Posthuman Bodies

by Judith Halberstam (Editor), Ira Livingston

..". will draw a wide readership from the ranks of literary critics, film scholars, science studies scholars and the growing legion of 'literature and science' researchers. It should be among the essentials in a posthumanist toolbox." --Richard Doyle

Automatic teller machines, castrati, lesbians, The Terminator: all participate in the profound technological, representation, sexual, and theoretical changes in which bodies are implicated. Posthuman Bodies addresses new interfaces between humans and technology that are radically altering the experience of our own and others' bodies.

Genres: Theory, Nonfiction, Feminism, Philosophy, Queer, LGBT, Research

276 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1995

Reviews

[Victoria Hawco · Rating 4 out of 5]

GOD I do not like that cover art.

[Patch · Rating 4 out of 5]

the essay about bugs really stuck with me, especially since I had just watched Isabella Rossellini's series Green Porno, which is about the sex lives of bugs. Humans are disgusted by bugs because they diverged so early on the evolutionary tree that they're completely different. Conservatives go on about queerness being unnatural, but bugs are doing freakier things than humans could ever come up with. In The Fly Seth Brundle jokes about being the first insect politician, and this essay points out what that really gets at. Some bugs do have organized societies, but they don't have politicians. Bees have a strict hierarchical societies, but flies are able to swarm without any of that. While other bugs are entirely solitary, like centipedes who essentially do artificial insemination. Some bugs are also capable of dissolving their bodies entirely into liquid (literally a body without organs) and reshaping them into a completely different animal, but have been shown to retain memory from before their transformation. I guess what I mean is you really can't do philosophy without some understanding of the natural world. I'd write about the other essays but I took too long to write this review and that's the only one that stuck in my mind.

[Shawn Simmons]

Goodreads doesn’t have Queer Art or Failure (???) so logging this for my own peace of mind—2.5 stars.

[Leonardo]

Sobre permutaciones posthumanas de los cuerpos ver Judith Halberstam e Ira Livingston, “Introduction: Posthuman Bodies”, en Judith Halberstam e Ira Livingston, eds. Posthuman Bodies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), pp. 1-19.

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[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are secrets in this book.

[Ceilidh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lots of words for not enough substance. Only 'Identity in Oshkosh' was really worth the read.

[Ivana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great essays and reference material