What is your family and personal story culture, education, and geography?

I had a classic American beginning. My father was a General Motors Engineer; my mother was a nurse (until starting a family this was the late fifties). We were a TV-like family of five in an all-white community in southern Michigan.We attended a Presbyterian church. My parents were committed to this volunteering, serving as Deacon, church treasurer, and such, but it was not an oppressively religious household; questions were explored not squashed or averted. I spent eight years in and out of college, working factory and construction jobs, and traveling the continent on an old motorcycle.I eventually graduated from University of Michigan after some fraction of my collection of course credits seemed to form the requirements for BS in Biology. Then I fell into wastewater, that is, I chanced to have entered the wastewater treatment profession, a great place for a science oriented generalist with a desire to be useful to fellow humans and the world we live on. I managed wastewater treatment plants for most of my career and have tried to attend to the human component of an operation along with the technical.

Scott Blair

When did humanism become self-evidently true to you?

I learned the term Humanism somewhere in my education and remember thinking it seemed a completely sensible perspective, but it did not dawn on me to adopt and own the label at the time. I have been a Humanist most of my life but just seized the identity in the last half dozen years. Humanism is simple. If one rejects the idea of a deity that directs earthly affairs, believes that the best way to understand the world is to carefully and dispassionately observe it, and desires to live a meaningful life in a functional society with other humans, then one is a Humanist. My belief in God evaporated by the time I started college. The usefulness of dispassionate inquiry as a tool to understand reality has been apparent to me from early on. And, I am inclined by my nature to care about humankind and to want to build and be part of a society where its members generally can flourish. Humanism is simply where one lands if one cant accept supernatural explanations and cares about others. I have been there since the religion I was taught as child fell away.

What is the importance of humanism in America at the moment?

The increase in recent years in the number of Humanist organisations in this country and elsewhere is a very good thing. For decades, I was a Humanist but without any connection to other Humanists. I learned about and joined the GTH just as it matured out of the founders living rooms and started meeting in public places. I was enjoying a good life before GTH but I came more alive upon becoming part of this group. I now had people, thought-mates! It was a relief and a pleasure to be with friends with whom conversations on deep questions would begin with what is real as best as we can determine it, with no reliance on ancient magical myths. It is energising to be with others like ones self; it engenders a feeling that even while a minority, we are not irrelevant. We can have an impact. I know that the emergence of other Humanist groups across the country gives opportunities for thousands of others to find their people and have the experience I am having. There are other versions of secular communities such as Free Thought groups and Sunday Assemblies; it isnt all found under the name Humanism.

Some groups are activist and some focus more on social meet-ups. But to the degree that Humanists meet and organise, we are bound to influence the broader culture. And that is good; Humanism can be a foundation for functionality in our society. People can make better collective decisions when not bound to imagined revelations of a supernatural rule-maker and are free of delusions that exempt them from responsibility for our future on earth. Most Humanists are realistic about the rate at which a clear-eyed human-centric philosophy can displace deeply held supernatural beliefs as a guide for social decisions, but Humanist principles do have influence and I think their impact is increasing. Humanistic thought is on the rise, not just among the nones; it also shows up even within organised religion. There is a strong secular Jewish tradition in the US, the Unitarian Universalists embody many humanist principles, and in many liberal Christian churches, one finds virtual Humanists among clergy as well as parishioners people who advocate for the rights of all, support separation of religion and government, recognise our obligation as stewards of earths natural systems, and even, when questioned directly, do not insist on the magical claims we often associate with the very definition of Christianity. I have met people like this while representing Humanism in local groups such as Pub Theology and Area Council on Religious Diversity (ACORD). So, the growth of Humanist ideas, even among those who do not identify as such, is a counterbalance to the vocal and visible conservatism that unnerves so many of us today.

What is the importance of secularism in America at the moment?

It is very important. We hope that the religious also recognise that that government and public functions must not include or defer to religion or none of us will have freedom of religion, or freedom from the religion of others. We can all tolerate the traditions of others expressed in public, but government must not represent or appear to favour religion. The workplace is a more difficult space; it is appropriate to accommodate some religious requirements of workers, but not to impose religious sensibilities of owners or managers on them. Functions that serve the whole community (such as hospitals) should certainly not apply religious rules.

What social forces might regress the secular humanist movements in the US? The destructive parts of our own human nature. With the worlds population at 7.1 billion and climbing, there is increasing tension between peoples and stresses on resources. With the internet and the availability of customised sources of belief verification, we become more polarised. When societies are stressed, human nature moves them toward feeling and behaving like competing tribes. We feel more suspicious of others and protective of those like us. Ironically, as Humanists, we try to suppress part of our Human nature. We need to wilfully act on the vision of how we can function together rather than drift into the dysfunction that is (somewhat) natural.

Conservative religions and politicians will not hurt us. The unseemly elements of our own nature (imparted on us by our evolutionary past) can hurt us. I see it expressed even among liberals and professed Humanists.

What is the humanist culture like in Michigan? What activities, campaigns, and initiatives take place there through the GTH?

The backbone of our local organisation is our regular monthly meetings. We feature a speaker on topics that include science, philosophy, art, or issues of community interest. Often these bring in people from the community who are interested in the speaker or topic, who have no affiliation with Humanism. Sometimes the monthly lecture is a platform for an organisation that works for something Humanists tend to support. We may in that circumstance help with raising funds and contact sharing. GTH supplies a group of volunteers one evening each month to usher, take tickets, and make popcorn at a local community theatre that shows non-mainstream films. A contingent of GTH volunteers at Safe Harbour, a program for housing our towns homeless on winter nights, and others participate in an annual work bee at Planned Parenthood. We have supported the high school science fair with prize money (and I have served as a judge). We have a get-together called the Hungry Humanist at a different restaurant each month just for socialising. Weve organised member road trips to conferences of the American Humanist Association, Reason Rally, and other out-of-town Humanist or atheist events. Contacts from these have led to some great speakers at our monthly meetings. GTH Book Club reads and discusses nonfiction and occasional novels that give us tools for understanding the world around us (subject matter has included psychology, science, religion, justice and politics). Book Club events sometimes morph into very nice dinner parties. We have regular GTH bike rides, seasonal parties, and occasional campouts or ballgame excursions. What tasks and responsibilities come with being the vice president of the

Our board of seven meets at least monthly. We exchange ideas for GTH programs, seek and secure meeting speakers, and plan our meetings and events. Usually we do these chores with a glass of wine and intersperse them with philosophical side discussions and a few laughs. I and a couple others take turns presiding at monthly meetings. I sometimes represent Humanism and GTH at forums outside the group and to classes and media.

It also falls to us as a board to continuously assess the collective desire of the group regarding what we want to be. To what degree do members want GTH to be an important source of support and community for one another? Do we make it our business to know when members are ill or struggling and send casseroles? Or do we just provide interesting lectures and social events? To what degree do we want to serve a function for each other often fulfilled for the religious through church membership? Some members shudder at anything like mimicking church. Others miss the community and ritual they gave up when they stopped believing and left a church. As it happens, we are in the middle. We stay away from the vibe of a church congregation, but members do deliver a casserole from time to time. Another common decision: shall we be activists for our philosophy, interjecting ourselves into local, regional, or national political issues? How can we know if we can do so on behalf of all our members? Or should we just meet each others needs for like-minded camaraderie?

What is the current size of the GTH?

We have 83 dues-paying members, 176 participants in our closed Facebook group and 239 people who have signed up for GTH emails. Meetings have between 30 and 80 people; the larger events usually include some non-GTH attendees.

For those that dont know, and many simply wont because grassroots work is learned through action, what difficulties arise in the midst of grassroots organisation of a chapter?

We find that the average age of a GTH member is rather high. We would like to have a membership that is a cross section of generations just as we hope Humanism has traction with people in all stages of life across the country and the world. We are not sure why it is this way. To be a group of our size in a community the size of Traverse City is a success, but we often discuss a desire for greater age diversity nonetheless.

We work on selecting our tone. We think some have left the group out of exasperation with those who are inclined to be too tolerant of religion. Others have ceased to attend after perceiving that others in GTH may have been too disrespectful of the religious. Many members were once believers. Some feel kindly toward those they left behind in their former church scene and some are wounded and angry and receive hostility from their former fellow congregants and religious families. Who we select as speakers or the intensity of round-table discussions can affect who we retain and who does not return.

What about the eventual emotional difficulties and rewards?

Humanism is important to me; it is something I am glad to commit effort advancing. Other kinds of organisations I have participated in do not inspire me to get involved at a planning /serving level. GTH does.

GTH people, Humanists, tend to be deeply interesting and caring people; they are pleasant and stimulating company. My wife Suzette and I hosted a GTH Book Club discussion at our house a few weeks ago, soon after the election. The election was not a topic of the night, in fact there were only a few side conversations about it, but there was a sense of support and common feeling. Humans crave that. When all had left, I told Suzette, you know, these are the people I want around me when things get weird.

I am more alive and energised about life because I have these people around me.

What personal experiences tend to inform personal humanist beliefs, as a worldview and ethic, respectively, based on interactions with other humanists? Some might note ecstatic experiences, improvements in personal relationships, and so on. Motivation for Humanist ideals comes ultimately from the better parts of human nature, from the evolved feelings that lead us to care about and support one another. Experiences support this in giving people a foundation for empathy.

For some Humanists who had been involved in religion, a departure from religious belief, a de-conversion if you will, is a powerful experience. It is not the emotional rush of a reported religious experience, rather it is a clearing of illusion, a relief from the tension of defending incoherent positions. It is freedom from trying to discern the will of an intangible capricious being and execute it to his satisfaction. It is the new knowledge that one is not being watched all the time. It has been described to me as finding peace.Some Humanist who came through this experience resent the deep connection formed in peoples minds early in life by religious indoctrination, that the ability to believe fantastic things is inseparable from goodness. That psychologically persistent fusion of ability-to-believe and goodness, is a harm that informs some Humanists regard for religion after they are out of it.

Also, intellectually, what makes humanism seem more right or true than other worldviews to other humanists based on conversations with them arguments and evidence?

Humanism has no revealed doctrine, no myths passed down from ancient times that we contort perceptions to defend. Humanism is interested in understanding what is true, whatever it may be, to the degree that we can. We go where our best dispassionate, evidence based, inquiry takes us and we are comfortable with what we are not yet able to know. Humanism commits to honest careful pursuit of the questions while religion starts with answers.

Humanism recognises humanity as part of, and a product of, nature. This is key to a Humanistic view. We evolved as groups of cooperating primates.Our brains are a product of this evolution. In them resides the basis for our emotions and behaviour. We evolved to have the feelings that cause us to care about and support each other because cooperation within groups had selective utility. Self-serving instincts obviously also had selective utility. Competition with other groups lead to instincts in us that are at the root of suspicion and hostility toward those least like us. The good and bad elements of our nature were conserved in our evolution in balance and tension with each other.

So, Humanists know that good and evil are not forces directed by God and Satan in a supernatural battle in which we are soldiers. Rather, our better angels and our darker motivations are part of being a natural creature.

This view also equips us to understand our limitations. Adopting the dispassionate perspective and viewing humanity from the outside, leads to a fuller understanding of our nature and gives Humanists insight into the fallibility of human thinking and perceptions. The brain, the organ with which we apprehend the world, is an evolved tool. Evidence shows that we are prone to many kinds of thinking and perception errors; understanding this puts a person in a position to better recognise fallacious thinking in others. It also reminds us to be careful and humble about what we assert to know ourselves (Daniel Kahneman, Jonathan Haidt, and E.O. Wilson have been GTH Book Club reads). This dispassionate examination of human nature as an evolved phenomenon gives a Humanist a very usefully lens to better understand human emotions, the culture wars, politics, religion, and interpersonal relationships.

Humanism is more likely to be right and true because we look for our car keys where we are likely to have dropped them rather than looking under the lamp post because the light is better.

For those that want to work together or become involved, what are recommended means of contacting the GTH?

Our website is gthumanists.org. Upcoming events are listed there. An email address that reaches all board members is info@gthumanists.org. We meet at the Traverse Area District Library at 7:00 pm the second Monday of each month. Other events vary in time and location.

Thank you for your time, Scott.

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Interview with Scott Blair - Conatus News

Hello comrade,

I insist on addressing you like that - not only because you and many amazing young minds before you in JNU have been my comrades for more than two decades now - but also because the word comes from the root "camaraderie", the idea that defines student politics in general, and the strong bonds that JNU and AMU students have built for a progressive polity in particular.

Despite what has happened, those bonds must endure.

Let me, therefore, at the outset, express my deep sense of shock and disgust over a first information report (FIR) filed against you in Aligarh by the AMU Students Union, which claims you insulted Prophet Mohammad in a Facebook post - a 1000-word statement that those students, in the age of 140-word tweets and emoticonned Whatsapp conversations, were too ignorant to understand. The other possibility is they are deliberately misreading the post and claiming being hurt to "fix" you for speaking your mind.

The men in Aligarh are not used to women speaking their minds, let alone having one. With you, it becomes worse. It's not only your gender that they despise, it's your left-liberal political persuasion too. Aligarh in general has never been comfortable with liberal and progressive forces, despite being one of the major centres of progressive writers and academics in the country.

That the police complaint against you came only two days after you and other comrades from JNU, Delhi University, and Allahabad University were invited by the same AMU Students Union for a symposium on the role of student leaders in "building contemporary society" is one of the many unfortunate ironies that AMU has long been used to revel in.

In the horribly misinterpreted January 9 post on Facebook, you had attempted a more nuanced understanding of hate speech by asserting a rational minds democratic right to ask questions and raise doubts, even if they involve religious figures like Ram or Mohammad. There is difference between inquiry and incitement, you argued in that post, with considerable sensibility and success.

Zia Nomani in youthkiawaaz.com was right. The post quoted some controversial phrases like "Ram was an asshole" and "Mohammad was a paedophile" to distinguish between hate speech and "hateful" speech. Its a paradox that the ex-JNUSU vice-president Shehla was accused of hate speech in her Facebook post, which was meant to condemn it in the first place, he wrote.

However, allow me to put this controversy in some context. Far from being an isolated hounding of a Muslim woman studying in another university, it actually fits into a long trope of myopia, misogyny and mindset that defines not only AMU, but even the average Muslim man.

Student politics in Aligarh, unlike your university or most others, is ad-hoc and devoid of affiliations from the mainstream political parties. That emptying of politics from politics per se ends up creating student leaders, whose only claim to electoral positions is the most banal slogan you can ever hear in a university: "tempo high hai".

Please don't ask me what it means. I don't know either and have remained intrigued for long. But it is this singular slogan that has set the agenda and decided student elections in Aligarh for nearly a century now. It is "tempo high hai" that has created leaders from Aligarh, whatever little it has produced.

It is this political and intellectual bankruptcy that has marked student politics in AMU. In the absence of political education and atmosphere that an institution of higher education is supposed to provide, more so in a campus like Aligarh, student leaders are left to fend for themselves. Teachers either don't mentor or are too scared to do it. The administration run by former Army generals or senior bureaucrats does all it can to ensure the campus remains depoliticised.

I don't know if you have noticed, but AMU and Jamia Millia Islamia are the only two central universities in India often run by non-academics. While that trend is set to hopefully stop soon, it's appalling why nobody within the community or outside questioned and resisted it for decades.

Such administrators despise progressive politics, victimise teachers or students who dare to do it, and end up undermining the legitimate and democratic right of students to call elections or form political alliances.

What happens in such a depoliticised campus is that student leaders end up pandering to populist notions of religion, tradition or victimhood. Easy and regressive slogans take over more pressing issues like the recent University Grants Commission gazette notification you also questioned AMU about. Politics of emotion takes over politics of consequence. The FIR against you over alleged disrespect to the Prophet explains that.

"I doubt if AMUSU has any sentiments left, let alone religious!" you said in another angry Facebook post after the police case was filed. I have to agree with you on that. Moreover, religious sentiments have no place in an academic insitution.

If AMU or its student leaders claim a religious right over their campus and dictate who gets to enter it, they are failing the very idea of Aligarh and its long history of liberal and alternate politics.

As you so aptly put it in the same Facebook post: "Pehle insaan baniye, phir musalman banne ka dawa kariye." For me, as long as you are a student, insaaniyat (humanism) is all that matters.

(The author is a former president of AMU Students Union.)

Also read:My visit to Aligarh Muslim University: Anger against media growing

See the article here:

Open letter to Shehla Rashid, from former AMU Students Union leader - DailyO

M@king It New In English Language Teaching A special issue of ELOPE Vol. 14, No. 1 (2017) Deadline for proposals: 10 January 2016

English Language Teaching is a dynamic, extensive and varied research discipline, underpinned by one fundamental question: how best to meet the needs of English learners, especially in our increasingly globalised and digitised world. This single question encompasses a host of related and inter-related issues. Please read the full cfp address here.

This special issue aims to bring together scholars, researchers and practitioners from all levels of the education system to report on and review the latest in English Language Teaching, as well as to explore potential future developments in the field.

Submissions are welcome from all subject areas of English Language Teaching, such as:

A selection of papers will be published in the spring 2017 (Vol. 14, No. 1) special issue of ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries, a double-blind, peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes original research articles, studies and essays addressing issues of English language, literature, teaching and translation. The volume will be edited by guest editors Melita Kukovec, Kirsten Hempkin and Katja Teak.

Papers of between 5000 and 8000 words in English should be submitted through the ELOPE online paper submission system. To ensure a blind review, the submitted file should not contain the authors name or other personal data. For formatting and documentation, please see the sample paper in the attachment and Author Guidelines on the ELOPE website.

The submission deadline is 10 January 2017.

(posted 7 November 2016)

While science fiction and fantasy are inarguably international genres, they have not developed in a uniform manner across the globe. The literary output of any nation is always shaped by many factors, including the countrys history, politics, and culture. This is certainly true as far as Polish science fiction and fantasy literature are concerned, since their present conditionthough, undoubtedly, determined also by the achievements of foreign writers (but to what extent?)has been affected by the nations difficult yet rich past, which has been reflected in the writers attempts at re-creating the countrys history, in the multiple references to its socio-political reality, and in the return to Slavic mythology and traditions. However, beyond the borders of Poland few of the countrys science fiction and fantasy writers have gained literary and scholarly recognition (which is, of course, due to the number of available translations). While foreign readers might be acquainted with the works of Stanisaw Lem and Andrzej Sapkowski, they might know little about other noteworthy Polish writers. Which is not surprising, since not many critical publications on Polish sf and fantasy are available in English. Our work will, hopefully, satisfy that demand.

While papers dealing with the works of Lem and Sapkowski are welcome, we strongly encourage scholars to submit works related to any of the following topics:

Schedule

After the papers receive a positive review, we will proceed with editing, proofreading, and publishing. Please send your questions and submission to: crossroads.sfandfantasy@gmail.com

The theme issue will be guest-edited by Weronika aszkiewicz, Mariusz M. Le, and Sylwia Borowska-Szerszun who are part of the research team Wymiary Fantastyki established at the University of Biaystok. You can visit them at: http://fantastyka.uwb.edu.pl/

Crossroads. A Journal of English Studies is a peer-reviewed electronic quarterly published by the Department of English at the University of Biaystok. The journal welcomes contributions on all aspects of literary and cultural studies (including recent developments in cyberculture), linguistics (both theoretical and applied), and intercultural communication. The aim of the journal is to provide a forum for interdisciplinary research, inquiry and debate within the area of English studies through the exchange, crisscrossing and intersecting of opinions and diverse views. The electronic version of Crossroads. A Journal of English Studies is its primary (referential) version. The journal has received 6 points in the listing of scholarly journals issued by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. For details about the journal visit: http://www.crossroads.uwb.edu.pl/

(posted 17 October 2016)

We are seeking contributions for The Routledge Companion to Women and the Ideology of Political Exclusion, edited by Tatiana Tsakiropoulou-Summers (The University of Alabama, USA) and Katerina Kitsi-Mitakou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece), to be published by Routledge in 2017-18.

The Companion aims to address the issue of womens political exclusion throughout the centuries and across cultures and societies from an inter- and multidisciplinary perspective. Taking as a point of reference the earliest configurations of democracy in classical Athens, in which women were not allowed to participate actively in its design and practices, and moving on to the modern times, the book will examine how exclusions of women are created within the very same discourses of inclusion, as well as how ancient biases are recycled, questioned, or cancelled in modern societies. Despite womens increasing participation in politics today and their open access to political life, there are still insurmountable barriers to gender equality and in many cases formal political equality veils continued exclusion or oppression. The essays will explore the idea of different types of womens political exclusion in a variety of contexts: in relation to civic rights, national belongings, identity politics, socio-economic human rights, etc., and will raise issues about the nature of democratic politics or the (in)stability of the term democracy. We are particularly interested in contributions that consider how gender exclusion intersects with a number of other parameters such as race, class, ethnicity, age, sexuality, disability, etc., which complicate womens assimilation to a state imperative.

We especially welcome proposals for essays that focus 1) on countries around the globe which constitute paradigmatic cases as far as women and civil/social rights are concerned (for ex. Scandinavia, Australia, etc.), 2) on comparing diverse models of exclusion/inclusion in different countries/societies/cultures, and 3) on the inherent contradictions and ambiguities of the latest debates about womens exclusion (such as, the clash between state policies of inclusion and socio-cultural and functional constraints that put limits on womens individual and collective agency [for ex. the case of burkini], the pressure put on women that belong to ethnic minorities, refugee or immigrant groups that have been affected by Exclusion Acts, the latest American elections, etc.).

Please send a 500-word proposal and a short biographical note by email attachment to both Katerina Kitsi-Mitakou (katkit@enl.auth.gr) and Tatiana Tsakiropoulou-Summers (tsummers@ua.edu) by January 15, 2017.

(posted 31 October 2016)

We are told that the humanities are suffering a downturn. Even as critical thinking, analysis, and compassionate assessmentthe backbones of the humanities educationare in high demand now more than ever, the world of the academy outside of science and technology continues to experience cuts, downsizing, and general devaluation. Digital Humanities has been one proposed remedy, yet their increasing popularity has paradoxical implications for the humanities at large: rather than challenging the scientistic epistemology, they perpetuate it by subjecting the arts to the empiricists analytical toolkit.

This critical collection is one move toward regeneration that does not attempt to redress the arts and humanities, but rather strives to revitalize them in their acute responsiveness to the social conditions that shape our lives. In particular, we are concerned with re-injecting subjective experience into academic and critical writing about the arts, since it is here that such writing has both its locus and its effect. Our gambit is that insisting that academic and critical writers inhabit, avow, and reveal their I will do far more to re-energize the humanities than further inhibiting the place of lived experience in critical writing.

We seek authors who will write both from within their particular area of specializationwhether in literature, philosophy, history, the arts, or other fields in the humanitiesand from within their own personal story. Most broadly, we are looking for the narratives that are both originary to, and that stem from, the critical experience: to bring together categories that tend to be held apart (the personal and the professional, the historical and the topical, the popular and the academic), to make manifest the stories that are so often repressed by academic and critical writing, and to reveal the urgency of our own personal investments in the humanities.

Possible forms of narrative might include:

Please send abstracts of approximately 250 words to Alison Annunziata (annunziata06@gmail.com) and Emma Lieber (elieber14@gmail.com) by January 15, 2017.

(posted 10 December 2016)

Submissions are sought from scholars, research aspirants and animal advocates

The rise and expansion of Animal Studies over the past decades can be seen in the explosion of various articles, journals, books, conferences, organizations, courses all over the academic world. With the publication of Peter Singers Animal Liberation in 1975 and Tom Regans The Case for Animal Rights in 1983, there has been a burgeoning interest in nonhuman animals among academics, animal advocates, and the general public. Interested scholars recognize the lack of scholarly attention given to nonhuman animals and to the relationships between human and nonhuman, especially in the light of the pervasiveness of animal representations, symbols, and stories, as well as the actual presence of animals in human societies and cultures.

Animals abound in literary and cultural texts, either they are animals-as-constructed or animals-as-such. However, we can approach any literary text from a theoretical lens where the representation of nonhuman animals are main operative analytic frame. In literature nonhuman animals are given titular role, they carry symbolic function, they speak human language and so on. But these create problematics and bear the politics of representation.

Proposals for articles on topics relevant to this collective volume may include, but are not limited to:

Contributors have liberty to choose literary texts for their case study, but the papers must theorize the major presence of nonhuman animals in the selected texts. Papers should be around 3000 words following the latest MLA style sheet and must have abstract of 250 words with keywords, relevant end notes, references and authors bio-note.

There is NO publication fee. Each contributor will be provided one complimentary copy in April, 2017.

Papers will be scrutinized thoroughly and checked for potential unethical practices. Selected papers will be collected in a book (with ISBN) to be published by a reputed publisher in India. Submission Deadline: 31st January, 2017. Submit to: studiesanimal@gmail.com

(posted 12 December 2016)

http://www.critical-stages.org International Association of Theatre Critics / Association internationale des critiques de thtre a/s Jean-Pierre Han, 27, rue Beaunier, 75014 Paris,France http://www.aict-iatc.org ISSN 2409-7411

Special Issue Editor: Johannes Birringer (DAP-Lab)

Overview

Inspired by recent productions in theatre and dance as well as by scholarly attention given to an acoustic/sonic turn in recent years that is closely linked to the growth in scenographic and design studies, this special issue of Critical Stages (number 16, December 2017) will focus on sonification/musicalization of the stage environment, generative sonic processes, theatre aurality, music theatre/opera, digital performance and sound design.

Looking at a widening arena of composed theatre as well as interactive and sonic installation art, we encourage vigorous debate on emerging concepts of rhythmic spaces, resonant dramaturgies, audiophonic scenographies, vibrational theatres, multisensory atmospheres in performance.

Many creative processes today (enhanced by diverse technologies and ever-changing techniques) gather momentum, in which audible, but also tactile, haptic and/or visible dynamics, actions, atmospheres and traces are recreated, without that theories of affect and perception have yet fully defined or explored the contours sound affords for the spectators/listeners, especially if interactions unfold within the area of the non-verbal and beyond alignment with signs, narrative threads.

We are also interested in hearing from practitioners who work in collaborative production on such contouring.

This issue invites a broad range of interdisciplinary perspectives drawn from compositional processes and production aesthetics as well as from investigations into the perception of the interplay of analogue/digital, instrumental/vocal, and musical or noise-sound, or various manifestations of sound design and sonic scenographies.

Key Themes:

The issue will approach the role of sound in performance/performance of sound with the following general headings in mind:

Length of papers: maximum 4000 words Proposals: 1 February 2017 First drafts: 1 August 2017 Publication date: December 2017 All proposals, submissions and enquiries should be sent to: Johannes.Birringer@brunel.ac.uk

(posted 22 November 2016)

Natalie Roxburgh, Jennifer Henke Contact email: natalie.roxburgh@uni-siegen.de, j.henke@uni-bremen.de

Psychopharmacology and British Literature, 1650 to 1900, an edited volume to be submitted for consideration in the series Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science, and Medicine, is now inviting submissions. This volumes aim is to bring together multi- and interdisciplinary perspectives on plant-based and/or chemical psychoactive substances that were new to contemporaries. Essays will investigate the time period of 1650 to 1900, the period in which psychoactive drug use, which had always been a part of cultural practice, became intensified partly because of colonial exploration and bio-prospecting but also because of the rise of pharmacological sciences and the advent of synthetic organic chemistry in the eighteenth century.

Rather than focusing on biographies of writers who used drugs as many scholarly inquiries already have done, papers in this volume will emphasize 1) the literary representations of drugs in British literature and 2) the contexts in which they were sold, used, and understood to work on the human brain and body. We welcome contributions on psychoactive substances ranging from, but not limited to: new types of alcohol, opium, morphine, cannabis, coca, laudanum, tobacco, coffee, tea, chocolate, and sugar.

Possible angles include:

Please submit a 500-word proposal to natalie.roxburgh@uni-siegen.de and j.henke@uni-bremen.de by 1 February 2017.

Acknowledgement of accepted proposals will be given by 1 March 2017. For those invited to contribute to the volume, completed essays of 5000-6000 words will be due by 1 September 2017. Please follow MLA style for in-text documentation and bibliography.

(posted 6 January 2017)

Editor: Dr Katarzyna Bronk, Faculty of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland contact email: kbronk@wa.amu.edu.pl

Samuel Johnson wrote in The Rambler: This one generation is always the scorn and wonder of the other, and the notions of the old and young are like liquor store of different gravity and texture which never can unite (in Ottaway 2016: 2.35). His comments, from 1750, were connected to the changing perception of ageing as well as the new dynamics and power play developing between members of the new and the old generations. This is in contrast to the ideal/idealised situation where intergenerational relations are best characterized as relationships of reciprocity, differently balanced on both sides at different stages of life according to need (Thane 2000: 12). Johnson was alluding to a crisis in intergenerational relationships, a concern that he was not alone in. Daniel Defoe likewise noticed that There is nothing on Earth more shocking, and withal more common, in but too many Famillies, than to see Age and Grey Hairs derided, and ill use (Protestant monastery). Both writers were openly hinting at intergenerational conflict and this is despite a more empathic attitude towards ones elders that is said to have developed in the eighteenth century. Naturally, intergenerational contention is not limited to the past as, even quite recently, Brexit revealed the deep-running Us versus Them divide, juxtaposing young(er) and the old(er) people, millennials and baby boomers, sons/daughters and the parents, and the newer and older immigrants (Brexit saw various forms of hierarchisation of immigrants), etc.

Literature has proved to be an effective medium for presenting, analysing and often offering ways of resolving real or fictional conflicts between age and youth, the old and the new. Drama, in its textual or performative form, proved even more forceful and imaginative, and theatre has additionally allowed for an almost three-dimensional exploration of various intergenerational dynamics, most often reified as crises and conflicts running additionally along intersectional lines of age, gender, race, class or religion. British drama has always been very sensitive to sociopolitical transformations, often allegorising public or national crises as private conflicts between family members. Thus, for example, youth conquers old(er) age in Renaissance family-themed plots; younger and more progressive characters triumph in Restoration political heroic tragedies or libertine comedies; the aged, more experienced heroes/heroines reclaim the virtue and dispense punishment in eighteenth-century sentimental and affective drama; the Angry Young (Wo)Men blame the earlier generations for ruining their chances for happiness; Oedipal (and Jocastian) crises tear families from the inside; cultural and sexual revolutions embold and enfranchise daughters and sons who question the rules of normativity of their parents generations; and, more recently, sons and daughters reject the cultural and religious values cherished by their parents and choose more traditional but also extremist ways of living

We wish to propose a book on these and various other ways and means of presenting, dramatising and staging (inter)generational crises, struggles and conflicts (and their possible solutions) in British theatre and drama across centuries. We invite abstracts (max 500 words) on various shades of staged and dramatised conflicts between the old and the young (age vs youth), the new and the old, etc. Interested authors are kindly asked to send their abstracts by 15th February 2017 to dr Katarzyna Bronk (kbronk@wa.amu.edu.pl and bbronkk@gmail.com). If accepted by the editors, selected abstracts will be collated into a thematic collection and proposed to a publisher. Upon acceptance by the publisher, the authors will be asked to write full versions of their papers. The books tentative title is: Dramatic Intergenerationality: Staging conflicts, crises and generational discord.

(posted 23 December 2016)

A volume edited by Leonor M. Martnez Serrano and Cristina M. Gmez-Fernndez Email addresses: l52masel@uco.es and cristina.gamez@uco.es

Deadline for abstract submissions: 1 March 2017. Notification of acceptance: 31 March 2017. Submission of full chapters: 1 October 2017.

Since the very cradle of civilization, Nature has been one of the secular concerns of poetry and philosophy. In a classic like Walden; or Life in the Woods (1854), Henry David Thoreau said: I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately. The woods would make him whole again; solitude and Nature would reactivate a claritas of mind in him that had apparently been overshadowed by human commerce. About a century later, Ezra Pound sang in The Cantos: Learn of the green world what can be thy place / In scaled invention or true artistry (81/541), aware as he was of the fact that the world is a subtle ecology of vast dimensions that needs our attention and respect. The green world was particularly pervasive in European Romantic poetry, which looked at Earth from a pristine standpoint, but its presence has continued unabated in 20th- and 21st-century literature, particularly in poetry and in prose writings concerned with understanding the natural world as opposed to the man-made world. At a time of worrying environmental degradation at a global scale, it is a matter of the utmost urgency to go back to poetry and philosophy to see how these most ancient modes of thinking (or instruments of mental production, as Northrop Frye puts it) are responding to one of the contemporary wicked problems that human societies are facing worldwide. Finding a solution to these global problems requires huge doses of creativity, cooperation and solidarity at a planetary level. Poetry and philosophy never give up on their call to shed some sort of temporary light on Nature and the human condition. In its forceful and disinterested search for truth, poetry remains intact and pure amid the dissonance of our ferociously post-capitalist world and/or denounces violence against it intensely through its verse, on occasions twisted and/or damaged too. Aware of how central Nature is to their epistemological enterprise, contemporary poets still feel there is something indecipherable at the core of the green world that must be tackled with intellectual and artistic alertness. Similarly, contemporary philosophers appear to address this century-old concern with how humans interact with the natural world, as well as the environmental crisis we are going through. Over 2500 years ago, the Pre-Socratic philosophers themselves were naturalists and ecologists avant la lettre, at a time when there was no point in drawing a clear-cut boundary between poetry, philosophy and ecology. The ultimate lesson is crystal clear: life is but an interdependent continuum of subtle modulations and so, by understanding Nature, humans will understand themselves, and by understanding themselves, they will understand their place within the larger scheme of things. In this sense, both poetry and philosophy represent powerful inquisitive tools to map the green world and render it comprehensible to the human mind.

We seek contributions that explore how contemporary poetry and philosophy address Nature and human beings relationship with the natural world. Both theoretical and practical approaches, as well as different critical stances are welcome. The following themes (or other pertinent topics related to the object under scrutiny) are of interest to the volume:

Prospective authors are invited to submit abstract proposals consisting of a title and a 500-word summary by 1 March 2017. Proposals should also include the following information: authors name, institutional affiliation, email address, and a 250-word CV. Authors will be notified of their paper proposal acceptance by 31 March 2017. Full chapters (5000-7000 words) will be expected by 1 October 2017. Both abstracts and full chapters must conform to the latest MLA style sheet guidelines and be sent as Word files to l52masel@uco.es and cristina.gamez@uco.es. Selected essays will be compiled in book format and the volume will be published by a prestigious international publisher still to determine in 2018.

(posted 20 December 2016)

The study of any national literary system cannot exclude a comparative approach and an investigation into the function of translations. Our aim in this monographic issue is to study works translated by leading writers in international literary cultures (not exclusively European), and then analyse the role of these translations in the formation of supranational literary canons. The leading writers of various literary traditions have in fact very often translated foreign works themselves by turning, on occasions, to translation as a fundamental practice for personal enrichment to creative and stylistic ends. However widespread this practice may be, it has nevertheless been underrated and, despite the importance given to this phenomenon by a variety of scholars, up to now only a few isolated studies have been carried out on the subject. Research has shown that there is a European (and not only) community of writers who, through the means of translation, now often share certain tones, structures, symbols and images. We will investigate how the practice of translation is echoed in the works of these writers, and we will try to define the network of interferences that have influenced their works and their national literary tradition. In this sense, authorial translations have also shown themselves to be a useful way of enriching the literary target language, as it often acts as a response to a need for renewal, and this particular confrontation with the foreigner represents a phenomenon of fundamental importance which has led to interaction between literary traditions. It is therefore our intention to analyse the practice of translation also as an essential step in the creative process. Why and when does a writer decide to translate? Which authors or works do they choose to translate and why? What are the dynamics that arise between the writer and the translator? And, above all, how much remains of the translation in the writers subsequent work? What are its effects on the canon, culture and receiving language? It is only by finding an answer to these questions that we will be able to explain the real connections between the individual national systems. The topics that may be presented will take into consideration:

Other proposals for study on the subject put forward by those intending to collaborate in the publication will be scrupulously examined by the Scientific Committee, in order to widen the field of exploration undertaken in this issue of the Journal. Proposals for contributions will be accepted in Italian, English and French. To this end, the Editorial Board propose the following deadlines, with an essential preliminary step being the sending, to redazione.polifemo@iulm.it of an abstract (min. 10/max. 20 lines) and a short curriculum vitae of the proposer, by and absolutely no later than 10th March 2017. Authors will receive confirmation from the Editorial Board of acceptance of their contributions by 20th March 2017. Contributions shall be delivered on 5th July 2017. All contributions will be subject to a double blind peer review. The issue, edited by Prof. Paolo Proietti and Dr. Francesco Laurenti, will be published in December 2017.

(posted 7 February 2017)

Editors: Professor Toby Miller (UC Riverside, USA), Dr. Anna Malinowska (University of Silesia, Poland)

The intervention of digitalism and the new media into a whole way of life (Williams 1960) has had a significant effect on human emotions and the ways we express and experience feelings in daily interaction . The focus of this special issue is the new media and emotion, analyzed in relation to changing life environments and human emotional interactions. We invite papers that will re-examine the relationship between new media forms, media-ridden realities, and emotional structures (interactions, reactions, affordances etc.) with respect to cultural processes examined from a myriad of scholarly perspectives and methodological approaches. Suggested topics include: Feelings and the (post)-Anthropocene: emotional interactions between human beings, the natural environment, and non-human technologies; Changes of emotional practice / perception: new sensory dimensions and bodily reactions (non-contact interactions etc. Emotions as objects expressed in new technologies. Affective experiences with the new media; Technologies of emotions / emotions in technologies; Emotional labor and the service industries, from goldmining on-line games to virtual sex work; The commodification and governance of feelings; The relationship between affect theory, phenomenology, and the psy-function (psychoanalysis, psychology, and psychopharmacology; How media-effects models construct the relationship between new media and emotions; The use of feelings discourse in journalism, political communication, and social conflicts

Proposals of 500 words followed by a short bio, listing qualifications and publications, should be submitted to izabella.penier@degruyteropen.com by 30 March 2017.

(posted 20 January 2017)

FATHOM (French Association for Thomas Hardy Studies, http://fathomhardy.fr/) seeks essay submissions on Desire and the Expressive Eye in Thomas Hardy. The essays will be published in FATHOM, the electronic journal of the French association: http://fathom.revues.org/

Proposals of 300 words with a short bio are due by March 31 2017. Final papers are due by June 30 2017. The FATHOM stylesheet is available at : http://fathom.revues.org/482 Please send the submissions to: Isabelle Moragon Gadoin isabelle.moragon.gadoin@univ-poitiers.fr Annie Ramel annie.ramel@gmail.com

Thomas Hardy has inspired critics with an interest in the visual arts: many of his texts can be read as iconotexts, i.e. as texts with a powerful painting effect, even in the absence of any direct reference to painting (L. Louvel). His style, with its characteristic verbal-visual effects (J. B. Bullen), owes much to Ruskin and Turner. Desire is another theme which has found its way into major criticism of Hardys workthe first item in the series being J. Hillis Millers Distance and Desire.

This publication will explore the relation between desire and the gaze in Hardys work. In Under the Greenwood Tree for instance, desire is kindled by the sight of a woman, Miss Fancy Day, framed within the quadrangolo of her window: the window of fantasy (Lacan) opens onto a world of dreamings and yearnings. But the gaze in Hardys fiction can also have a lethal power. The evil eye looking at Mrs Yeobright through a window-pane in The Return of the Native causes her to meet her doom on the heath: she has been overlooked by her daughter-in-law, just as Gertrude is overlooked by Rhoda Brown in The Withered Arm. Is the eye, then, an expressive eye (J. B. Bullen), which makes manifest the positive, dynamic and productive dimension of desire (J. Thomas)? Or is it felt as a menace, like the oval pond in Far from the Madding Crowd, which glitters like a dead mans eye? Is it full of voracity, intent on devouring whoever comes under its spell?

We will welcome proposals opening new directions in Hardy criticism, linking the desiring subject and the power of the gaze. Studies can focus on the stories told by Hardy, but also on the writing process: on the power of the written word, which is to make you hear, to make you feel[] before all, to make you see! (Joseph Conrad, Preface to The Nigger of the Narcissus). And how does Hardy the writer manage to turn to good account the power of the gaze in his texts? We welcome essays on any of Hardys writings (novels, short-stories, poems, etc.).

BULLEN, J. B.. The Expressive Eye, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986. LACAN, Jacques. The Seminar, Book XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, translated by Alan Sheridan, Penguin Books, 1979. LOUVEL, Liliane. Poetics of the Iconotext, edited by Karen Jacobs, translated by Laurence Petit, Farnham: Ashgate 2011. MILLER, Joseph Hillis. Thomas Hardy: Distance and Desire, London: Oxford University Press, 1970. THOMAS, Jane. Thomas Hardy and Desire: Conceptions of the Self, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

(posted 6 January 2017)

Centuries ago, Aristotle fashioned a term that brought literature and psychology face to face: catharsis (psychological or mental purification of the feelings). From that time onwards, literature and human psyche have been correlated either by various writers, philosophers, critics, or by means of several techniques or movements. Not only was it tragedy that combined the elements of psychology with literary production, it was also novel, poetry, short story and even some psychoanalytical theories that brought psyche and literature together. There has always been a mutual partnership of the two: psychology of men and literature of men. It was Sigmund Freud, for instance, who introduced Oedipus complex from what Sophocles held as the plot of Oedipus the King. It was Samuel Richardson who carried the earlier features of sentimental novel and the early flashes of psychological novel through his Pamela. It was Henry James who borrowed the stream of consciousness technique from psychology and introduced it to be used in literature, and then was subtly employed by James Joyce in Ulysses and by Virginia Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway. Charles Dickens, with his famous industrial novel Great Expectations, reflected the well-established norms of psychological realism. George Bernard Shaws Pygmalion was named after the mythological figure of Greek Pygmalion, and the name was also adapted into the Pygmalion effect to emphasize the observable phenomena related to the psychology and performance of men. Similarly, Vladimir Nabokovs Lolita became a focal work that impacted the birth of Lolita complex. Friedrich Nietzsches ubermensch (just as it is employed by Bernard Shaw in Superman), MartinEsslins theatre of the absurd (employed by Samuel Beckett in Waiting for Godot), Antonin Artauds theatre of cruelty (employed by Edward Bond in Saved) and etc. all could be tackled in terms of interrelation of human psyche and literariness.

Psychology has also some observable impacts on the writers writing skill. Causing extreme changes in mood, bipolar disorder is addressed by many critics to be the central origin behind creativity. Such writers and critics as John Ruskin, Virginia Woolf, Edgar Allan Poe, Alan Garner, Hams Christian Anderson and Sherman Alexei among others are known to have bipolar disorder that impacted their literary creativity. Feminist urges also produced the female creativity within some genres of literature. It was Emily Dickenson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Virginia Woolf, George Eliot, and Bronte Sisters that embraced the psychology of the power of female creativity on the way to writing. For that reason, psychology and literature live in each others pockets.

This proposal suggests a forum of differing ideas on the link between literature and psychology, psychology of writing, traumatic literature, the construction of the Self within literature, the psychology of characterization, psychoanalytical approaches, and the psychology of literary creativity.

The topics of interest include but not limited to the following titles:

Submission ProcedureResearchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before March 31, 2017, a chapter proposal of 1,000 to 2,000 words clearly explaining the mission and concerns of his or her proposed chapter. Authors will be notified by April 30, 2017 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by October 30, 2017, and all interested authors must consult the guidelines for manuscript submissions at http://www.cambridgescholars.com/t/AuthorFormsGuidelines prior to submission. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. Contributors may also be requested to serve as reviewers for this project. Note: There are no submission or acceptance fees for manuscripts submitted to this book publication, Cambridge Scholars Publishing. All manuscripts are accepted based on a double-blind peer review editorial process.

Publisher: This book is scheduled to be published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK. For additional information regarding the publisher, please visit http://www.cambridgescholars.com/. This publication is anticipated to be released in 2018.

Important Dates

Inquiries Editors Name: nder akrta Editors Affiliation: PhD, Assistant Professor, Bingol University (Turkey), Department of English Language and Literature

Editors Contact Information Bingl niversitesi Fen Edebiyat Fakltesi Oda No:D2-8 12000 Bingl/TRKYE callforliteraturepapers@gmail.com cakirtasonder@gmail.com

(posted 7 February 2017)

http://shakespeare.edel.univ-poitiers.fr

This issue would like to explore the relationship between Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, that of Shakespeare but also his contemporaries, and the representation of Africa, or, from a contextual viewpoint, the perception of the African continent in early modern England. The issue will also discuss 19th-21st c. re-writings, appropriations and adaptations of Shakespeare by African and African-American writers, stage directors and film directors.

Proposals may discuss, among other issues:

Completed papers, in English or in French, should be sent by late April 2017 along with an abstract, a contributors bio and a list of keywords, to Yan Brailowsky and Pascale Drouet: yan.brailowsky@u-paris10.fr, pascale.drouet@univ-poitiers.fr

Selected References

(posted 1 August 2016)

For this special issue of Gramma/: Journal of Theory and Criticism (2018) we invite you to submit papers focusing on what Adrienne Rich termed the politics of location. Papers may examine theoretical, literary, and, more broadly, artistic explorations of various kinds of location (for example, in addition to location, allocation, dislocation, relocation). How do cultural, economic, historical, and political legacies, as well as materialconditions, inform or produce the movement of bodies across various spaces (for example, textual, media, geographical, temporal, embodied, relational)? How does such movement shape the definition, recognition, viability, and value of those bodies? How have changing conceptions of space produced and reshaped understandings of gender, sex, sexuality, ethnicity, race, disability, and class?Relatedly, in what ways does the body become the site where individual, local and global intersections take place?

Contributions may analyze works from any time period or engage with readings across times and cultures. Topics may include the following:

Proposals (500 words) and a short/abbreviated curriculum vitae should be sent toMargaret Breen (Margaret.Breen@uconn.edu) and Katerina Kitsi-Mitakou (katkit@enl.auth.gr) by March 15, 2017 (drafts will be due by August 1, 2017).

Gramma/: Journal of Theory and Criticism is an international journal, published in English and Greek once a year by the School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in collaboration with the Publications Department of the university. It welcomes articles and book reviews from a wide range of areas within the theory and criticism of literature and culture. Of particular interest to the journal are articles with an interdisciplinary approach. Each individual issue has guest editors and is devoted to a subject of recent cultural interest, with book reviews relevant to the topic. All manuscripts are subject to blind peer review and will be commented on by at least two independent experts.

For more information about the journal, visit http://www.enl.auth.gr/gramma/index.html .

(posted 3 September 2016)

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Announcing My New Book: The Essentials of Christian Thought: Seeing Reality through the Biblical Story by Roger E. Olson (Zondervan)

Today I received in the mail two advance copies of my latest book entitled The Essentials of Christian Thought: Seeing Reality through the Biblical Story (Zondervan, 2017). Here is what theologian Alister E. McGrath of Oxford University says about it: Olson offers his readers a timely and powerful defense of a distinctively Christian metaphysics and teases out its implications for theology, apologetics, and cultural dialogue. It is a rich and rewarding read and will do much to reassure its readers of the intellectual credentials of the Christian faith. Here is what theologian Stanley Hauerwas of Duke University says about it: Just as war is too important to be left to generals, so philosophy is too important to be left to philosophers. At least philosophy in the hands of a theologian like Roger Olson is too important to be left to philosophers. Though my understanding of philosophy is not the same as Olsons, I learned much from his stimulating account.

*Sidebar: The opinions expressed here are my own (or those of the guest writer); I do not speak for any other person, group or organization; nor do I imply that the opinions expressed here reflect those of any other person, group or organization unless I say so specifically. Before commenting read the entire post and the Note to commenters at its end.*

This book was born out of this blog! Zondervan editor Madison Trammel read something I wrote here about faith learning integration and contacted me about writing a book based on what I wrote. I decided this was my opportunity to do several things I had long thought about. I had long wanted to write a book about the faith part of faith-learning integration, a much misunderstood project that is common to most explicitly Christian institutions of higher learning. I had also long wanted to explore, and then write about, the concept of a biblical metaphysics. During the 1950s and 1960s several Jewish and Christian theologians published articles and a few books about that concept but it never really caught on. Most people have assumed that biblical and metaphysics cannot be combined and that biblical metaphysic is an oxymoron.

My original title for this work was Narrative Biblical Metaphysics. Then, I suggested that as its subtitle. Neither idea flew with the publisher. (Who would buy a book with metaphysics in the title or subtitle?) Fine. Im not a marketer. They know best and I do want the book to sell! So the publisher titled the book The Essentials of Christian Thought with the hope, I suppose, that it will be adopted as a textbook by professors of courses in basic Christian thought. I hope so, too.

But I do want to say that this book is not just a generic exposition of traditional Christian thought. Some of the ideas I explore and promote in it are far from traditional. In my opinion, we, Christians, need a back to the Bible project that strips away the layered accretions of philosophical theology, much of it borrowed by the church fathers and medieval theologians from Greek thought, and uncovers the implicit metaphysical vision of the Bible itself. In my opinion, as I explain in this book, the Bible is literature; it is primarily narrative. But it contains a kind of hidden (in the sense of assumed) metaphysic that is not the same at every point with classical Christian theism.

Here is the table of contents: Preface and Introduction, Chapter 1: Knowing Christianly: Seeing Reality through the Biblical Story, Interlude 1, Chapter 2: Ultimate Reality is Supernatural and Personal (But Not Human), Interlude 2, Chapter 3: The Biblical Vision of Ultimate Reality Retrieved, Interlude 3, Chapter 4: Non-Biblical, Non-Christian Views of Reality, Interlude 4, Chapter 5: The Biblical-Christian View of Ultimately Reality: God, Interlude 5, Chapter 6: The Biblical-Christian Perspective on the World, Interlude 6, Chapter 7: BiblicalChristian Humanism, Interlude 7, Appendix: A Model for the Integration of Faith and Learning.

This book is not written for scholars, although I hope many will appreciate and enjoy it. Some may even learn something from it (as Hauerwas says he did!). This book is written for inquiring Christian minds who are concerned that they may have missed something in their Christian formation or that their (or other Christians) thinking about ultimate, final reality may be infected by non-biblical, non-Christian influences that are antithetical to the Bibles implicit vision of ultimate reality.

Underlying this books surface, its barely stated purpose, is to correct widespread Christian syncretism of thought and belief. Many, many Christians thoughts about reality are simply a confused mixture of incompatible beliefs drawn from popular culture, folk religion and poor preaching. This book is intended to be a guide for perplexed Christianseven ones who do not know they are perplexed!

*Note to commenters: This blog is not a discussion board; please respond with a question or comment solely to me. If you do not share my evangelical Christian perspective (very broadly defined), feel free to ask a question for clarification, but know that this is not a space for debating incommensurate perspectives/worldviews. In any case, know that there is no guarantee that your question or comment will be posted by the moderator or answered by the writer. If you hope for your question or comment to appear here and be answered or responded to, make sure it is civil, respectful, and on topic. Do not comment if you have not read the entire post and do not misrepresent what it says. Keep any comment (including questions) to minimal length; do not post essays, sermons or testimonies here. Do not post links to internet sites here. This is a space for expressions of the bloggers (or guest writers) opinions and constructive dialogue among evangelical Christians (very broadly defined).

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Announcing My New Book - Patheos (blog)

Feb 15, 2017- One of Japans best-known manga artists, Jiro Taniguchi, has died aged 69, his publisher has announced.

Taniguchi, who was known for his elegant line drawings and intricately-constructed landscapes, died on Saturday.

His art earned him an international following and some of his work was made into a television series. His death was announced by Casterman, his publisher in France, where his work was particularly popular.

Casterman must sadly announce the death of Jiro Taniguchi on 11 February, the company said on its website, expressing deep condolences to his family. Taniguchi was widely praised for the gentle manner in which he approached subjects that were often unique for Japans manga consumers.

His works such as The Walking Man, The Summit of the Gods and The Magic Mountain, stood apart in a genre sometimes seen as rooted in extreme violence and pornography.

In The Walking Man, the protagonist of the story simply wanders around fascinated with aspects of everyday life. Taniguchi was extraordinarily kind and gentle, Casterman said in a statement.

The humanism that imbued all his work is familiar to his readers, but the man himself was much less well-known, naturally reserved in character and more inclined to let his work speak on his behalf, the publisher added. In an interview with the AFP news agency in 2012, Taniguchi explained why his art was painstakingly hand-drawn. I do not use a computer because I do not know how, I dont have that skill, he said.

He was also surprised at his popularity in the West.

I dont know why I am also known outside Japan. Perhaps it is because my work is similar to Western comics, which Ive followed for 30 years and they have influenced my subconscious, he said. Taniguchis detailed landscapes filled with cartoon characters drew comparisons in the West with European comic heroes such as Tintin.

Born in 1947 in the city of Tottori, Taniguchi had his first cartoon published in 1970. Many years later his graphic art took off in France and in 2015 his work was featured at the annual Angouleme international comics festival.

Published: 15-02-2017 10:52

See original here:

Japanese manga artist Jiro passes away - The Kathmandu Post

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The Tate dives into the art of David Hockney - The Economist (blog)

Sen. Bernie Sanders' CNN health care debate with Sen. Ted Cruz Tuesday night was a case study of the competing visions of social justice and free market fundamentalism.

The ostensible frame of the debate was on the expected repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

But the presence of Sanders on the stage changed the discourse to a broader contrast of compassion or a ruthless you're on your own society.

What Sanders articulated so well is the vision of humanism and hope that animated his Presidential campaign.

That healthcare must be a fundamental human right. That we are "in this together," and not just in words, or as he said in a South Carolina town hall during his campaign, "that when you hurt, when your children hurt, I hurt."

That we live in a country over stuffed with legislators, the corporate donors who fund them, and the far right policy wonks, who arm them with Ayn Rand-style ideas that elevate privilege and greed to a moral imperative.

Or in health care, a system of money over care, of profiting off human suffering and pain, that is a death sentence for so many.

Speaking on behalf of the repeal and replace crowd, Cruz hammered away at the central Tea Party theme, "freedom" from "government" mandates (unless it is dictating the rules of women's health choices, of course).

Accompanied by the misleading mythology of the market, that with private insurance you have the "freedom" to choose your doctor, to design the health plan you want, and to pay what you want.

Truth at this stage seems to be of marginal value in a country divided in so many ways.

The backdrop is a long campaign, carefully orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and others to convince working people across the country that government, not Wall Street, not corporations, is to blame for a country that fails them.

Thus the false narrative that government programs, including safety net measures that are essential to maintaining a civil society, and regulations, public protections, such as clean air and water and food safety, are an impediment to jobs and economic security.

It's especially a fraud in health care, which remains in the iron grip of corporations, which accumulate massive profits by denying care or setting prices so high, with virtually no limits on what they can charge, that have created a cruel system based on ability to pay.

Thus, a highlight of the debate, Bernie calling out Cruz on whether health care is a right. Cruz' response, "access to care" is the right. To which Bernie aptly responded, as he had earlier to Rep. Tom Price, the rightwing ideologue tapped as Health and Human Services Secretary: "access" is not care if you can't afford it.

The sad irony of the ACA is that it was a convoluted attempt to straddle both worlds - public mandates, including the expansion of Medicaid, curbs on many insurance abuses, and a number of required benefits for ACA plans, with multiple handouts to entrench and enrich healthcare corporations, from insurers to hospitals to drug companies.

The result - the Republicans are right, the ACA out-of-pocket costs are out of control and the insurance networks are limited. But that's because the ACA was modeled on a Republican-Mitt Romney plan in Massachusetts with mechanisms set in place to protect the healthcare industry.

And, all the replacement schemes envisioned by Cruz and his cohorts would make it even worse. Their rhetoric and crocodile tears over costs under the ACA are a convenient stalking horse for "replacement" plans that would not guarantee lower costs, but even greater license for corporations to charge all that they can get.

They would shut even more people out, letting them die if they cannot afford the inflated costs or trapped in a byzantine scheme of health savings accounts, high risk pools, or bare bones insurance plans, all premised on how much you can pay.

Only one replacement plan would actually fix the real holes in the ACA, and the far greater pre-ACA disaster that saw the U.S. plummet to 37th in world rankings on access, cost, and quality early in this century. That is, of course, as Sanders emphasized in his campaign, and in the debate, an improved Medicare for all.

Here's a table, comparing and contrasting health care before the ACA, with the ACA fixes and limitations, what the Republicans propose today, and what an actual humane system would look like.

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The Sanders-Cruz Debate Humane Health Care Or Free Market Fundamentalism? - Huffington Post

New York Times

Oscar-Nominated Shorts: Unsung but Worth Your Time New York Times Silent Nights confronts similar questions as it traces the relationship between a young Danish woman and a Ghanaian immigrant, whose mutual empathy (and romantic attraction) is tested by the drastically different circumstances they face. The humanism ...

Originally posted here:

Oscar-Nominated Shorts: Unsung but Worth Your Time - New York Times

FEBRUARY 8, 2017

MATTER SEEMS TO BE a straightforward idea: its the stuff that comprises a rock, a table, a chair. For centuries, some have argued that this stuff is all right there in the world; others have claimed it can be reduced to nothing more than human thought. In recent years, however, dualists those who, traditionally, define matter against mind or spirit have found themselves increasingly under siege, while a wave of scholars have challenged the notion that matter is rudimentarily inert. Among such new materialists, political theorist Jane Bennett and professor of feminist studies Karen Barad have each advocated for matters agency, at least when it combines into assemblages like electrical power grids and apparatuses from scientific experiments to sonograms.

In its efforts to present itself as a genuinely new materialism, however, some of this matter-animating work can overstate its own novelty. While acknowledging predecessors from Henri Bergson to Niels Bohr, new materialism tends to present much recent critical work as insufficiently concerned with the nonhuman, the embodied, or the material. Despite the marked differences between scholars who might identify as new materialists, object-oriented ontologists, immanent naturalists, speculative realists, and post-humanists, these new materialists share a set of general assumptions: they tend to emphasize a contingent ontology or metaphysics over epistemology, reject anthropocentrism (though much of it carves out room for anthropomorphism), and highlight the complexity of matter in all its relational forms and compositions. Much of this work, too, is interested in climate change and the ways contemporary global capitalisms have challenged our understandings of mind/body, nature/society, human/nonhuman, animate/inanimate, and subject/object binaries.

In his latest book Other Things (2015), Bill Brown stakes a claim in just about all of these new materialist concerns. He writes about capitalism, the Anthropocene, and globalization. He describes his work in terms of the ontical and draws heavily from the work of object-oriented ontologists, speculative realists, and the French science studies scholar Bruno Latour (a frequent new materialist interlocutor). He avoids taking the old binaries for granted, especially that particular binary relationship between a thing and an object explored in Heideggers philosophical work, which elaborates the difference between something that exists for us and something that exists for itself. For decades now, Brown has been thinking and writing about thing theory, as he has called it. But in Other Things, he attempts to make clear the connections between his work and the recent surge of critical work involving things, objects, and matter.

Brown starts Other Things by approaching animate matter through the Shield of Achilles, Western literatures most magnificent object, a metal-crafted thing on which two cities, the City of Peace and the City of War, come to life. He writes, The poem repeatedly clarifies that Achilles Shield is at once a static object and a living thing. This combination suggests an ambiguous ontology in which the being of the object world cannot so readily be distinguished from the being of animals, say, or the being we call human being. But in the hands of scholars interested above all in rhetorical analysis and especially in ekphrasis, Brown says, such ontological possibilities have been largely ignored, and the shields apparent animation has been rendered immobile.

Rather than ignore the shields ontology, Brown wants to insert the shield into a history of animate matter, where it would anticipate the later vital materialisms of Rodin, Bergson, Deleuze and Guattari, and Bruno Latour, among others. Brown argues that Homers poem does not acknowledge our more modern convictions about the difference between the animate and inanimate, subject and object, persons and things. In Homers world, he says, gods can appear in Troy. They can intervene explicitly in human life. Why, then, should it come as a surprise that a shield wrought of bronze, tin, gold, and silver might vibrate with its own life?

Browns interpretation of the shield is a good example of the sort of materialism explored throughout Other Things. What is important to Brown is the Shields thingness, as opposed to its sensible (formed and perceived) objecthood. This thingness marks the life proper to the shield, an other thing (marked by a combination of animacy and inanimacy, by a meaning we can glimpse but never fully comprehend) that exceeds and is irreducible to the objects form. And though Browns ultimate aim is not to develop anything like a complete history of animate matter (after he deals with Achilles Shield in his Overture, he shifts directly to examples from 1890 to2010), his analysis of Achilles Shield encourages his readers to imagine a longer history than the one ultimately presented here. More than that, though, the example shows us where Brown is willing to go and where he is not. Unlike many other writers talking about the vitality of matter today, Brown makes an ontological argument drawing on the work of a vast array of other writers, filmmakers, philosophers, and artists, from Heidegger and Lacan to Virginia Woolf and Man Ray, from Brian Jungen to Shawn Wong.

Browns longstanding interest in this other thing (or thingness as distinguished from objecthood) is the books driving force. Brown wants, as he puts it, to explore the force of inanimate objects in human experience by showing what literature and the visual and plastic arts have been trying to teach us about our everyday object world: about the thingness that inheres as a potentiality within any object, about the object-event that precipitates the thing.

His work is a subtle challenge to versions of new materialism that deemphasize or even disparage questions that involve the real being given form by language and representation. For those grouped together as new materialists (for example, many writers in the collection The Speculative Turn), the consensus seems to be that structuralism, deconstruction, theories of the subject, and an emphasis on discourse, social construction, image, and text, are all dead ends whether under the name critique, correlationism, anti-realism, or anything else along the path toward understanding the real. As Levi Bryant, Graham Harman, and Nick Srnicek put it in the context of continental philosophy in their edited collection on speculative realism:

It has long been commonplace within continental philosophy to focus on discourse, text, culture, consciousness, power, or ideas as what constitutes reality. But despite the vaunted anti-humanism of many of the thinkers identified with these trends, [] humanity remains at the centre of these works, and reality appears in philosophy only as the correlate of human thought. In this respect phenomenology, structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, and postmodernism have all been perfect exemplars of the anti-realist trend []. In the face of the looming ecological catastrophe, and the increasing infiltration of technology into the everyday world (including our own bodies), it is not clear that the anti-realist position is equipped to face up to these developments. The danger is that the dominant anti-realist strain of continental philosophy has not only reached a point of decreasing returns, but that it now actively limits the capacities of philosophy in our time.

For his part, trained as a literary scholar, Brown does not try to mount the attacks on language and discourse or even epistemology that are peppered throughout work of thinkers like Bryant and Harman, though he does take brief shots at structuralism and deconstruction. And his close analyses of various objects allow him to provide more nuance and historical specificity when it comes to discussions of modernism, postmodernism, and continental philosophy without succumbing to the anthropocentrism that so worries most new materialists.

Brown is careful to temper, too, recent tendencies to undermine the subject. As part of his consideration of thingness, he considers how we distinguish ourselves from those other things that are not persons, and how personhood depends on and grows to resemble these other things. For him, doing so involves maintaining the subject-object divide. For thingness is at its core a relationship between subject and object, where the two are not only mutually constitutive, but also mutually animating. For instance, in revealing the thingness of a comb, Man Rays photographs explore the relationship between humans and everyday objects; they also help observers imagine a secret life of objects ultimately inaccessible to their understanding. Meanwhile, when Brian Jungen dissects Air Jordans and turns them into authentic-inauthentic Haida masks, he is revealing a certain thingness of both sorts of objects in their relation to various object cultures including primitivism, UScommodity culture, the traditional art of the Haida and other indigenous people of the Northwest Coast.

The arts in general, and literature in particular, play a crucial and welcome role in Other Things, shaping what we perceive as animate and inanimate, mattering and not mattering, like and unlike us. The arts are also key to the politics of Browns book, which argues that understanding things differently perceiving them and acknowledging the extent to which they animate us as we animate them could have political effects. As Brown writes, the arts:

disclose the complications, equivocations, mediations, and possible destinations of any [] democracy, present, past, and future. Literature may indeed be the place where, in Latours wordsthe freedom of agency that is, the distribution of agency beyond the human can be regained, but it is also the place where such freedom can be lost or, most precisely, the place where the dynamics of gaining and losing are especially legible. In other words, literature also portrays the resistances to that freedom and the ramifications of it, be they phenomenological or ontological, psychological or cultural.

Brown makes what is likely the most sophisticated and strongest case for literary and historical study within a new materialist framework by suggesting that thingness can best be explained in the cultural field, rather than through, say, metaphysics.

In particular, Brown makes a persistent case for real imaginative and political possibility in objects, or object possibility: the chance that some thing about an object might mediate persons differently, that difference might glimmer within the object world as though in a crystal ball. His most favored terms misuse value (the value that comes from using objects in an unexpected way) and redemptive reification (a kind of reification that reveals an objects thingness) are predicated on this possibility.

Other Things is most lucid when applying such ideas to particular art objects and literary texts: when Brown examines the redemptive reification associated with pottery and handcrafted jewelry in Philip K. Dicks novels, the object possibility in the black collectibles found in Spike Lees Bamboozled, the misuse value of a piece of glass in Virginia Woolfs short story Solid Objects, or the ability of postmodern artworks to help us imagine an unhuman history that may include humans but is not anthropocentric.

In these moments, Brown reveals nuance and historical specificity that bolster a kind of new materialism that can sometimes play too fast and loose with its predecessors. Even if I admire this generosity and rigor of thought, however, it is up to us to decide whether we believe as Brown says he does in the power of thingness (or, more specifically, the power of our recognizing thingness) to transform life as we know it.

Jeanette Samyn is an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Wesleyan University.

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Thinging the Real: On Bill Brown's Other Things - lareviewofbooks

Daily Post Nigeria

James Ibori inspired David Cameron's comment of Nigeria being 'fantastically corrupt' CACOL Daily Post Nigeria A statement signed by its Media Coordinator, Wale Salami and sent to DAILY POST, reads, It is sad and disheartening to see human beings so audaciously being ripped of their humanism; the very basis of their existence, out of the 'inadvertent' need to ... and more »

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James Ibori inspired David Cameron's comment of Nigeria being 'fantastically corrupt' CACOL - Daily Post Nigeria

In June 2015, Donald Trump announced his candidacy for President with a wild promise: that hed halt illegal immigration and crime which he traced to Mexican immigrants by building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

I will build a great wall and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me and Ill build them very inexpensively, he said. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.

Trump is intent on delivering on that campaign process as president. He kickstarted the process with an executive order last week, ordering the immediate construction of a physical wall on the southern border that would serve as an impassable physical barrier between the United States and illegal aliens. Trumps intended wall would be 1,000 miles natural barriers would take care of the rest and claims it will cost between $10 to $12 billion (estimates from the Government Accountability Office have the number closer to $14 billion).

A nation without borders is not a nation, Trump said when he announced the wall executive order. Beginning today, the United States of America gets back control of its borders gets back its borders.

But walls dont fit into our increasingly post-humanist society, argues Juanita Sundberg, an ethnographer who specializes in border security and geopolitics at the University of British Columbia. Inverse spoke to her about the role of walls in defining national borders.

You say walls dont fit into a definition of post-humanism, which has many definitions of post-humanism. How would you define that concept?

There are different ways of thinking about it. One of them is considering in which ways humans will become beyond human through technological changes. Another approach to what post-humanism is more the focus of my research is more focused on the de-centering of the social world and the reaction of humans to that, what will happen when technological influences change how traditional networks are composed.

There are psychological studies that show that walls can have the intended effects of the people who want to construct them such as influencing people to accept the status quo. Do you think that will change as we become more influenced by technology?

I feel like the wall [that Trump is discussing] is already influenced by technology because it operates symbolically online so few people seem to realize that there is already a wall. There is so much conversation and hype about it all, but the number of people who will actually have to experience and live with the wall is a minority.

I find it hard to believe that, for most people, they are considering it an actual material thing. When you speak to people who are actually living by the border, they are saying things like: We know the wall doesnt work, why are the rest of you so excited about it? The symbolic power of the wall remains as powerful as ever.

As an ethnographer who studies and researchers political ecology, what is your reaction to hearing that people intend to build this physical wall?

To me, it is completely outdated as a technological thing. Its not a technology that works unless you have someone posted every three feet.

There has been so much effort by the U.S. government to create a virtual wall, and there are places along the border where these virtual walls are. Essentially, these virtual walls have technological features that allow border control to survey the area and create a wall in the sense that they can sense movement, and they can see whether the movement is people or animals. The purpose of these walls is to calculate where undocumented people are coming out of the landscape, and channel them into very specific geographies that then make it easier to apprehend them.

The research that Im conducting is looking at the ways in which the physical landscape creates all kinds of obstacles for this technological wall; it also makes it difficult for construction and maintaining of a physical wall. Even though were so sophisticated technologically, the physical landscape continuously thwarts human plans to build barriers.

Do you think that virtual walls have a different symbolic effect on people than physical walls?

Ive sat in on community meetings with the border control in souther Arizona where theres discussion about the construction of virtual walls, and people were very upset because the virtual wall cameras and such were actually surveilling them. And people were really disturbed by this notion that they are now going to be the object of this technological surveillance. That factor really changed things for them. I was in a small town that is closer to the border, and people do a lot of outdoor activities there and were concerned about being exhibited in the border control stations while they did that.

Interestingly, you never really hear about the virtual wall in the news. You dont see advertising for it, the same conversation that the physical wall gets. It doesnt have literal weight you dont see anything, it looks like a cell tower.

Turning to the future, if walls dont work, what is the right way to approach borders? Do you think a post-humanist society will pivot away from this type of border security?

Yes, I think that pivot will happen. How exactly is obviously uncertain perhaps our passports will be embedded in our bodies, and so surveillance becomes biometric. But again, if our bodies became our passport, we move towards a totally authoritarian society.

Or the opposite may happen, and we go back to the entire span of human history where borders really werent significant. Physical, political boundaries are such a recent phenomena. What is interesting is that we think were moving into the future, but something as regressive as a wall is the recent past the nothing that its going to protect the nation-state. Border security on the U.S.-Mexico border is recent; on the U.S.-Canada is recent. We assume that the future is more progressive, or that we will progress beyond what seems like archaic technology, yet that appears to be one of the ways that we might be going now. This wall certainly isnt indicative of any technological progress.

And do you think a potential future where surveillance acts as border security will create a different effect than a wall?

It creates obstacles yes, but theyre [migrants] going to get around it. It just has so little weight for them which is not to diminish the violence they face. They are very much aware of that of being caught, of getting lost out there; there are a variety of ways in which the border is materially violent. But Im talking about its political weight, which seems to be just meaningless.

I think the migrants of today exemplify what has always been true, and I think will always be true, which is that humans constantly move through the landscape. Thats a normal part of human history people will move. The idea that we should be static and closed in is a recent one.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Photos via Wikimedia Commons (1, 2), Getty Images / Justin Sullivan

Sarah is a writer based in Brooklyn. She has previously written for The New Republic, Pacific Standard, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency. She likes cheese especially when paired with a full-bodied joke.

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Trump's Wall Will Fail in the Era of Post-Humanism - Inverse

Over-caffeinated hysteria forms the backdrop of the Presidency of Donald Trump.

At first, the hysteriaseemed the inevitable aftermath of a particularly nasty and at times vitriolicpolitical campaign. With two such dislikable and polarizing candidates, a winter of discontent was comingno matter who became the 45th President of the United States.

But the range and intensityof the outrageseems to be growing every morning, and in a manner asymmetric with past elections.

The asymmetry invites further reflection.

It seems to me that the range is boundless because Hillary Clintons loss wasnt just a political defeat. It was a radical contradiction of the progressives worldview convictions.

The postnationalist corporations a designation which includes celebrities, the media, multinational corporations, and various international agencies are predicated upon a globalism built on technology that seeks to remove all boundaries, particularly of a moral nature; on the other hand, President Trump has clearly defined boundaries to his vision for America, and upholds the historic position that as President, his prime responsibility should be to his country: America first.

President Trumps stances are problematic for politicians and institutions around the globe that have been thinning borders of all sorts for a generation. As the lead actor on the international stage, the multinationalists recognize that the United States lead will force the political class of other countries to change. A Brexit-like effect will require them to demonstrate a similar patriotism and priority of care for their own citizens, not just the good of the wealthy multinationals that live in every country.

Trickle down multinational economics and open tap immigration policies arent working for Middle America, or the first world for that matter.

Instead of a localized earthquake that shakes American politics like the Tea Party, the reaction to Trump is a global tsunami of the expressive individualism that forms the civil religion of the global elite. And because it is an establishment rebellion, it comes not from the mouths of the ordinary people of middle America, but those of the good and the great, or in the debauched equivalents of our day, the celebrities and the CEOs of multinational corporations.

It is symbolic that Starbuckshas capitalized on the feeling to advertise its internationalist and borderless bona fides, because it is serving up the antithesis of the Tea Party movement.

We might call it a neo-Marxist Fairly Traded Coffee Party.

The defeat of the technocratic, postnationalist establishment

It seems irrelevant to them that some of President Trumps policies sound a lot like those of Bernie Sanders, whose stances were wildly popular with many in the Democrat ranks. It is irrelevant because the Fairly Traded Coffee Party is not a popular revolt, it is an organized establishment pushback manipulating the causes of the various identity groups of its anti-establishment base to foment insurrection against their common enemy.

However much she was disliked, Hillary Clinton representedcontinuitywith the consensus that existed across political party lines. That movement didnt need a leader with policies. It simply needed a likable figurehead. It had that in Barack Obama, just as it has one now in Canada in the avatarthat is Justin Trudeau.

The consensus uponwhich these figureheads govern exist on amyriad of faith commitments ofthe technocratic elites. But taken as a whole, they relate to the hopefultranshumanist and posthumanist agenda tochange humanityfundamentally.

President Obama was a perfect leader for them. His hope and change were vague slogans. While the slogans resonated withthe needs of the rust belt andAmericas heartland, the same voters that Trump has just captured, it became clear that Obamaspolicies of hope and change were transnationalist policies more in tune with the agenda of the UN, Silicon Valley, the Ivy League, and the European technocratic elite than with jobs for middle America.

