subject as “separate and liberated from nature and fully in command of self and non-human others” (2006, 501).

The human is not an independent, rational agent whose actions are unfettered but is instead always interdependent with the other humans and non-humans around them. Wolfe wants to undermine conventional conceptual boundaries between the human and non-human and therefore obtain a fuller understanding of the place the human occupies in the universe. He wants to,

“Fully comprehend what amounts to a new reality: that the human occupies a new place in the universe, a universe now populated by what I am prepared to call nonhuman subjects. And this is why, to me, posthumanism means not the triumphal surpassing or unmasking of something but an increase in the vigilance, responsibility, and humility that accompany living in a world so newly, and differently, inhabited” (2010, 47).

The human’s place in the environment is impacted by changing networks of human and non-human actors.

In education and curriculum studies, theorists argue for a less anthropocentric approach, such as emphasizing activities on animal rights and ecological justice in the classroom (Petitfils 2014).

Donna Haraway’s (b. 1944) work is influential in this field. In A Cyborg Manifesto (1985), she criticizes anthropocentrism and popularized the term “cyborg,” which refers to an entity combining cybernetic, non-organic, as well as organic qualities. 

Michel Serres argues that the human body (and humanity at large) is in the process of fundamental change in response to developments in science and technology (Lechte 2007, 333). The contemporary and developing human is becoming unrecognizable compared to the humanity of the past.

References

Castree, Noel., and Nash, Catherine. 2006. “Editorial: Posthuman Geographies.” Social & Cultural Geography 7(4):501-504.

Haraway, Dana. 1991. Simians, cyborgs, and women: The reinvention of nature. Oxfordshire: Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group.

Keeling, Diane M. 2018. “Posthumanism.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication.

Latour, Bruno. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Latour, Bruno. 2004. The politics of nature: How to bring the sciences into democracy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Lechte, John. 2007. Fifty Contemporary Thinker: From Structuralism to Post-Humanism. Oxfordshire: Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group.

Nichols, T. P., and Campano, Gerald. 2017. “Post-Humanism and Literacy Studies.” Language Arts 94(4):245-251.

Petitfils, Brad. 2014. Parallels and responses to curricular innovation: The possibilities of posthumanistic education. Oxfordshire: Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group.

Wolfe, Cary. 2010. What Is Posthumanism? Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.

Wolfe, Cary. 2003. Animal Rites: American Culture, the Discourse of Species, and Posthumanist Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.