Screening the Posthuman

by Missy Molloy, Pansy Duncan, Claire Henry

From AI to climate change, recent technological, ecological, and cultural transformations have unsettled established assumptions about the relationship between the human and the more-than-human world. Screening the Posthuman addresses a heterogenous body of twenty-first century films that turn to the figure of the "posthuman" as a means of exploring this development.

Through close analyses of films as diverse as Kûki ningyô [ Air Doll ] (dir. Hirokazu Koreeda 2009), Testrol és lélekrol [ On Body and Soul ] (dir. Ildiko Enyedi 2017) and Nomadland (dir. Chloé Zhao 2020), this wide-ranging volume shows that, while often identified as the remit of science fiction, the posthuman on screen crosses filmic genres, national contexts, and industrial settings. In the process, posthuman cinema emphasizes humanity's entanglement in broader biological, technological, and social worlds and exposes new models of subjectivity, community, and desire.

In advancing these arguments, Screening the Posthuman draws on scholarship associated with critical posthumanist theory―an ongoing project unified by a decentering of the "human". As the first systematic, full-length application of this body of scholarship to cinema, Screening the Posthuman advocates for a rigorous posthumanist critique that avoids both humanist nostalgia and transhumanist fantasy in its attention to the excitements and anxieties of posthuman experience.

316 pages, Hardcover

Published June 3, 2023

About the author

Missy Molloy is a Lecturer in the Film Programme at Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand).

Reviews

[asha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting, enjoyable read with lots of visuals which always helps when films are being analysed, really appreciated the nuance of the overall thesis and conclusion