The Emergence of the Posthuman Subject
An Interdisciplinary Conference at the University of Surrey
2-3 July 2010.
Confirmed keynote speakers:
Dr. Andy Mousley (University of DeMontfort)
Prof. Steve Dixon (University of Brunel)
Prof. Robert Pepperell (Cardiff School of Art and Design)
Over the past two decades the theories and critical practices
associated with the field of posthumanism have become an increasingly
significant presence in the Arts and Sciences. Inspired by the radical
innovation that period has seen in information and communication
technology, philosophers and writers have hailed what amounts to a
break with the humanist tradition that has underpinned western
civilisation for over five-hundred years. The formerly absolute
differences between human and inhuman, set out, for instance, by Rene
Descartes in his Discourse on the Method, have blurred. It is now easy
to imagine a machine that might think as rationally as a man and
increasingly difficult to believe that an animal is little more than a
machine, without the consciousness that makes suffering possible. With
every new species discovered to possess language-skills, the capacity
for logical thought, or the ability to make and use tools, some
quality once cited as a trait which distinguished the human, a
rational animal, distinct from the rest of creation, is dissolved. As
Jacques Derrida noted in his final book, Cartesian Humanism in now in
crisis; the traumas inflicted on the validity of the concept
â??humanityâ?? by Darwin, Freud & Marx are at last beginning to change the
way people perceive their world, permitting subjects in the west to
cast off a â??normativeâ?? category that has been used to suppress those
modes of being not in line with the supposedly â??naturalâ?? order
characterising the â??Family of Manâ??.
Posthumanist thought is therefore right at the heart of developments
taking place in critical theory since the 70s. The posthuman is the
point at which the most pressing concerns in gender studies,
post-structuralism, cultural materialism & postmodernism converge.
Crucially, posthumanism provides what is perhaps the one vital
theoretical point of crossover for research taking place in the Arts
and Sciences. Posthumanism can be defined as the attempt to think on
how the latest technological innovations and the considerable advances
that are even now taking place in the fields of physics and biology,
impact on our concept of the human and on our perceived place in the
world.
This conference therefore invites papers from academics and
postgraduates working in disciplines as diverse as Literature,
Psychology, Philosophy, Anthropology, Film Studies, Palaeontology,
Zoology, Theatre, and Theoretical Physics: on the Emergence of the
Posthuman Subject. The conference is to take place at the University
of Surrey, the institution at the forefront of space exploration
technology in the UK, and situated right in the centre of the
territory west of London criss-crossed by flight-paths and motorways
celebrated as a source of endless fascination in key novels by JG
Ballard.
Potential topics would include but not be limited to:
1. Key issues of discussion
the evolution of homo sapiens; the cultural assimilation of quantum
physics and string theory; the emergence of cyborg sexualities; the
shifting boundary-line between the Human and the Animal; the â??avatarâ??
and the virtual world;
2. Cultural and artistic prototypes and responses
the prototypes of the posthuman in the modernist movement; apocalyptic
literature; the impact of information-communication technology on the
form and content of film, music, literature and art; visions of the
planet after the extinction of our species;
3. The work of relevant artists, scientists and philosophers
JG Ballard, Jean Baudrillard, Charles Darwin, Philip K. Dick, Jacques
Derrida, R.D. Laing, William Burroughs, Italian Futurists, Isaac
Asimov, Judith Butler, Steve Mann, Stelarc, Wyndham Lewis, H.P.
Lovecraft, Steven Hall etc, etc.
There is still space on our programme for individual papers of 20
minutes. Please submit a 300 word abstract along with institution
details etc. The conference is also considering panel proposals.
Please submit a 500-1000 word abstract with full contact details
describing each paper and the wider concept(s) to be discussed by the
panel.
E-mail submissions and any questions to David Ashford
((D.Ashford /at/ surrey.ac.uk)) and James Riley ((rjer2 /at/ cam.ac.uk)).
For information on tickets please follow this link:
https://store.surrey.ac.uk/catalogue/productdetails.asp?compid=1&prodid=125&deptid=73&catID=15&hasClicked=1
