Media Studies Online

Cyborgs & Posthumanism

Overview

"We are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism;
in short, we are cyborgs."

Donna Haraway

Posthumanism is an umbrella term that can be difficult to define, but broadly speaking posthuman theory seeks to de-center human exceptionalism or remove “man” from the top of the metaphysical hierarchy. The most well-known approach to posthuman perspectives may be through the role of technology. In the 1960s, media theorist Marshall McLuhan posited that all media are extensions of human senses: “The wheel is an extension of the foot… the book is an extension of the eye… clothing, an extension of the skin… electric circuitry, an extension of the central nervous system.” Later, in the 80s and 90s, Donna Haraway and Katherine Hayles further developed notions of the cyborg and posthuman, similarly arguing that our relationship with technology had become so deeply integrated that we have become posthuman, cyborgs. Posthuman theory has continued to evolve, draw from other fields, and expand beyond considerations of technology and cybercultures. In the last few decades more scholars have taken a posthuman lens to examine the anthropocentrism and (real or perceived) boundaries between “human” and “animal.” More recently, there has been consideration of a broader scope of non-human others, including plants, objects, and other non-human beings. The ideas explored in posthuman thought are not limited to the academy, however. Indeed, literature and popular culture has played a crucial role in exploring and depicting human-machine cyborgs and non-human lifeways.

Books, Monographs

The Posthuman, Rosi Braidotti (Polity, 2013)
Robot Ethics, Mark Coeckelbergh (MIT Press, 2022)
Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, Donna Haraway (Routledge, 1991)
Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Donna Haraway (Duke University Press, 2016)
Human Error: Species-Being and Media Machines, Dominic Pettman (Minnesota University Press, 2011)
The Technological Singularity, Murray Shanahan (MIT Press, 2015)
Biopunk Dystopias Genetic Engineering, Society and Science Fiction, Lars Schmeink (Liverpool University Press, 2017)
Universes without Us: Posthuman Cosmologies in American Literature, Matthew A. Taylor (University of Minnesota Press, 2013)
Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Actions, 2nd Ed., Lucy Suchman (Cambridge University Press, 2012)
The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit, Sherry Turkle (MIT Press, [1985] 2005)
What Is Posthumanism?, Cary Wolfe (Minnesota University Press, 2009)

Books, Edited Volumes

Posthumanism in Art and Science: A Reader, Edited by Giovanni Aloi and Susan McHugh (Columbia University Press, 2021)
Posthuman Glossary, Edited by Rosi Braidotti, Maria Hlavajova (Bloomsbury, 2018)
Reconfiguring, Human, Nonhuman and Posthuman in Literature and Culture, Edited by Sanna Karkulehto, Aino-Kaisa Koistinen, and Essi Varris (Routledge, 2020)
Outside the Anthropological Machine: Crossing the Human-Animal Divide and Other Exit Strategies, Edited by Chiara Mengozzi (Routledge, 2020)
Simulation and Its Discontents, Edited by Sherry Turkle (MIT Press, 2009)

Books Series

Perspectives on the Non-Human in Literature and Culture, Routledge
Posthumanities, Minnesota University Press

Playlist

References

Badmington, Neil. “Posthumanism.” In The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory, edited by Michael Ryan. Wiley, 2011.
Badmington, Neil. “Posthumanism” In The Routledge Companion to Literature and Science, edited by Bruce Clarke, 374-384. Routledge, 2011.
Haraway, Donna. “Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late 20th Century.” In The Cybercultures Reader, edited by David Bell and Barbara M. Kennedy, 291–324. New York: Routledge, 2000.
Hayles, N. Katherine. How We Became Posthuman. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
Koskimaa, Raine. “Cyborg and Posthuman.” In The Johns Hopkins Guide to Digital Media, by Marie-Laure Ryan, Lori Emerson, and Benjamin J. Robertson. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014.
Lister, Martin, Jon Dovey, Seth Giddings, Iain Grant, and Kieran Kelly. New Media: A Critical Introduction. 2nd ed., New York: Routledge, 2009.
“Posthuman.” The Chicago School of Media Theory, https://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediatheory/keywords/posthuman/

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