Posthuman Feminism


Book Description

In a context marked by the virulent return of patriarchal and white supremacist attitudes, a new generation of activists, from the Xenofeminists to Pussy Riot, are continuing the struggle, fighting alongside star feminists like Emma Watson and Scarlett Johansson: these are very feminist times. But how do these and other struggles relate to our contemporary posthuman condition? In this important new book, Rosi Braidotti examines the implications of the posthuman turn for feminist theory and practice. She defines the posthuman turn as a convergence between post-humanism on the one hand and post-anthropocentrism on the other, and she examines the double impact of these two lines of critical enquiry for contemporary feminist practice. In so doing she develops five theses: that contemporary feminism is neo-materialist and that feminism today is not a humanism; that Anthropos has been de-centered and that non-human life, Zoe, is now the ruling concept; and that, as a result of these shifts of perspective, today sexuality can be defined as a force beyond, beneath and after gender. The book ends with a plea for joyful political resistance, calling for embedded and embodied cartographies of the new power relations that are emerging from the current geo-political order. This bold new text by a leading feminist philosopher will be of great interest to students and scholars throughout the humanities and social sciences.




The Posthuman


Book Description

The Posthuman offers both an introduction and major contribution to contemporary debates on the posthuman. Digital 'second life', genetically modified food, advanced prosthetics, robotics and reproductive technologies are familiar facets of our globally linked and technologically mediated societies. This has blurred the traditional distinction between the human and its others, exposing the non-naturalistic structure of the human. The Posthuman starts by exploring the extent to which a post-humanist move displaces the traditional humanistic unity of the subject. Rather than perceiving this situation as a loss of cognitive and moral self-mastery, Braidotti argues that the posthuman helps us make sense of our flexible and multiple identities. Braidotti then analyzes the escalating effects of post-anthropocentric thought, which encompass not only other species, but also the sustainability of our planet as a whole. Because contemporary market economies profit from the control and commodification of all that lives, they result in hybridization, erasing categorical distinctions between the human and other species, seeds, plants, animals and bacteria. These dislocations induced by globalized cultures and economies enable a critique of anthropocentrism, but how reliable are they as indicators of a sustainable future? The Posthuman concludes by considering the implications of these shifts for the institutional practice of the humanities. Braidotti outlines new forms of cosmopolitan neo-humanism that emerge from the spectrum of post-colonial and race studies, as well as gender analysis and environmentalism. The challenge of the posthuman condition consists in seizing the opportunities for new social bonding and community building, while pursuing sustainability and empowerment.




A Feminist Companion to the Posthumanities


Book Description

This companion is a cutting-edge primer to critical forms of the posthumanities and the feminist posthumanities, aimed at students and researchers who want to catch up with the recent theoretical developments in various fields in the humanities, such as new media studies, gender studies, cultural studies, science and technology studies, human animal studies, postcolonial critique, philosophy and environmental humanities. It contains a collection of nineteen new and original short chapters introducing influential concepts, ideas and approaches that have shaped and developed new materialism, inhuman theory, critical posthumanism, feminist materialism, and posthuman philosophy. A resource for students and teachers, this comprehensive volume brings together established international scholars and emerging theorists, for timely and astute definitions of a moving target – posthuman humanities and feminist posthumanities.




Feminist Posthumanism in Contemporary Science Fiction Film and Media


Book Description

Feminist Posthumanism in Contemporary Science Fiction Film and Media: From Annihilation to High Life and Beyond places posthumanism and feminist theory into dialogue with contemporary science fiction film and media. This essay collection is intimately invested in the debates around the posthuman and the critical posthumanities within a feminist critical-theoretical framework. In this posthumanist light, science fiction as a genre allows for new imaginings of human-technological relations, while it can also be the site of a critique of human exceptionalism and essentialism. In this way, science fiction affords unique opportunities for the scholarly investigation of the relevance and relative applicability of specific posthumanist themes and questions in a particularly rich and wide-ranging popular cultural field of production. One of the reasons for this suitability is the genre's historically longstanding relationship with the critical investigation of gender, specifically the position and relative empowerment of women. The original analyses presented here pay close attention to audiovisual style (including game mechanics), facilitating the critical interrogation of the issues and questions around posthumanism. Where typically the mention of SF in the posthumanist context calls to mind a whole set of (often clichéd) tropes-the cyborg, technologically augmented bodies, AI subjectivities, etc.-this volume's thirteen chapters analyze specific examples of contemporary SF cinema that engage in meaningful ways with the burgeoning field of critical posthumanism, and that utilize such films to interrogate posthumanist and feminist as well as humanistic ideas.




Posthuman Feminism


Book Description

In a context marked by the virulent return of patriarchal and white supremacist attitudes, a new generation of activists, from the Xenofeminists to Pussy Riot, are continuing the struggle, fighting alongside star feminists like Emma Watson and Scarlett Johansson: these are very feminist times. But how do these and other struggles relate to our contemporary posthuman condition? In this important new book, Rosi Braidotti examines the implications of the posthuman turn for feminist theory and practice. She defines the posthuman turn as a convergence between post-humanism on the one hand and post-anthropocentrism on the other, and she examines the double impact of these two lines of critical enquiry for contemporary feminist practice. In so doing she develops five theses: that contemporary feminism is neo-materialist and that feminism today is not a humanism; that Anthropos has been de-centered and that non-human life, Zoe, is now the ruling concept; and that, as a result of these shifts of perspective, today sexuality can be defined as a force beyond, beneath and after gender. The book ends with a plea for joyful political resistance, calling for embedded and embodied cartographies of the new power relations that are emerging from the current geo-political order. This bold new text by a leading feminist philosopher will be of great interest to students and scholars throughout the humanities and social sciences.




The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory


Book Description

The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory provides a rich overview of the analytical frameworks and theoretical concepts that feminist theorists have developed to analyze the known world. Featuring leading feminist theorists from diverse regions of the globe, this collection delves into forty-nine subject areas, demonstrating the complexity of feminist challenges to established knowledge, while also engaging areas of contestation within feminist theory. Demonstrating the interdisciplinary nature of feminist theory, the chapters offer innovative analyses of topics central to social and political science, cultural studies and humanities, discourses associated with medicine and science, and issues in contemporary critical theory that have been transformed through feminist theorization. The handbook identifies limitations of key epistemic assumptions that inform traditional scholarship and shows how theorizing from women's and men's lives has profound effects on the conceptualization of central categories, whether the field of analysis is aesthetics, biology, cultural studies, development, economics, film studies, health, history, literature, politics, religion, science studies, sexualities, violence, or war.




Posthuman Blackness and the Black Female Imagination


Book Description

Posthuman Blackness and the Black Female Imagination examines the future-oriented visions of black subjectivity in works by contemporary black women writers, filmmakers, and musicians, including Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, Julie Dash, and Janelle Monáe. In this innovative study, Kristen Lillvis supplements historically situated conceptions of blackness with imaginative projections of black futures. This theoretical approach allows her to acknowledge the importance of history without positing a purely historical origin for black identities. The authors considered in this book set their stories in the past yet use their characters, particularly women characters, to show how the potential inherent in the future can inspire black authority and resistance. Lillvis introduces the term “posthuman blackness” to describe the empowered subjectivities black women and men develop through their simultaneous existence within past, present, and future temporalities. This project draws on posthuman theory—an area of study that examines the disrupted unities between biology and technology, the self and the outer world, and, most important for this project, history and potentiality—in its readings of a variety of imaginative works, including works of historical fiction such as Gayl Jones’s Corregidora and Morrison’s Beloved. Reading neo–slave narratives through posthuman theory reveals black identity and culture as temporally flexible, based in the potential of what is to come and the history of what has occurred.




Bodies of Water


Book Description

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Water is the element that, more than any other, ties human beings in to the world around them – from the oceans that surround us to the water that makes up most of our bodies. Exploring the cultural and philosophical implications of this fact, Bodies of Water develops an innovative new mode of posthuman feminist phenomenology that understands our bodies as being fundamentally part of the natural world and not separate from or privileged to it. Building on the works by Luce Irigaray, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Gilles Deleuze, Astrida Neimanis's book is a landmark study that brings a new feminist perspective to bear on ideas of embodiment and ecological ethics in the posthuman critical moment.




Feminist Posthumanisms, New Materialisms and Education


Book Description

This edited collection is a careful assemblage of papers that have contributed to the maturing field within education studies that works with the feminist implications of the theories and methodologies of posthumanism and new materialism – what we have also called elsewhere ‘PhEmaterialism’. The generative questions for this collection are: what if we locate education in doing and becoming rather than being? And, how does associating education with matter, multiplicity and relationality change how we think about agency, ontology and epistemology? This collection foregrounds cutting edge educational research that works to trouble the binaries between theory and methodology. It demonstrates new forms of feminist ethics and response-ability in research practices, and offers some coherence to this new area of research. This volume will provide a vital reference text for educational researchers and scholars interested in this burgeoning area of theoretically informed methodology and methodologically informed theory. The chapters in this book were originally published as articles in Taylor & Francis journals.




A Companion to Feminist Art


Book Description

Original essays offering fresh ideas and global perspectives on contemporary feminist art The term ‘feminist art’ is often misused when viewed as a codification within the discipline of Art History—a codification that includes restrictive definitions of geography, chronology, style, materials, influence, and other definitions inherent to Art Historical and museological classifications. Employing a different approach, A Companion to Feminist Art defines ‘art’ as a dynamic set of material and theoretical practices in the realm of culture, and ‘feminism’ as an equally dynamic set of activist and theoretical practices in the realm of politics. Feminist art, therefore, is not a simple classification of a type of art, but rather the space where feminist politics and the domain of art-making intersect. The Companion provides readers with an overview of the developments, concepts, trends, influences, and activities within the space of contemporary feminist art—in different locations, ways of making, and ways of thinking. Newly-commissioned essays focus on the recent history of and current discussions within feminist art. Diverse in scope and style, these contributions range from essays on the questions and challenges of large sectors of artists, such as configurations of feminism and gender in post-Cold War Europe, to more focused conversations with women artists on Afropean decoloniality. Ranging from discussions of essentialism and feminist aesthetics to examinations of political activism and curatorial practice, the Companion informs and questions readers, introduces new concepts and fresh perspectives, and illustrates just how much more there is to discover within the realm of feminist art. Addresses the intersection between feminist thinking and major theories that have influenced art theory Incorporates diverse voices from around the world to offer viewpoints on global feminisms from scholars who live and work in the regions about which they write Examines how feminist art intersects with considerations of collectivity, war, maternal relationships, desire, men, and relational aesthetics Explores the myriad ways in which the experience of inhabiting and perceiving aged, raced, and gendered bodies relates to feminist politics in the art world Discusses a range practices in feminism such as activism, language, education, and different ways of making art The intersection of feminist art-making and feminist politics are not merely components of a unified whole, they sometimes diverge and divide. A Companion to Feminist Art is an indispensable resource for artists, critics, scholars, curators, and anyone seeking greater strength on the subject through informed critique and debate.