<aside> đ All assigned materials will be linked in this syllabus. Remember to be logged into your NYUSH accounts when downloading materials.
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https://twitter.com/TobiasGremmler/status/1620063791391309824?s=20&t=cM3IHekakZkksdoQan4ADQ
This course is an experiment in intellectual and creative practice, where we start from the awareness that the Homo sapiens, rather than being the chief mover and maker of history, **share the space of culture, politics and emotions with machines and other nonhumans. The main goal of our time together is to create a space of futurist prediction and speculation as a way of studying and creating. Posthumanism can be understood as a fact (that we are changing as a species), or as a approach (that we perceive âhumanismâ as no longer useful in making sense of the world). It can mean creating new ethical and political frameworks that include nonhumans; designing artistic practices where humans are not considers as the main âauthorsâ; approaches to history that puts less priority on human agency; science-fictional approaches to the future of our species and technological developments, and more. In this class, you will get a glimpse into this diversity of posthumanist frameworks. Though âposthumanismâ as a word can sound rather obscure and quite philosophical, debates around it inform many popular and wide-ranging social debates. Social media, automation, and artificial intelligence are at the forefront of public conversation about future organization of human societies, the purpose of culture, and even our intimate lives. Civilizational projects of engineering such as space colonialism or biohacking escape the realm of fantasy and begin to inform real-life projects, while ecological concerns about climate change and scientific research into animal and plant behavior challenge our belives about human uniqueness. âPosthumanismâ will be for us an umbrella term under which we discuss these paradigm shifts.
<aside> đȘ How to use this syllabus: NYUSH is a liberal arts college. Everyone in the class has different interests and different levels of knowledge. If the subjects of this class are new to you, and you are not used to high-level intellectual writing, stick to the core texts, which are more accessible. If youâd studied something similar before, would like to expand your knowledge and already feel confident with the assigned materials, you can also include advanced texts in your weekly studies. The advanced readings are optional, do not be discouraged if they are too hard or too obscure. It will not affect your grade if you skip them.
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Posthumanism can be understood as a fact (that we are changing as a species), or as a approach (that we perceive âhumanismâ as no longer adequate as an guiding ideology). It can be presented as a dystopian cautionary tale, a utopian promise, or simply a fact of our civilizational trajectory. We start with two texts that contrast two different approaches - the first one is a politically charged text arguing that we need to âprotect ourselvesâ from the coming posthuman era, and the second, more artistically and philosophically minded, outlines âpositiveâ collaborative ways of being and creating with various nonhumans (machines, animals, plants).
Core
Francis Fukuyama, Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002, 4-17 + this review of the whole book.
francis-fukuyama-our-posthuman-future-consequences-of-the-biotechnology-revolution.pdf
Katerina Cizek, William Uricchio, and Sarah Wolozin, *Media Co-creation with Nonhuman Systems,* MIT Press Journals, 2019,
(optional) Anna Davis, New Romance: Posthumanism and Art, 2016. (curatorial essay with lots of artwork examples)
To do: