Posthumanismus: Leben jenseits des Menschen

by Rosi Braidotti

Genetik und künstliche Befruchtung, Robotik, Implantate und Computertechnologie haben nicht nur in der Science-Fiction Cyborgs, Zombies und Klone hervorgebracht. Auch in der Philosophie und in den Humanwissenschaften hat sich seit einigen Jahren eine lebendige Diskussion über die Grenzen und Möglichkeiten des Menschen angesichts moderner Technologien entwickelt. Rosi Braidotti unternimmt eine faszinierende Tour de Force vom Humanismus zum Zeitalter des Posthumanismus, in das technologischer Fortschritt und Kapitalismus uns katapultiert haben: Der humanistische Mensch – männlich, weiß, rational, selbstbewusst, eurozentrisch – ist nicht mehr Maß aller Dinge und hat heute, so Braidotti, einem nomadischen, nicht-individuellen Subjekt Platz gemacht. Vor der Folie postkolonialer und feministischer Theorie legt das Buch die Grundlage für eine neue Theorie dieses posthumanen Subjekts: Nicht mit sich selbst identisch, kollektiv und kosmopolitisch ist es vielfältig mit anderen Subjekten vernetzt – mit Menschen wie mit Tieren und Dingen. So birgt für Braidotti das Ende des Humanismus eine Utopie: Es eröffnet neue soziale Bindungen und Gemeinschaftlichkeit im globalen Maßstab.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory, Feminism, Academic, Sociology, Anthropology

215 pages, Paperback

First published May 20, 2013

Reviews

[Karl Bunker · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is not, in any straightforward sense, about "the posthuman" in the sense that futurists like Ray Kurzweil and many science fiction authors use the term. That is, it's not a discussion of the ways by which future technologies might enhance and modify human minds and bodies to the point that the definition of "human" is called into question.

Rather, it's a book of dense, highly specialized philosophy. The branch of philosophy it discusses is tangentially connected to the "posthuman" in the sense described above, but only tangentially. This philosophy seeks to develop a successor to "humanism" as a philosophy, hence "posthumanism" (which would have been a better-advised title for this book). Posthumanism, or "Posthuman Theory" is allied to the field of Critical Theory, which is noted for its esotericism, its cryptic jargon, and, in the view of some, its navel-gazing insularity and detachment from real-world and common-sense concerns.

So don't buy this book if you're looking for nuts-and-bolts speculations about how future technology might enable changes to the human body and mind. For all intents and purposes, that's a whole 'nuther subject. This book is strictly for readers who are well-versed in the works of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Donna Haraway and their ilk. If those names aren't part of your everyday language, you'll probably find this book quite impossible to read.

[Erkan Saka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part of the book is the best review of contemporary social theory I have seen recently. Some sections of the boook discusses the state of humanities and academia/universities. This is also revealing. Posthumanism discussion is a peculiar one that has nothing to do with futurologists etc. Since i come from a poststructuralist background like the author, i find her perspective even more helpful.

[Simona Tota · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sicuramente un testo importante per comprendere la tendenza filosofica degli ultimi tempi che unisce femminismi, ecologia, filosofia, politica, etica in una prospettiva che tiene conto dei cambiamenti storici che tutti quanti viviamo

[Christopher · Rating 1 out of 5]

When I picked this book up I thought it was a philosophy of science text about posthumanism, so keep that in mind when you read this review. I hate reading most postmodern philosophy, and was appalled to discover that this was a postmodern text. As I began to wade into it I found the introduction to be not so bad and found myself agreeing with it more than I thought I would. That was short lived.

This "philosophy" involves Braidotti citing her opinion on something and then citing somebody else who shares that opinion. Then in the conclusions of each chapter she calls this "arguing." As far as I can tell, no arguments exist in this book. It is merely a series of statements and appeals to authority. There certainly are no counter-arguments that are seriously considered, though Braidotti will sometimes bring up an opposing opinion, cite it as well, and then forget about it.