The change the coastal elites had in view, which President Obamadelivered on, was an intensification of the transformations of human nature that had been taking place in evolutionary biology and research institutes at least since C.S. Lewis identified them in 1943 inThe Abolition of Man. With respect to sexuality and the family, it had atranshumanistimpulse; with respect to the environment, it wasposthumanist.

Trumps promise to restore, strengthen and defend the boundaries around these things by putting America firstis a strike at their abolition of man.

All the coffee in Starbucks wont wake his opponents from that living nightmare.

And the rage is served hot every morning, individualized to the customers antinomian taste.

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The Fairly Traded Coffee Party - Patheos (blog)

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Posthumanismus ist eine Philosophie, die darauf ausgerichtet ist traditionelle Konzeptionen des Menschseins neu zu berdenken. Das Konzept des "Posthumanen" eine berwindung des gegenwrtigen menschlichen Stadiums ist dabei eng verknpft mit der Denkrichtung des Transhumanismus.[1]

Im Gegensatz zum klassischen Humanismus wird dabei die besondere Stellung des Menschen negiert und er als eine unter vielen natrlichen Spezies dargestellt. Daraus wird u.a. geschlussfolgert, dass der Mensch auch nicht das Recht hat, die Natur zu zerstren oder sich selbst als ethisch hherwertig zu betrachten. Die Einschrnkungen und die Fehlbarkeit des Menschen werden verdeutlicht.

Trotz aller unterschiedlichen Argumentationen der Posthumanisten vereint diese der Gedanke, dass die biologische Menschheit den Gipfel ihrer Evolution bereits erreicht hat und die nchste Entwicklung von intelligentem Leben in den Hnden der knstlichen, computergesttzten Intelligenz liegt, die in vielen Bereichen dem Menschen berlegen sein knnte.

Der Posthumanismus beschreibt also ein Entwicklungszeitalter nach der Menschheit. Da dies naturgem in der Zukunft liegt, gibt es darber zunchst nur Spekulationen und Thesen. Allerdings versucht der Posthumanismus auch eine Beschreibung des posthumanen Menschen als hypothetisches zuknftiges Wesen, dessen Fhigkeiten die eines heutigen Menschen bei weitem bersteigen. Ein posthumanes Wesen kann also auch als Kreatur beschrieben werden, die durch eine Erweiterung der physischen und psychischen Fhigkeiten entsteht. Posthuman kann allerdings auch bedeuten, dass eine Einheit von menschlicher und knstlicher Intelligenz geschaffen wird und dass das Bewusstsein in einen fremden Krper oder Computer geladen wird.[2] Beispiele dafr knnen eine Vernderung des menschlichen Organismus durch Nanotechnologie oder einer Kombination von Gentechnik, Psychopharmakologie, lebensverlngernde Manahmen, neurale Schnittstellen, gedchtniserweiternde Drogen und tragbare oder implantierte Computertechnologie sein.

Ob der Transhumanismus als eine Spezialform des Posthumanismus angesehen werden sollte oder ob es sich um zwei unterschiedliche kulturelle Traditionen handelt wurde in den Jahren 2009 und 2010 in einigen Artikeln und einer Sonderausgabe der Zeitschrift "Journal of Evolution and Technology" errtert. Im Rahmen dieser Diskussion hat sich herausgestellt, dass es Grnde gibt davon auszugehen, dass Friedrich Nietzsche sowohl als Ahnherr des Trans- als auch des Posthumanismus angesehen werden kann.[3] Allerdings hatte er Vorlufer wie Guy de Maupassant, der in seiner Novelle Der Horla in hnlicher Weise sowohl die Unzulnglichkeiten des Menschen betonte, als auch auf ein Wesen, das ihn ersetzen werde, hinwies.

Im Bereich der Science-Fiction beschftigen sich u.a. folgende Autoren (explizit oder implizit) in ihren Werken mit Posthumanitt:

Original post:

Posthumanismus Wikipedia

Un texte de Herv Fisher Dossier : Humanisme et technique Thmes : Humanisme, Science, Socit, Technique Numro : vol. 6 no. 2 Printemps-t 2004

Le fantasme du posthumanisme ne mrite pas la rfrence lhumanisme quil invoque, car il en nie lide mme. Il nest quun antihumanisme de plus, qui obit la logique de la technoscience pour nier ce qui est le propre de lhumanit: son nigme dfinitive, sa fragilit, son irrductibilit la matire. Le posthumanisme est une ide dingnieur en informatique, qui trouve son ordinateur plus intelligent et meilleur que lui. Et cest triste dire, mais peut-tre a-t-il raison, tant cette vision tmoigne dune navet et dune inculture philosophique navrantes.

Faut-il mme citer ces noms de gourous vous loubli, dont les bestsellers daroport se vendent pourtant bien sous couvertures gaufres? Soyons clairs: nous ne serons jamais des cyborgs. Lintelligence artificielle na pas grand-chose voir avec lintelligence du cerveau humain. Lre du silicium ne surpassera jamais lextraordinaire puissance de cration et dadaptation de la biosphre modestement fonde sur le carbone. La question ne mrite mme pas le temps dy rpondre.

Ce qui est plus intressant, cest danalyser limaginaire social et les mythes qui resurgissent dans ce phantasme de lge du numrique.

Il semble que constamment les hommes aient imagin des intelligences suprieures, quils ont le plus souvent divinises, pour expliquer les origines et les finalits de la vie, et quils se soient agenouills devant elles dans un trange esprit de soumission. Ils ont ainsi dress des temples la Nature, dote dune sagesse suprieure, aux dieux, puis Dieu, qui ils ont attribu la toute-puissance, incluant lintelligence du vrai, du beau et du bien et lternit. Du temps de Voltaire, Dieu est devenu un gnial horloger suisse, aujourdhui Grand Informaticien de lternel, et la technoscience semble dsormais ddie corps et me au dchiffrage du Grand Algorithme de lUnivers. Le grand Ordonnateur est devenu le Grand Ordinateur. Il est central, omniprsent, il sait tout et dirige tout selon une sagesse suprieure qui a inspir lironie dAldous Huxley et les cauchemars de la science-fiction du type soap-opera de tlvision.

Il ne manquait plus que des ingnieurs lectroniciens de pianos et quelques philosophes brumeux pour caresser nos fantasmes de soumission dans le sens du poil et nous annoncer les grands lendemains qui chantent et dchanteraient du posthumain, sous la forme hybride dun eugnisme gntique ml dinformatique plus rapide que la lumire.

Comment peut-on saveugler ce point avec une telle dvotion lutopie technologique numrique, au point de nier lextraordinaire complexit et crativit de la vie biologique et mentale? Tant de navet fera sourire avant peu. Et je suis trop fascin par lextraordinaire aventure de lge du numrique pour ne pas en dnoncer vigoureusement les dviances aussi funestes. En comparaison, les utopies politiques du xixe sicle sont des chefs-duvre dintelligence, de prudence et de ralisme. Et nous savons ce quil en est advenu

Comment peut-on attendre toutes les solutions des vertus de la vitesse de la pense, sur le modle de la cyberntique, et renvoyer un stade archaque et infrieur de lhumanit la mditation philosophique, ncessairement lente?

Il est vrai que lhomme a toujours tent dchapper sa biologie. Le chamanisme, la religion ont exalt son rapport un monde suprieur, magique ou religieux, dont le lien mme le valoriserait. Les croyances des socits archaques attribuaient chaque corps dhomme un esprit qui lui survivrait et qui pourrait mme revenir tracasser les vivants. Icare sest envol avec des ailes de cire et la chaleur du Soleil la prcipit au sol. Les religions judo-chrtiennes ont invent une audacieuse vision dun homme dot dune me qui le relie directement Dieu et qui lui permet de participer ainsi de ltre de Dieu, au prix, videmment, dune dvalorisation du corps renvoy la matrialit triviale et propice au pch. Linvention de lme tait ncessairement ce prix, encore que ces religions aient conu aussi une rsurrection finale des corps limage de Dieu! La technologie numrique nous est prsente aujourdhui comme un supplment de puissance et dme du corps.

Quant au corps, comment peut-on croire tout comprendre des modes de reproduction de la vie, et vouloir en prendre le contrle bio-informatique, alors que le dchiffrage du gnome ne touche encore quun niveau trs superficiel de la vie? Nous voyons bien que nous partageons presque la totalit du gnome des chimpanzs, et pourtant nous notons quelques diffrences despce qui relvent dautres complexits.

Contrairement la conception cartsienne de la simplification, nous devons aujourdhui admettre que plus cest simple, plus cest complexe et mystrieux. Ce nest pas avec le langage a, c, t, g des acides nucliques, que nous allons matriser un eugnisme prometteur, comme on amliore les performances dun ordinateur chaque anne!

Le fantasme mme des animaux-machines parat bien faible! Pourtant cette chimre mi-chair, mi-lectronique des cyborgs nest quune nouvelle dclinaison de cette ide danimaux-machines. Devrions-nous y aspirer pour nous surpasser? Ce serait le prochain stade dune rvolution anthropologique vers laquelle nous conduirait la technoscience? Allons donc! entendre ce genre de vu, il faudrait reconnatre que le progrs de lesprit humain demeure une hypothse plus quincertaine

Mais pourquoi ce fantasme de lanimal-machine? Quy aurait-il donc de suprieur dans la machine, par rapport la chair vivante? Tant de dmarches de chercheurs scientifiques et dartistes nous font rver aujourdhui non seulement dintelligence artificielle, mais aussi de vie artificielle considre comme un progrs! Il est vrai que la chair peut faire souffrir, autant quelle peut faire jouir. Et nous sommes soumis langoisse de sa mort inluctable, alors que la machine ne semble pas avoir dangoisse, nous donne des satisfactions et des pouvoirs, est facilement rparable et surtout, remplaable! En outre, le progrs de la machine est incontestable, tandis que celui du corps humain est plus incertain, malgr les avances de la mdecine qui en prolonge le confort et la longvit. Je peux changer frquemment dordinateur ou de tlphone mobile, pour un modle nouveau, plus la mode et plus puissant. Je change mes pneus de voiture plus facilement que mes pieds La machine se remplace en rajeunissant, tandis que le corps ne peut que vieillir. Voil une immense diffrence qui, bien y rflchir, peut me faire envier inconsciemment la machine. Celle-ci, par sa propre substitution, rajeunit et se perfectionne sans cesse. Si, par lhybridit de la chair et de la machine, je pouvais participer ce mouvement inverse de mon exprience de vieillissement, ne serait-ce pas un immense progrs pour lespce humaine? Mieux, je jette avec un certain plaisir la machine use ou dsute, pour en acqurir une nouvelle, trs suprieure: voil une exprience bien plus agrable lesprit que celle de la maladie, de la dgnrescence, de la mort et de lenterrement. Et leffet est peut-tre double: car je survis la machine que je jette et remplace. Voil une apparence de logique qui offre une grande sduction pour les esprits simples.

Et ce nest pas tout: la machine est lexpression instrumentale de mon pouvoir. Les publicits dans les magazines pour les derniers modles de tlphones mobiles le proclament mes yeux admiratifs. Le nouveau Nokia 6600, qui a mang un ordinateur, dit la pub, runit toutes les fonctions en seulement 125g, qui tiennent dans ma main comme un anneau magique: communication sans fil, connexion Internet, messages crits, appareil photo et camra vido numriques intgrs, information boursire, contrle Bluetooth de tous les quipements domestiques de ma maison intelligente, rception en streaming immdiat de films, haut-parleurs mains libres, radioreprage pour ma scurit, affichage en couleur du plan du quartier de la ville o je cherche une adresse, album photo, agenda, jeux et indicateurs dalerte sur ma sant physiologique et boursire. Le modle Sharp offre la mme chose avec un cran couleur haute dfinition, tandis que Orange lance le treo 600, le premier mobile avec palm intgr et que Nec invente la surf machine. Mieux: Siemens lance le mc60 sexy rvolutionnaire. On me promet puissance et plaisir. Si javale le tlphone mobile qui a aval un ordinateur, un tlcopieur, un appareil photo et une camra numrique, les atlas et plans des villes, etc., deviendrai-je un cyborg puissant et heureux comme un demi-dieu?

En faut-il plus pour tre convaincu que lhomme des civilisations du Nord investit aujourdhui ses fantasmes de puissance dans la miniaturisation lectronique, laquelle prfigurerait lintgration de puces et de nanotechnologies dans la chair mme du corps humain? Et partir de cette rverie, notre primate semble basculer volontiers dans lide quil sera un humain suprieur en fusionnant avec la machine.

Le commerce y trouve son compte, mais lhumanisme et la philosophie gure Jy vois plutt une rgression de lintelligence et de la psych humaines. Un danger? Gure, tant ce fantasme est infantile et inconsistant dun point de vue raliste. Il nous distrait plutt de la conscience de nos limites et de nos faiblesses. Qui na pas dj observ le plaisir de ceux qui sadonnent pour quelques sous des jeux darcades et soudain se prennent pour des hros, parce quils tuent sans relche sur lcran des monstres menaant comme autant de sentiments de leur propre impuissance dans le monde rel?

Faut-il pour autant attribuer la puissance de la technoscience tous les maux du fait que nous y investissons tant de fantasmes de pouvoir en raction la mdiocrit dclare de notre condition humaine? Certes pas: ce nest pas la technique qui est en cause, mais bien la nature rgressive de la psych humaine et les usages, bons ou mauvais, que les hommes en font. Dans CyberPromthe, jai analys de prs cet investissement imaginaire compensatoire que nous oprons dans la technoscience, o nous cultivons lillusion de dpasser nos limites et de complter notre tre irrductiblement inachev. De la science occidentale, qui a pris la relve de la religion, nous attendons donc lintelligence de lUnivers; et de la technoscience, nous pensons obtenir le pouvoir instrumental de procrer lavenir de lespce humaine abandonne en cours de route par Dieu. Et puisque Dieu nexiste plus, ce sont les Hommes qui seront des dieux, grce la technoscience. Voil un vieil imaginaire qui a resurgi.

Il faut dire que la voie semble libre pour dcliner ces ides. Lhumanisme bourgeois est assez dsuet et discrdit pour laisser surgir comme une nouvelle solution ou un nouvel espoir la barbarie du posthumanisme. Certes, les discours vertueux sur le principe dhumanit ne peuvent plus grand-chose pour nous, si lon en juge par les barbaries modernes. Une pense anglique ne fait pas de mal, mais elle ne constitue pas une analyse. Comment adapter notre vision de lhumanit et comment caractriser nos valeurs dhumanisme lge du numrique? Il semble que nous soyons assez dsesprs des hommes et de la nature, au point de vouloir modliser un ersatz magique.

