on Posthumanism

Under the title Hyperpresent, five contemporary thinkers will give a talk on a new idea that they introduced themselves. Afterwards, they will engage in a conversation with philosopher Laurent De Sutter – who curated this series.

Digital ‘second life’, genetically modified food, advanced prosthetics, robotics and reproductive technologies are familiar facets of our contemporary world. They have blurred the distinction between the human and its others, exposing the non–naturalistic structure of the human and displacing the traditional humanistic unity of the subject. Rather than perceiving this situation as a loss of cognitive and moral self–mastery, the posthuman helps us to make sense of our flexible and multiple identities and to measure the escalating effects of post–anthropocentric thought, which encompasses not only other species, but also the sustainability of our planet as a whole. Because contemporary market economies profit from the control and commodification of all that lives, they result in hybridization, erasing categorical distinctions between the human and other species, seeds, plants, animals and bacteria.

• Rosi Braidotti is a philosopher and feminist theorist. She was director of the Netherlands Research School of Women's Studies, and founding professor in Women's Studies in 1988 at Utrecht University. She was also the founding director of the Centre for the Humanities at Utrecht University. Her work explores the transformation of the subjective induced by the technical and political shifts of the present. Her upcoming book Posthuman Feminism is expected to be published in late 2020.