[Türkay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Braidotti’nin İnsan sonrası kitabında,
sosyal bilimlerde yöntem,
Vitrivius insanından başlayan hümanizm tanımı ve eleştirileri,
Neo-liberalizmim geldiği noktada sosyal/ beşeri bilimlerin algılanma biçimi, geleceği
üzerine yazılmış, tartışılmaya değer çok değerli fikirler var.
Genellikle erkek seslerin egemen olduğu felsefe alanında, feminist bir kadın filozof sesi duymak da ayrıca keyifli bir okuma deneyimi sunuyor.

[Jonathan Norton · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is an over-long Dean's Address in which all the different bits of news she's heard over the past year get a brief mention, but nothing is explained in any detail. The primary concern is institutional: to emphasise that "the Humanities" have a viable future in the western university structure of the 21st century. Since the later decades of the 20th century saw Humanities departments become dominated by theorists who rejected the traditional presumptions that led to the emergence of "the Humanities" in the first place, there is going to be a problem of justification. The option of simply declaring that Shakespeare &co. possessed universal human truths inaccessible to science is not available to anyone who rejects "elitism".

There is constant recourse in this book to statements about what "we" think and feel about various matters. Braidotti shows a fleeting awareness that this is, to put it mildly, problematic (pg. 83), but this doesn't seem to stop her. It's easy to work out who "we" are - "we" are all inhabitants of the typical western Humanities faculty. We have cartoonish, undetailed ideas of intellectual history, we only read a subset of philosophers identified as "continental", we misidentify assertion as argument, we have a fidgety concern for "progressive politics" but cannot relate it to the sceptical views we endorse as a matter of professional duty, we are worried that the neoliberals are going to close the whole game down sooner or later. We only acknowledge thinkers outside our world as a strained courtesy, or as hate-figures. For example, Martha Nussbaum gets 1 page of notice, that barely tells us anything about what she thinks and how she argues for it, before she is handwaved away.

The topic of "post-humanism" is a serious and fascinating one, in both the dimensions gestured at here. Firstly, how anyone who takes Foucault's position seriously can reconcile it with progressive politics. That's a topic plenty of other people outside "critical theory" have wondered at, for example Alasdair MacIntyre in "Three Rival Versions Of Moral Enquiry". There has never been any shortage of conservative, reactionary responses to Enlightenment humanism and liberal theory. Secondly, we (and I mean everyone) have to consider how new technological changes will alter our assumptions about human possibilities. This is also not a new problem: the improvements in modern medicine, raising life expectancies and diminishing infant mortality (in the rich countries, at least) have themselves caused a great many social and cultural changes. Why worry about God and redemption if death is far over the horizon? The issues are: equity in how the benefits are fairly distributed, and how society would have to change if (just maybe) everyone could live to be 500, and severed limbs can be regrown or reattached painlessly and quickly. An older kind of progressive, non-academic and more popular, such as Shaw and Wells, did a lot of thinking on this, but the crit. theory crowd seem to just want to organise the same old seminars under different terminology.

The proof-reading of this text seems to have been neglected. Spellings of names vary, and also vary from their standard version ("Socal" for "Sokal"). On pg. 157 "A new relationship between arts and sciences is being established before our very, but the question is..." - I think "eyes" is missing before the comma there. Of course shoddy proofing seems to be normal amongst commercial publishing nowadays, but it's not great in a book that presents itself as a manifesto for the survival of serious work in a shallow culture.

What we have here is an *example* of how neoliberalism is reshaping the Humanities, not any resistance to it. The demand for greater productivity of "research" and for "interdisciplinarity" (scores better on the metrics) is a great boost to anyone who wants to waffle about "the cybernetic hypothesis" or networks or any other hot topic, and use it to repackage the same old lags (Deleuze & Guattari, etc.) with barely any amendments to account for what is supposed to be analyzed. The aim is to find phenomena that can be mapped on to Theory, not to refigure Theory to meet new phenomena. Yes, I do know that theory & observation are not separable - there's a great and more serious philosophical literature on that issue, outside of the CT world, and it makes the teenage-level intellectualism of the latter completely irrelevant.

[Miroslaw Aleksander · Rating 2 out of 5]

Off the bat: the two stars stand for the official goodreads scale ('It was OK'). The book starts of very well. The first two chapters Are interesting, although not very innovative. We actually get only a handful of original ideas, relying mostly on postulates that have been around since the mid-20th century, some even earlier. The rejection of the outdated Enlightenment model is a compelling idea, as are the changes discussed in the second chapter.

The following two chapters are, unfortunately, less original and, at times, tedious. I'll start with the final chapter: it's all been said. The canon wars, the culture wars, the Sokal hoax are all old news, and, furthermore, they have been discussed at length, so a revision does not serve any purpose.
Furthermore, it is ironic that she seeks a new future for the humanities in Asia, when Japan heavily cut funding all humanities and social studies departments. China, on the other hand, still has to tackle problems connected with freedom of speech.

What is more, Braidotti's affirmative approach seems the see Eurocentric thinking as a globally corrupting factor. As much as I agree, she ignores that a number of other cultures have belligerent and centralizing tendencies. She is terribly zoocentric, ignoring plants, fungi, bacteria, archea, and viruses, which is problematic when postulating a new view of life as a 'transversal force' that unites all species. Furthermore, the implications of her views on death in this light are even more problematic. Her interpretation of the posthuman condition, although ostensibly mentioning its flaws, seems almost to be happy-go-lucky, as the final sentence seems to suggest. In a world of many threats to global security this seems very unconvincing. And that's ignoring the fact that the entire book bases mostly (though not solely) on white philosophers of European descent.

At its best it is stimulating, but the book seems to be a introduction or proposal rather than a fully developed critical approach or system of ethics. Her view of posthumanism often seems to be idealistic, and the belief that modern information technology may be a liberating force is far from convincing: the Internet, although offers a lot of potential is often used in a politicized way, and, more problematically, fuels consumer desire causing many to renegotiate advanced capitalism rather than turn away from it. It seems that what Braidotti sees as a turn from the inequality of the Enlightenment to the egalitarian potential of the posthuman actually will be the turn from crude oil to Coltan. SSDD.

[Stuart Macalpine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this as an entry text into Posthumanism after reading Donna Haraway's Staying with the Trouble as a broader and more rhetorically imaginative text. This book does provide exactly that - a solid introduction to the Posthuman, well laid out in a historical context.

My framing of the Posthuman would run something like this: the Posthuman emerges as a resolution to the tensions that break post-structuralism. The humanist tradition has a long and complex genelogy with key points during the Renaissance and Romanticism, and through social constructivism. It essentially sees a split between nature and nurture, as opening up a space for human perfectibility - whether that is the neoplatonic chain of being, holistic education, the various bildung traditions of fiction or Kurt Hahn's educational innovations. I have always (perhaps until now) associated myself with this tradition, despite a keen awareness of its contractions.

The contradictions of this tradition come from the fact that the able bodied, neurotypical, intellectually, culturally and physically confident, white 'renaissance man' is taken as the cultural ideal - and try to hide it as you might - becomes the measure of all things. Hence Rosi Braidotti often cites the image of Vitruvian man as a central image of the renaissance.

Poststructuralism attempted to deconstruct the assertion of centrality and privilege that are implicit within humanism, and point out the way it empowered colonisation and violence, as well as enabled miraculous advances in technology. But even these are ambiguous, leading as they have to species extinction and climate change - still within the paradigm of 'nature and nurture'. So by problematising the idea of authority and 'presence' poststructuralists sought to create a space for other voices, and identities within the power of humanist structures of thought, language and behaviour.

The trouble with this though, is that nature and the material universe is still excluded, as if humans existed in their own special world the other side of a cordon sanitaire from 'nature' or the physical world. Posthumanism goes back to Spinoza, inspired by Deleuze, to suggest a new paradigm. This new paradigm would collapse the carefully constructed binary oppositions into richer wholes - these are sometimes described as 'rhizomes' (rather than roots, which constantly divide like a taxonomy) or cartographies which allow not only paths and territories to be mapped, but allow for 'deterritorialisation' and 'lines of flight' that ignore paths already worn into the earth. The most significant opposition they collapse is that between nature and nurture, or between human and nonhuman, or between life and matter.