Au posthumanisme, nous prfrons opposer lide dun hyperhumanisme. En sinspirant de la nouvelle logique des liens qui semble fonder lpistmologie numrique des sciences actuelles, nous pouvons tenter de repenser les liens humains, la sociologie comme la psychologie. Le passage de lhumanisme lhyperhumanisme signifie une volont commune dvolution du culte bourgeois de lunicit diffrentielle la clbration des liens entre les hommes, de lexploitation agressive de la nature son respect, du conflit la convivialit. Lhumanisme classique se fondait sur le caractre unique et irrductible de chaque tre humain. Et il a de fait cultiv lindividualisme plus que lhumanisme. Ainsi cette conception moderne a-t-elle abouti lre du soupon et lexistentialisme gocentr de Sartre qui prtendait pourtant en faire un humanisme! affirmant: Lenfer, cest les autres. Lhyperhumanisme, cest plutt la conception de lhomme de la classe moyenne, conscient de son appartenance la masse, et des liens qui en associent les atomes, et qui la font plutt agir et voluer comme un banc de poissons ou un vol de perroquets, que comme des prdateurs solitaires. Et cest bien dans le paradigme des statistiques, dans la manipulation cyberntique, que la classe moyenne trouve son reflet, et non plus dans le drame du thtre bourgeois ou du roman psychologique stendhalien, qui cultivaient les exceptions.

Lhyperhumanisme ne sinscrit donc pas dans lespace social par la confrontation, la manire dun Rastignac face Paris quil veut conqurir. Lhomme hyper sy positionne plutt au carrefour des rseaux qui le traversent et lintgrent. Et il est conscient de la multiplicit des espaces et des temps sociaux auxquels il appartient. Il sait quil volue dans lhybridit, dans un contexte ouvert, un agrgat de beaucoup de mondes simultans, ventuellement discontinus, ventuellement conflictuels ou incohrents entre eux. lchelle de la plante, il semble aussi que le temps des grands blocs politiques soit rvolu et laisse plutt place une tendance la fragmentation, quilibre par des zones dinterdpendance conomique et institutionnelle.

De faon gnrale, lhyperhumanisme ne tend plus la confrontation, mais plutt aux ensembles commerciaux, lconomie communautaire, aux rseaux dchanges. Il ne valorise pas la distance, mais bien le rapprochement, non pas la monade individualiste, la solitude psychologique, mais bien louverture et les liens interindividuels.

Lhyperhumanisme marque le passage de la solitude la solidarit. Il affirme la valeur de linterdpendance entre les hommes, entre les nations et entre les hommes et lUnivers.

Notre peur dune catastrophe finale apparemment invitable qui est la base du sentiment du tragique actuel nous incite chercher notre salut dans laccroissement dune thique de la responsabilit partage. Le sens de la responsabilit nat de la conscience des liens entre nous et les autres, entre nos actes et leurs consquences. Lhyperhumanisme entrane un degr lev de conscience de notre implication humaine, loppos de la drive gotiste ou goste de lhumanisme classique, centr sur une certaine exacerbation de lindividualisme. Toute responsabilit individuelle bien comprise tend ncessairement la conscience de la responsabilit collective laquelle elle est lie. Ce sentiment de responsabilit nat de la conscience des liens.

Lhyperhumanisme que nous opposons au posthumanisme implique donc plus dhumanisme et plus de conscience des liens que nous partageons, donc plus de conscience de limportance dune morale collective de la responsabilit.

Avec la monte en puissance de CyberPromthe, lavenir nous parat paradoxalement de plus en plus imprvisible, voire improbable. Nous jouons avec le feu numrique, alors que notre psych humaine na fait aucun progrs depuis lge des cavernes. Certains thoriciens ont mme pu prtendre quelle avait rgress. Et beaucoup de populations aborignes en sont convaincues, qui se dsolent de devoir frayer avec nous.

Au moment o la science intgre le principe dincertitude dans son paradigme pistmologique, il semble plus vident que jamais quon ne peut sen remettre aux progrs exponentiels et de plus en plus incontrlables de la technoscience comme la puissance et la sagesse dune nouvelle religion.

Puisque lespace et le temps semblent infinis et multiples, le seul point fixe et encore! autour duquel on puisse faire tourner lUnivers, cest lhomme, dans le respect de sa diversit.

Du point de vue de la religion, lhomme est au centre du monde que Dieu cr pour lui. Du point de vue de lastronomie, Copernic a suggr et Galile a confirm que cest le Soleil qui est au centre de lUnivers. Puis la mme astronomie nous dit aujourdhui que le Soleil se situe dans une galaxie banale aux confins dun Univers infini.

Nous proposons un recentrage humaniste, l o Copernic nous imposa de renoncer au gocentrisme. La querelle que nous faisons Copernic et Galile, nous la concevons dans le mme esprit qui opposa Gthe Newton. Newton avait coup sr raison du point de vue de loptique physique. Mais il ngligeait au nom de loptique lessentiel de la relation humaine aux couleurs, symbolique, subjective, vitaliste, sentimentale, y compris jusque dans ses illusions, plus vraies que la physique du prisme.

Aprs Galile, Darwin a achev cette entreprise de dsenchantement du rel en nous situant dans une chane volutionniste, qui nous fait descendre des batraciens, voire des bactries. Il fallait trouver le chanon manquant entre le singe et lhomme! On sait aujourdhui, si je puis dire, que lhomme est descendu de larbre, mais pas du singe

La modernit, ce fut laffirmation de la solitude de lhomme dans lUnivers, spar de la nature et abandonn dans les marges. Et voil que les prophtes daujourdhui annoncent la fin de lhumain et lavnement des cyborgs! Cest assurment trop!

Du point de vue de lpistmologie actuelle, nous devons tourner le dos la rvolution copernicienne. Il faut plutt rtablir lhumanit au centre de lUnivers, car tout ce que nous savons de lUnivers dpend des liens que lhumanit a tabli avec lui. Mis part un big crash apocalyptique, tout ce qui adviendra de lhumanit dpendra de lhumanit. Et cest bien l que se situe lhyperhumanisme.

Du point de vue du temps, puisque nous vivons nouveau dans un temps vertical, qui semble tenir en quilibre comme une toupie qui tournoie sur elle-mme comme la Terre, et jusqu un certain point, comme llectron (spin)! , sans capacit de prvoir les changements, et mme dans une multitude de temps verticaux simultans, cest encore et toujours lhomme, la diversit actuelle des hommes, qui apparat comme le pivot du temps, sa mesure et la source de la multiplicit de sens quelle lui confre.

Puisque selon lastrophysique actuelle lUnivers na pas de centre, la rvolution copernicienne tombe dans le non-sens. De quelque ct quon regarde, il est donc ncessaire de nous considrer nouveau, nous, tres humains, comme le centre de cet Univers alinant, de rtablir notre place dominante au cur de cet Univers qui de toute faon, en dclinant lenvers une expression clbre, na nul autre centre que nous-mmes, nulle autre circonfrence que celle de lesprit humain.

Lhypothse de Copernic et les calculs de Galile taient courageux. Astronomiquement, leur vision tait correcte, certes, mais lastronomie est une science antihumaniste. Elle dvalorise lhomme et le dresponsabilise ou laline dans une vision dsesprante. Galile a interprt lUnivers en le considrant lenvers, comme un mcanisme optique. Il faut reconnatre que Galile a contribu une libration de lesprit face lalination religieuse, mais ce fait tant aujourdhui acquis et vers son crdit, il est temps de ractiver une vision anti-galilenne, de sengager dans une inversion de la rvolution copernicienne, qui se limitait au champ de lastrophysique, alors quil nous faut considrer une cosmologie humaine. Ce fut le premier principe de lhumanisme, tel qunonc par Marsile Ficin et Pic de la Mirandole la Renaissance. Mais quoi nous a servi de nous tre librs de lanimisme, puis de la croyance en Dieu, si ce fut pour retomber dans une nouvelle alination, astrophysique cette fois? Lglise affirmait, en accord avec la Gense, que lhomme a reu de Dieu le commandement de dominer la nature et non dtre domin par elle, de soumettre la terre et dominer les animaux. La thorie copernicienne tait donc hrtique. Et dailleurs, nest-ce pas ce commandement qua raffirm Descartes aprs Francis Bacon et que proclame la technoscience actuelle?

Cest sur cette Terre que nous habitons lUnivers. Pour nous, cet Univers ne sera jamais rien sans lhomme, moins que nous y dcouvrions quelque part un jour une autre forme de vie et dintelligence gale ou suprieure la ntre, ce qui changerait totalement notre conscience et crerait une nouvelle cosmogonie. En attendant, lhumanit est le centre de lUnivers. loppos du paradigme copernicien, il faut rtablir lhomme au cur de lpistm dont il est lunique sujet et instrument.

La plante devient hyper. Mais doit-on se rsoudre transformer lhomme en simple point nodal dintersection dans des rseaux et aplatir ce point la psych? Le marxisme avait ni lhomme au nom des classes sociales et des processus historiques; Althusser a labor un structuralisme marxiste intenable, excluant en dernire instance toute libert individuelle. Nous avons renonc ces ides. Serait-ce pour les reprendre selon une nouvelle mtaphore, avec les mmes abus de pense et risques dalination, en levant les rseaux numriques au niveau de nouveaux dieux et en niant lhomme? Comment ne pas percevoir dans cette ide de fragmentation rhizomique de ltre humain un antihumanisme possible, qui nous invite miser dautant plus sur les liens constructifs de solidarit et de responsabilit de lhyperhumanisme? Dautant plus que la surface, mme en rhizome, nexiste pas plus que la profondeur. Ce ne sont que deux mtaphores opposes! Les interrelations humaines ne spuisent pas en images spatiales, quelles soient de surface ou de profondeur. Reconnaissons limportance des connexions, mais redonnons aussi aux intriorits et aux autonomies individuelles le rle actif, constitutif qui est le leur, sans se voiler la face au nom dun nouveau structuralisme numrique dsesprant.

Lhyperhumanisme nest conciliable ni avec un Althusser, ni avec un Lvi-Strauss du numrique, ni avec aucune hypostase ou rification des processus, des structures ou des changes, qui ne sont, l encore, que des mtaphores dont il faut faire un usage prudent.

Si nous proposons de replacer lhomme la place qui est la sienne, au centre de lUnivers, ce nest pas pour lmietter en fragments lectroniques dans des rseaux numriques! Il faut trouver le point dquilibre entre les liens et les autonomies qui caractrisent chacun de nous. Cest, comme toujours, dans la complexit que nat la cration individuelle et le mouvement social.

Pourtant, en nous librant des alinations religieuses et politiques, sans nous soumettre lalination de lutopie de la technoscience, nous pourrions redcouvrir notre libert cyberpromthenne de procrateurs de notre univers. Lhyperhumanisme, ce pourrait tre aussi ce renforcement de notre conscience et de notre volont de choisir notre avenir, de donner un sens humain lUnivers en assumant les risques de la technoscience, les risques de notre libert nouvelle, et en construisant une thique collective capable dassurer notre scurit et notre progrs sur la base non plus de la lutte entre les individus et les peuples, mais de la solidarit (des liens) entre les hommes et dun sens plus lev de nos responsabilits.

Ne nous y trompons pas: lthique passe avant la logique de la technoscience. Sinon, o allons-nous? LUnivers perd tout sens. Lhyperhumanisme, cest laffirmation de limportance dune thique de la responsabilit plantaire, qui est devenue la condition de notre avenir, de notre survie, et le moteur possible de notre volution, bien davantage que la technoscience. Mais malheureusement, la technoscience est beaucoup plus puissante que lthique et risque den venir bout, si nous ny prtons garde. Nest-ce pas dj devenu un constat quotidien? Le dbat sur le clonage, sur la manipulation des gnes ou des cellules souches, la rsolution des conflits par la violence guerrire ne donnent-ils pas constamment la prsance aux logiques de la science et de la technologie sur les valeurs thiques les plus fondamentales?

Les morales individuelles, religieuses ou civiles ne suffiront pas contenir les puissantes tendances la catastrophe humaine qui sont en germe dans ce contexte nouveau. Nous avons besoin dsormais dune morale plantaire interculturelle, une charte universelle hyperhumaniste, qui dicte des codes de conduite collective, tatique et internationale ad minima, au nom de laquelle une institution internationale puisse intervenir pour interdire des pratiques scientifiques mettant en danger les valeurs de la vie, des pratiques de cybersurveillance contredisant les droits et liberts humains, des actions industrielles susceptibles de ruiner les quilibres cologiques dont nous dpendons tous globalement, des actions armes, violentes, menaant des populations avec des armes de destruction massive miniaturises. Le respect de la vie, de lenvironnement, de la libert, de la dmocratie et de la paix, la raffirmation juridique de droits humains intangibles et imprescriptibles, sont des valeurs universelles minimales qui ne peuvent tre mises en cause sans que toute la plante en soit menace.

Mais attention: une thique plantaire ne saurait reposer sur une culture plantaire uniformise. Cette thique plantaire est ncessairement globale, mais ne peut se fonder que sur le respect des consensus locaux et des diversits culturelles. Les hommes et les socits doivent sentendre sur un commun dnominateur minimal de survie de tous par un abandon mesur, mais ncessaire, dun fragment de la souverainet de chacun. On ne fera pas ici de discours moraux! On parlera seulement selon les exigences de linstinct de survie que nous sommes bien obligs de partager dsormais! Cest la mme problmatique, lchelle plantaire, dun quilibre entre les droits et les liberts, que nous recherchons constamment lchelle locale et sociale. En ce troisime millnaire, cette recherche est devenue un incontournable, mais aussi un redoutable dfi, dans la mesure o cette recherche dun consensus traverse des diversits culturelles et identitaires complexes et doit acqurir une lgitimit plantaire permettant un autre incontournable: la ncessit darmer cette thique pour obtenir quelle soit respecte, comme toute morale sociale lmentaire. (Nous ne parlons videmment pas ici des morales individuelles qui, elles, sont dun tout autre ordre.) Le mpris de lonu, des accords internationaux comme celui de Kyoto, ou de linstitution dune cour pnale internationale exprim par les tats-Unis sous le rgne de Bush fils, qui prtendraient rgir le monde selon leur seule volont impriale, donne bien la mesure de la difficult de ce projet pourtant essentiel pour lavenir de lhumanit. Il semble que nous soyons encore dans un ge primitif de lhumanit, alors que nous disposons dun pouvoir technologique qui crot exponentiellement. Nous sommes lre de tous les dangers.

Herv Fischer*

NOTES

* Artiste-philosophe, Herv Fischer a publi Mythanalyse du futur (2000, disponible sur le site http://www.hervefischer.ca), Le choc du numrique (Montral, vlb, 2001), Le romantisme numrique (Saint-Laurent, Fides, 2002), CyberPromthe (Montral, vlb, 2003) et La plante hyper. De la pense linaire la pense en arabesque (Montral, vlb, 2004), o il prsente sa thse sur lhyperhumanisme et lthique de la responsabilit lge du numrique.

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Lhyperhumanisme contre le posthumanisme : article - Revue ...

Heidegger and posthumanism

Tags: Being and Time; The Question Concerning Technology; Only a God Can Save Us; Letter on Humanism; Dasein; technicity; temporality

The relationship between Heidegger and posthumanism can be understood as taking at least two basic forms, each of which corresponds to different understandings of posthumanism itself. The first is inherent within Heideggers goal of replacing dualistic Cartesianism with Dasein[i] and being-in-the-world. In offering this Being-centric ontology, Heidegger first removes the human subject from its central place in Western philosophy, and second undermines the metaphysical dualism that has defined the structures of humanist philosophies since Descartes. The second form concerns the complex relationship humans have to technology as it influences how Dasein relates to its own being-in-the-world.