This idea of radical embrace, reminds me in many ways of Whitman's song of myself - it has the same mixture of total acceptance of the physical world (of which humans are a part) and an acceptance of both optimism and terror at the same time. I find it liberating and it resolves some of the deadends which humanism and poststructuralism lead to.

The 'holistic education' which starts in earnest with Mathew Arnold finds its dissolution in this thinking. For too long schools (many of which I have loved, and worked for) have touted holistic education as the model. What starts with educators like Kurt Hahn as a model of Arnold's public school, empire building cultural conservatism, was always colonising. The original badge system for learning goals (like DoE or service awards) came from a model of military achievements, via the scouts and the Moray award, to dominate his thinking about 'character education'. One of Kurt Hahn's original quotes was 'what is the moral equivalent of war?' and his answer was service. The irony that the narrative of 'white saviourism' is then morally restored to the highest form of education, as uberprivileged students benevolently 'save' or more recently 'partner' with those less fortunately in order to 'transform the world' in a glowing aura of self congratulation, in an environment which is 'safe to fail' due to the cushion of privilege. Where this is benevolently shared with scholars or the emphasis is on the 'future impact' of these individuals for the common good - at heart the same saviourism beats at the heart and an individualist, humanist approach to learners becoming mobile agents of liberal thought in an all too human world.

The era of holistic education being a salve-all to education is over. The era of young 'change makers' learning to change the world in activities that could remind one of the way lions give their cubs injured animals to play with, to train them in earnest to take their place at the top of food chain is no longer valid.

I say this as a life long Kurt Hahn fan, who therefore has considerable qualms about any encroachment upon the godlike figure that has dominated 'progressive' approaches to education - indeed I say it as a child who grew up living in a progressive school my father led, and whose founder Badley as an archhumanist has always held a godlike status for me - with the motto of 'Hand, Heart, Head' resounding in our house, and service in 'Work of Each for the Weal of All'.

Nonetheless, posthumanism is a radical call for a rethink of our assumptions, and is a clarion that signals the downing of arms of the humanist approach - and a entry for something much more complex and less riven with contradictions of its own making. The tradition that got its full incarnation in "holistic education" in Mathew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy in 1869 is finally coming to the end of its intellectual legitimacy. The age of 'holistic education' is over. The age of Posthuman education starts here.

[Lobo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Przeczytałam to, żeby pisać lepsze fanfiction do X-men :)

A tak poważnie, Braidotti, jak zawsze, oferuje klarowne, wyczerpujące i wciągające kompendium myśli posthumanistycznej, rozumianej jako okres koniecznej i możliwej reformacji sposobów konstruowania i rozumienia podmiotowości. "Po człowieku" to przegląd możliwości i zagrożeń nowoczesnego myślenia, nie tylko tych związanych z bigoteryjnym konserwatyzmem, ale też tkwiących w sercu (post)humanizmu, jak androcentryczne nawyki myślowej i kierowanie się kapitalistyczną logiką. Wyjątkowo interesująca interpretacja Spinozy. W sumie to dobry punkt wyjścia przed sięgnięciem po najnowszą książkę Haraway.

[Viktor Skarehag · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bara kap 1 var del i litteraturen, fan i mig det tyngsta jag läst, vän till focoult, postmoderna skolan. Dom är fan inte kloka. Återkommer.

[hajar · Rating 3 out of 5]

dan denk je dat je het eindelijk begrijpt, maar dan kom je nog verwarder uit de lecture

[Safa Furkan]

Böyle teori kusan kitapları sevemiyorum ama konuyla ilgili daha fazla kaynak için kaynakçaları inanılmaz işe yarıyor.

[Ellie Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me when I'm porous and the bounds of my humanity interconnected to the world around me.
Reading for secondary criticism for science fiction in Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro

[نورة · Rating 3 out of 5]

لا يخلو من إشارات جيدة، واستعراض أقل جودة.
يتسم بالركاكة بنائياً وضعف الطرح والنتائج، وربما أن لسيولة المفاهيم في مثل هذه الأطروحات وطبيعتها دور.

[Virga · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vidutiniška knygelė, lyginant su anksčiau skaitytais Braidotti straipsniais. Buvo kelios vietos įdomesnės, kur skaitydama įsitraukiau į samprotavimą, nes ten jis originalus, ne perrašinėjamas iš kitų autorių. Įdomiausias gal trečias skyrius, beveik visas, apie laiką ir mirtį (ignoruojamos senos filosofinės taisyklės, tai nėra nuobodu), nes čia mažiausiai apžvalgos ir daugiausiai pačios Braidotti interpretacijų ir išvadų. Kiti skyriai, išskyrus vieną kitą vietą jose šiaip labiau tinkami kam nors, kam reikia apžvalgos rašant kokį bakalaurinį ar magistrinį, ar kokį kitą labai akademinį labai nykų daiktą.

[Luis García Vela · Rating 5 out of 5]

No hice reseña de esto. Sólo puedo decir sintetizando que: Braidotti tienes la cabeza inmensa. Lo mismo demoles los conceptos clásicos de subjetividad como te metes con la práctica médica de manera coherente. Imprescindible

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is a map of the familial relationships between humanistic theories of recent past and the emerging posthuman turn in experience and critical thought. As such it describes the key active areas that the move away from the single-subject ideal of Man (traditional Humanism) has created or emphasized. If what it means to be human is no longer defined by the contents and systems of the rational consciousness of the well-off European dominant male, then the resulting cultural assemblies like politics, ethics, civic-mindedness are also going to change. I think of it as moving from a tree plantation where only one kind of tree is grown, to a forest where the possibilities for growth depend on one’s relationship to the soil, the wind, the water, the insects, the mammals, fungi, bacteria, etc. Posthumanism is an ecological network kind of thought system.

I admit to finding such systemics preferable to the older systems of dualistic conceptual organization and creation (e.g. Idealism and Realism). Partly this is because I am not the ideal subject and so Humanism was not built around what I experience. As such I don’t find echoes of myself in most traditional theory. I also don’t find echoes of most of my neighbours, and for me that’s a problem.

Reading Braidotti is reading text built around these ideas of shifting subjectivity, conceptual constructions as generative instead of summarizing or explicating. It’s more difficult, especially if the whole idea of nomadic selfhood is also a new idea. Sort of like reading Deleuze on Spinoza if what one thinks is “right” is Kant on Spinoza. The search for a singular truth based on an assumption of transcendental foundationalism is not going to produce the same results as the exploration of a text to use it as an engine for virtual points of emergence – to create concepts that are both engines and the products, and thereby nudge possibility into autopioetic forms.

As for judgment, I’m going to reserve that in a “I don’t know” category until I’ve read at least 2 other books by her. I feel like I need to see how she pulls out the helix of this new ecology to see how well it makes of it a living thing.

[Elmehdi Handazi · Rating 2 out of 5]

كتاب: ما بعد الإنسان
تأليف: روزي بريدوتي
ترجمة: حنان عبد المحسن مظفر
دار النشر: عالم المعرفة
طبعة: 488 لنوفمبر 2021

#مراجعة

ملاحظة: لم اتمكن من استنتاج الكثير، الا هذه النقط المهمة والقليلة لأن هذا الكتاب لم يترجم جيدا زيادة ان افكاره ركيكة وغير واضحة.

🏅ما بعد الحركة الإنسانية: الحياة ما وراء النفس
1.نتج عن اقتصاد الإختلاف السياسي هذا أن فئات كاملة من البشر أعتبرت من دون قيمة ومن ثم يمكن التخلص منها: فأصبح مصطلح "مختلف عن" يعني "أقل من" وضع المعيار السائد للشخص في ذروة المقياس الهرمي الذي يكافئ إنعدام الإختلاف كحالة مثالية.

هذا هو نموذج الرجل البيتروفي الذي تشيد به الحركة الإنسانية الكلاسيكية الذي تم تكهنه بشكل مادي خال من الروح، حتى أنه يظهر بياض بشرته الأوروبية ....
لايمكن للعالم أن يتبنى هذه الحركة المركزية بشكل لامركزي لأنها لا تعبر عن وحدوية الذات الإنسانية سواء من الجانب المادي أو حتى الروحي.