Heideggers philosophy is based on an inquiry into the nature of being, which he claims is at once the most fundamental question of existence and the most difficult to consider (Being 1996: 2f). In Being and Time Heidegger offers Dasein as the primary mode of existence. Dasein, in its most basic sense, is the kind of existence experienced by individuals who make their own Being an issue for themselves; that is, they live philosophically and self-reflexively. Crucially, Dasein is also inseparable from its spatial and temporal contexts. This relationship, being-in-the-world, is not external to Dasein, rather it is an a priori condition within the construction of Dasein itself. No longer is the world a collection of extended material objects for perception by a thinking mind as Descartes described it, Heideggers formulation binds the world to Dasein as an intrinsic existential element. This relationship between Dasein and being-in-the-world has also influenced prominent posthumanists: eg. N. Katherine Hayles dream of a posthumanism, in which humans no longer see their bodies as mere fashion accessories, but rather as integral parts of their (post)human existence in-the-world (Hayles 1999: 5).

Daseins interactions with objects within the world are likewise now understood in relational, rather than oppositional terms. For Heidegger, objects may appear as ready-to-hand or present-at-hand. Those things presenting themselves as ready-to-hand, for which Heidegger also uses the word equipment [Zeug], are understood by Dasein in terms of their use, as well as within their particular spheres of association. A claw hammer, for example, is understood as a tool for pounding and pulling nails, but also as an element of the larger sphere of carpentry, implying through its own readiness-to-hand, nails, lumber, saws, etc. (Being 66f). Contrary to readiness-to-hand, presence-at-hand is the quality of objects that simply exist within the world, but not usefully; however, since presence-at-hand and readiness-to-hand are not intrinsic qualities of the objects themselves, a change in Daseins relation to a particular object can also cause a shift between these two categories.

Heideggers influence on posthumanism can be seen in the conflict between his relational ontology and the Cartesian dualism that he is working against. This dualism often underpins imaginings of artificial intelligence, mind uploading, and collective intelligences in popular posthumanism; however, as N. Katherine Hayles and Hubert Dreyfus both argue, this need not be the case. In fact, Heideggers construction of Dasein as a self-reflexive kind of existence exhibited exclusively by humans has been the topic of some debate within posthumanism. The possibility of non-human Dasein is explored in both animal studies and philosophies of artificial intelligence, which further contribute to the gradual dissolution of anthropocentrism of philosophy since the Enlightenment.[ii] [iii]

Heideggers later work in The Question Concerning Technology assumes the basic ontological structure outlined above and focuses on the problematic way humans relate to the world of, and through, advanced technology. Technology is both an instrument used toward an end and an end in itself, but crucially, it is primarily a way in which humans relate to the world (Question 1977: 294f) Relating to the world technologically, for Heidegger, means not just interactions with objects within the world. Rather, relating to objects technologically means seeing them as standing reserve for the accomplishment of some other goal (298). Heidegger takes as his example the juxtaposition between a bridge depicted in Hlderlins poem The Rhine and a modern day hydroelectric plant on the eponymous river (297). The natural beauty of the river coupled with the human addition of the bridge that Hlderlin depicts reflects a harmonious relationship between humans, the river, the raw materials of the bridge, and the will and effort that went into constructing it, all of which reinforce the unified construction being-in-the-world that describes Daseins embeddedness within its environment. The opposite of this is the monstrousness of the hydroelectric plant as it reduces the river to a mere means for water power by diverting the flow, controlling the water level, and altering the natural ecosystem of the area. Additionally, by reducing one area of the Rhine to a mere producer of energy, it also corrupts the purity of other areas where nature has been left untouched by turning them into real or potential areas of tourist exploitation (ibid.).

The danger of seeing the world as standing reserve is that it prevents Dasein from understanding the world and its inhabitants as integral parts of its own existence, which ultimately dissociates Dasein from its essential embeddedness in-the-world. The view that humans are standing reserve in the form of electro-chemical machines, or are machine-like bodies that are ontologically compatible with computers, is a defining element of functionalist philosophy, as well as popular posthumanism. Heideggers argument warns against the view that the integration of human bodies and minds with computers (a central motif in the cyberpunk genre, but also many non science fiction texts, is either possible or desirablea view which is taken up and expanded by Hayles (1999). For Heidegger, the ontology of Dasein exists separately from the digital spaces created by humans, and trying to merge them is an attempt to dismantle Daseins fundamental being-in-the-world, which thereby also reduces Dasein itself to an exploitable means.

In Only a God Can Save Us published posthumously in Der Spiegel, Heidegger attempts to clarify his attitude toward technology further. Advanced modern technology, as well as the culture and economy that have created it, have together promoted an understanding of the world and other humans as mere standing reserve and have thereby formed a culture of technicity (Only a God 2009: 331). In Heideggers view cybernetics (and physics generally) has taken over the role that philosophy once played for humans. As a result technology has surpassed the control of humanity; it no longer corresponds to the embeddedness Dasein has in-the-world (327f; cf. also Hassan 1977).[iv] For Heidegger, the relationship of humans to modern technology must change to one that no longer alienates Dasein from its interconnectedness in-the-world, a change that will have to come from both the return of humans to being-in-the-world and simultaneously through humans own relationship to technicity (331f.).

It is worth stressing, however, that Heideggers is not a technophobic position; rather, he advocates reworking the relationship between humans and modern technology so that technology neither distances humans from their embeddedness in-the-world nor reduces people or the world to standing reserve. This view places Heidegger in opposition to versions of posthumanism that allow for, or indeed are built upon, mind-uploading, body enhancement, and, space exploration (Only a God 2009: 325). Apart from providing the philosophical basis for N. Katherine Hayless How We Became Posthuman, Heideggers thought has also helped to raise the question of whether non-human Dasein may be extended to animals, robots, and artificial intelligences. While Heideggers relationship to humanism generally is complicated, in this respect his views remain fundamentally humanist. Humans, for Heidegger, are the only beings capable of existing in-the-world as such because they are world-forming. Animals, on the other hand, are world-impoverished in that they are capable of being affected by beings, but are not able to execute the agency inherent in the world-forming quality of Dasein (Collected 1975: 261f.). These humanistic beliefs complicate his views of humanism generally as they are expressed in Letter on Humanism. Here he views humanism as valuing beings over those beings relationship to Being itself.

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Heidegger, Martin

Today is Thomas Jeffersons birthday. Number 272, if youre counting. Democrats safely claimed ownership of the founder of their party for the longest time. Nowadays, however, Republicans seem better equipped to do so, regularly isolating quotes that fix on Jeffersons small-government credentials. No less curious and intriguing than Jeffersons malleability in partisan politics is his universality: he continues to possess an aura that none of the other founders can claim. Mikhail Gorbachev proudly acknowledged that his college study of Jefferson influenced his own commitment to reform in the Soviet Union. After the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, the president of Bulgaria asserted that Jefferson was being widely quoted in his country. The Dalai Lama made his own pilgrimage to Monticello.

Jefferson may be Americas best-known slaveowner, but everyone still wants a piece of him; all politicians want to salvage something of the man Im dubbing democracys muse. As an ideal, as the beloved blueprint of human governance, democracy cannot do without the historical figure most closely associated with its name. Democracys Musehas had a hold on Democrats and Republicans alike over the past 75 years, from FDR to Obama. Evidence abounds. But will Jefferson continue to matter? And do we even know what a Jeffersonian democracy, as it was construed when Jefferson lived, would look like in our world?

On April 13, 1943, the Revolutionarys 200th birthday, President Roosevelt dedicated the Jefferson Memorial. In fact, FDR had a major hand in bringing the structure to life, down to approval of the dome element and the featured quotes on several sculpted panels. In keeping with New Deal initiatives on behalf of the little man, the most eloquent of the founders was almost everywhere regarded as a big government liberal once Roosevelt adopted him. Indeed, back in 1924, with big-business Republicans in charge of Washington, FDR had mused in print: Is there a Jefferson on the horizon? Either you were a Hamiltonian back then, comfortable with an alliance between the moneyed few and government; or you were a Jeffersonian who thought government should speak for the voiceless majority of citizens.

During World War II, Jefferson helped symbolize the fight against Nazism. In 1942, a U.S. senator from Utah projected the as yet uninvented United Nations in his patriotic book, Thomas Jefferson, World Citizen. Harry Truman called Jefferson my favorite character in history. And in April 1962, at the lavish party he threw at the Executive mansion for forty-nine Nobel Laureates, John F. Kennedy ad libbed: I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge . . . ever gathered at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone. In eulogistic reflection on the life of his friend Robert F. Kennedy, astronaut-turned-Senator John Glenn said of RFK: Hed quite often quote Thomas Jefferson, who said that if our democracy was to work, every man must have his voice heard in some council of government.

It is open to debate, however, whether any Democrat loved Jefferson as much as Ronald Reagan did. It was President Reagan who, more than anyone else, enshrined the third president as the champion of a small, non-intrusive federal government, and who insisted that the most Jeffersonian thing of all was an abhorrence of taxes and of passing on debt. In his First Inaugural Address, in 1801, Jefferson waxed eloquently about a wise and frugal government and called his nation the worlds best hope. In his Second Inaugural Address, in 1985, Reagan channeled that Jefferson: Let history say of us, these were golden yearswhen the American Revolution was reborn, when freedom gained new life, when America reached for her best.

Republicans ever since the Reagan era have relished that kind of assertive patriotism. And what politician wouldnt? When a totalitarian enemy is seen to exist, whether Fascist, Communist, or terrorist, the words (circa 1800) that circle the interior of the Jefferson Memorial are democracys catechism: I HAVE SWORN UPON THE ALTAR OF GOD ETERNAL HOSTILITY TO EVERY FORM OF TYRANNY OVER THE MIND OF MAN.

If Reagan resurrected Jefferson as a small government advocate, the meaningfully named William Jefferson Clinton began his 1993 inaugural journey by replicatingalbeit by busthe third presidents ride from Monticello to Washington, D.C. For Clinton, as for FDR and JFK, Jefferson was an agent of progressive change. On the founders 250th birthday that year, Clinton said: We can honor him best by remembering our own role in governing ourselves and our nation: to changefor it is only in change that we preserve the timeless values for which Thomas Jefferson gave his life over two centuries ago. In the year 1993 alone, President Clinton invoked Jefferson on twenty-five separate public occasions.

Why Jefferson? He is the closest to flesh and blood among the founders. George Washington was kind of a cold fish, and little that he said addressed the human spirit; history, therefore, likes him better in his marble, statuesque incarnation. James Madison is viewed in cerebral terms alone (which is dead wrong, if youll consult my earlier, coauthored book, Madison and Jefferson). John Adams was quite colorful, but not inspirational. Jeffersons nemesis Alexander Hamilton was contentious, conniving, disdained democracy, and had no room for popular protest of any kind. Plus his writing is thick and unpretty and unmemorable. He was a snob of the first order.

Jefferson loved language. He was not an exciting public speaker, but his written words were, and remain, iconic. Americans have been debating the meaning of the phrase life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for two centuries. Did he simply crib from John Locke? No, but he employed a vocabulary that his peers around the political world understood, one that captured Enlightenment values. Happiness had a philosophical ring then, one that only exists in academic circles now. Jeffersons pursuit of happiness connoted individual freedom and the realization of a broad moral community ideas that might even seem contradictory in todays partisan environment.

One thing is for certain, though: Jefferson would be thrown for a loop if he suddenly appeared, messiah-like, and witnessed all that was taking place in his political name. Among his present-day admirers, government haters aggressively quote one hyperbolic outburst from his time as the American minister in Paris: The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. (Timothy McVeigh was wearing his Tree of Liberty T-shirt in 1995, when he blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City with chemical, rather than natural, manure.) As president of the National Rifle Association, actor Charlton Heston quoted Jefferson: No man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.

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Thomas Jeffersons torturous afterlife: How Ronald Reagan and the Tea Party try to steal his legacy

For most of us a walk would mean taking a few rounds of our apartment complex and social service would be putting up statements supporting a cause on our social media accounts. Sri M, a social activist has started the walk of hope, and aims at covering a distance of 7500 kilometres from Kanyakumari to kashmir. The aim of the walk, the sixty-six year old says is to spread the message of religious tolerance and harmony. I have seen that religion has been misused by people for selfish reasons. I feel that most religious conflicts are political, rather than religious. In the course of my travel across the country, I want to spread the message of peace and humanism. I have been thinking about such an endeavour for many years now.

The walk was flagged off in March this year from Kanyakumari and Sri M and his team hope to reach Sringar by April next year. I feel that by walking you get a better perspective about society, meet more people and learn more.

These experiences do not occur if you travel by car. I talked about this idea with a friend and with the help of some trusts I run, we embarked on the trip. We have about 60 regulars and many others have joined us and walked alongside at specific sections.

Talking about the trip, he says, We walk for almost five hours a day and covering 20 kilometres on a daily basis. In the evenings, we take a break and spread our message among the communities. The walk had been very well received and has found support of people and politicians cutting across party and religious lines.

Born into a Muslim family, Sri M was very keen on spirituality from childhood. I set out to the Himalayas and found a teacher, when I was very young. I stayed with him for a while before returning and getting a job, getting married and bringing up children. My interest in spirituality remained. The trip is an attempt to rekindle spiritualism and to spread the message of humanism.

Post the trip, he plans to go into meditation for three months. I would want to spend some time on my own to think about the trip and reflect on how it had helped me. It is a very important aspect of this trip. If I do not reflect on this journey, all this work will go waste.

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Walking for a cause

Over 1,000 diplomats gathered at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris to hear India Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivering his maiden speech. Addressing over 1,300 diplomats, he said that the world is and will remain a better place because of the United Nations.

The PM said that India values the worth of UNESCO and cherishes the partnership.

Below is his full speech

Director General, Madam Bukova

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am truly honoured to address UNESCO.

I feel specially privileged to visit this great institution in its 70th anniversary year.

This milestone reminds us of a fundamental achievement of our age: for the first time in human history, we have an organization for the entire world -- the United Nations.

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PM@UNESCO: Our world is a better place because of UN

Director General, Madam Bokova,

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am truly honoured to address UNESCO.

I feel specially privileged to visit this great institution in its 70th anniversary year.

This milestone reminds us of a fundamental achievement of our age: for the first time in human history, we have an organization for the entire world the United Nations.

And, through the sweeping change of these decades, through many challenges of our times, and the great progress of this era, the organization has endured and grown.

There have been doubts and skepticism. There is need for urgent reforms.

But, for the nations that came together at its birth; and, for three times as many that joined it later, there is one unshakeable belief:

Our world is and will remain a better place because of the United Nations.

It is this faith that has given birth to so many of its institutions that deal with every aspect of human challenges.

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Text of Narendra Modis address to UNESCO