ويتضح مما سبق أن الكاتبة روزي بريدوتي تناهظ هذه الحرمة الإنسانية ليس كمبدأ بل لأن منطلقها معياري مفهرس مركزي أوروبي.

2. لايوجد دليل على أن الإهتمام بمساواة المرأة كان أولوية بالنسبة إلى أولئك الذين عملوا على فصل الكينسة عن الدولة.

إنهم كرسوا اللامساواة عبر تقيسم الوطنية الى خاصة وعامة، فجعلو من الأولى مقياسا لنجاح المرأة الذي تم قوقعته على المجالات الروحانية اللاعقلانية الخرافية مع ضبط المجال الكنسي من رجال الدين لإحكام المراقبة وعدم الإنفلات، وتكريس مجال الوطنية العامة التي ترتبط بالحياة الحيوية في المجالات الاقتصادية والسياسية والاجتماعية من قبل الرجل البيتروفي.
إن العلمانية في جوهرها لا تحرر المرأة إلا ي نطاقها المحكوم بالجهالة واللافعالية .

🏅ما بعد المركزية البشرية "الحياة ما وراء النوع"
إن اارأسمالية المتقدمة هي آلة الغزل التي تنتج الإختلافات بشكل فاعل من أجل التسليع.

إن الاقتصاد السياسي الإنتهازي لرأسمالية البيولوجيا الوراثية يساعد على تشتيت ومسح الفروقات بين الإنسان والأصناف الأخرى.

[Max Mills · Rating 3 out of 5]

I initially came to posthumanism through Donna Haraway, which may be ironic seeing as she no longer calls herself a post-humanist, because posthumanism still has human in the name, prefering to call herself a “compostist” (Staying with the trouble). I found Rosi Braidotti’s book The Posthuman in an effort to continue to unpack these concepts of posthumanism, and an introduction and overview of the concept. It did not disappoint in these regards, however sometimes she’s articulating a lineage which I feel less attachment to. In the Introduction or first chapter she starts by describing the history of Humanism and the need for post-humanism, then she lays out her own lineage and relationship to posthumanism and how she got there, and the different strands of posthumanism. Then she relates posthumanism to four different topics – the self, the species, life itself, and theory (which is basically a literature review of the need for a new Humanities). This book is also over 10 years old, so it’s slightly dated, but it’s dated not in a sense of being wrong or less relevant but rather more relevant, for example some of her examples seem fairly banal in our current day, there are more weird, more dangerous, more invasive examples than the ones she uses. Overall it is something that I will probably be returning to but not something that I uncritically agree with, I think I am more on the Haraway type of posthumanism, I prefer Haraway’s writing style too, more than Braidotti.

[Jed Mayer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderfully thorough exploration of the ethics and possibilities of the posthuman, though at times her terminology is not as clear as it could be, and her final chapter on the interdisciplinary impact of posthuman thinking is way off the mark; problems aside, this is a powerful work of critical theory.

[Levon · Rating 3 out of 5]

in the beginning i was quite afraid Braidotti would sort of preach us into believing her theory, but towards the end of the book it became quite clear that is not the case and she is just informing us. i do however stand by the fact that the book is not accessible for most people, as it is very dense and academically written and thus this Posthuman theory will never be something discussed worldwide or get the outcome Braidotti wanted it to have.

[Saltyfacu · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book advocates for new ways of thinking primarily about ourselves, but also about our world as a shared environment of living beings among other things... in a way, I think the uncertain times of the 21st century have been kind of craving for affirmative and positive predicments like this. This will definitely be a literary reference not only as an academic, but also as an individual.

[Zosia Kosińska · Rating 2 out of 5]

crazy shit
część poglądów i wywodów logicznych rzeczywiście inspiruje i daje nowy pogląd na naszą relację z erą posthumanizmu a reszta ma tyle teorii i sensu co mój overthinking o 2 w nocy lub mój ostatni situationship..
+ po zrobieniu notatki lekko zapomniałam o tej książce bo nie było za wiele podłoża do tych rozmyślań

[Filippo Mastrogiacomo · Rating 3 out of 5]

My brain is way too smooth to capture what Braidotti wanted to say :)

[Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

We have never been human. Braidotti resolves to put the human back into the posthuman. She plays the mapmaker in this book, drawing from a collection of related authors and theorists and kin and placing them into four chapters of "life beyond..." (the self, the species, death and theory). There isn't much that cannot be found in her or others' works, but much of it bears repeating until it finally sinks in.

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my first introduction to the theory of the posthuman and it was a good place to start. Braidotti is very clear in her definitions - sometimes too clear, to the point of repeating the same thing many times over - but that certainly helped in my understanding of the subject.
I agree with most of her stances and personally find the posthuman fascinating, but where I disagreed I strongly disagreed. Her usage of mental illness discourse in her rhetoric is extremely offensive and greatly hampered my liking of the book. Her insistence on the affirmative is understandable, but I wasn't personally persuaded by it. I also question how practical some of her ideas are for creating a sustainable future.
However, overall this was a fairly easy read (for a theory book) and I appreciate Braidotti's candor in regards to her subjectivity. It was a very good launching off point for posthuman theory and works.

[Boria Sax · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Posthuman by Rosi Braidotti is an impressive display of intellectual virtuosity, but I suspect it may be an exercise in futility as well. The author subtly interrogates a vast range of works that purport to be post-humanist or zoocentric, from deep ecology to ecofeminism, concluding that they are ultimately tied to anthropocentric and humanistic paradigms. This critical analysis is in the service of what she believes to be a genuine posthumanism, which does not entail the commodification and reification of animals or human beings. Despite the author's consistently reasonable tone and many astute observations, I can't help but be reminded a bit of the old political debates about what constitutes "true" Marxism. Does it really matter?

[Tuli Márquez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imprescindible per a plantejar-se sortides ideològiques al laberint actual. Potser un excés d'etiquetes, però.

[Can Urla · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this piece for my MA thesis, and it undeniably contributed to it a lot. It is challenging to review this book, although I respect what Braidotti created, I also want to say a few things about this.

First of all, before reading this piece, I highly recommend that you check on the posthuman theories that are related to the interconnection, relationally and coexistence of human, animal, ecology, and machine. This is Braidotti's core argument, and to grasp the idea, basically, you can start from Francesca Ferrando's YouTube lectures on "the posthuman". Plus, you need to have a basic knowledge of the postmodern theories / theoritsts (of Foucault and Derrida - I would also add postmodernism itself because, I think, it is best to know that posthumanism emerged out of postmodernism, especially due to the way the current ways of thinking about the human is challenged). After that, read some Donna Haraway (Cyborg Manifesto, and Companion Species) and finally N. Katherine Hayles (How We Became Posthuman) on the idea of informatics and how human is seen as 'information'. Then, it would be easy to grasp the argument of Braidotti because she builds up on all of these.

Looking at the first three chapters, I really think this is a perfect book! "Introduction" clearly outlines what the posthuman is, chapter one, "Post-Humanism: Life beyond the Self", perfectly shows how the image of man is transformed, through the criticism of Eurocentred / Western humanism over the figure of Da Vinci's Vitruvian man. Chapter three, "Post-Anthropocentrism: Life beyond the Species" is a very important chapter where she focuses on the boundaries between human and human-other (animals, earth, and the machine) as she says:

"My focus is on the productive aspects of the posthuman predicament and the extent to which it opens up perspectives for affirmative transformations of both the structures of subjectivity and the production of theory and knowledge. I have labelled these processes as ‘becoming-animal, becoming-earth and becoming-machine" (Braidotti 66)

She mentions Dolly the Sheep as a posthuman figure and engages in critical discussion within the framework of animal testing. (there are also beautiful images embedded. -S. Harris, Leonardo Da Vinci’s Dog and Maggie Stiefv) She also mentions how The Vitruvian Man has gone cybernetic" (Braidotti 90) while discussing the role of technology in the posthuman predicament by including an image called 'Robot in the style of Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man' by Victor Habbick. For the human and nonhuman dualism, her argument is based on bios /zoe; the former refers to humans and the latter refers to non-humans. As a result, she offers a zoe-egalitarianism where human and nonhuman exist equally.

However, although these three chapters (including the introduction) are written and discussed perfectly well, the other three chapters are way too complex and do not make any sense. Chapter three, "The Inhuman: Life beyond Death," and chapter four, "Posthuman Humanities: Life beyond Theory," look at 'the ways of dying(?)' and how posthumanism found a place in the humanities. Braidotti suddenly becomes a postmodern theorist with the inclusion of these complex chapters, which I think was not necessary at all, as the first three chapters were well enough. Even worse, the conclusion does not contribute to anything at all and, of course she cites millons of pieces (including her own earlier studies) and add things to that statements, which is okay I guess because this books is more like 'engaging' with the issues.

Still, I enjoyed reading The Posthuman, although at times I found it impossible to finish and unbearable to read. I really think that the first three chapters carry what posthumanism has argued so far further and offer countless points that can contribute to a number of fields. Her main argument is the entanglements between the human and nonhuman, and what she offers is a flat ontology where humans, animals, and machines live in harmony (which Ferrandı calls a harmonic legacy); so interconnection, relationality, and coexistence (look at Francesca Ferrando's YouTube lecture on 'postdualism'). Overall, Braidotti's work is related to the humanities, eco-criticism, and technology in the posthuman framework. I believe it is a foundational text and worth the challenging reading.

[Adrienne Michetti · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s important to note where this book “sits” and “fits.” Braidotti is a philosopher. This book is a book about the philosophy of Posthumanism; more specifically it offers a historical justification for Posthumanism, supported with Braidotti’s own assertions about how and why a new theory of organizing knowledge and understanding is necessary, and suggestions of what it might look like in the future. In particular, Braidotti is concerned with Critical Theory and the Humanities. She builds on the work of Foucault, Nietzsche, Kant, Spinoza, Donna Haraway, and more to posit that there is a chasm between the nature- culture argument of existence and organization of life force in all things (‘zoe’ as she calls it). Braidotti, like many academics, often cites her own work and the work of others to “claim” that her theory is the best theory. But it’s important to remember this is all… theory. If you’ve never read philosophy before, you might feel that this text is incredibly abstract and not at all practical. That’s because it is both ;) Such is the nature of philosophy.

Having said all of that, I found it helpful to read Braidotti’s narrative of how we / they came to arrive at the 21st century’s definition of Posthumanism as a movement. It has elements of indigenous ways of knowing, which I sincerely wish was more acknowledged,as this perspective is neither novel nor singular. While Braidotti continues to argue that the world should look more transdisciplinary, I couldn’t help but think that it already IS transdisciplinary and that perhaps Braidotti spends too much time in siloed universities, colleges, and other relicky institutions. In fact, that chapter (the last one) was perhaps the most useful to me as an educator, in terms of re-imagining what education might look like in a Posthuman world. However, I had to remind myself that Braidotti wrote this in 2013 and in 2024 as I read this, many universities already have transdisciplinary departments, degrees, and areas of research. Did Braidotti and other Posthumanists predict this? Maybe. What’s more likely is that this is how the world has evolved because it’s the direction we were always headed in without even knowing (or planning) it.

So.. in that sense, I guess Braidotti was correct in terms of what our future looks like. From this perspective, I imagine we will continue to go that way. I mean, we are after all still using education models birthed during the industrial revolution. We have been in need of radical change for many, many decades (or centuries!). Braidotti asserts that the upending of the nature-culture continuum means that everything is as important as everything else. This means that at times, Posthumanism borders on nihilism for me, which certainly isn’t helpful for an educational lense.

Primal for Braidotti seems to be an argument that “the Humanities” have a place in the future because of its transdisciplinary nature. That, I feel, is already happening, so it is a moot point. Could our structures and systems be more responsive to this transdisciplinary “nature” of knowledge? Yes. I would rather, I think, read THAT book than more Critical Theory such as this, as the latter has few answers to the problem, and only serves to call out the problems, largely posed by conservative reactions to liberal Posthuman Theory. Let’s map out the solutions rather than intellectualize them with idealistic theory that quite literally has nowhere to go.

Not to mention: Braidotti calls for a more global context for knowledge and existence, and is critical of Euro-centric institutions, leaders, and thought. And yet, she defends her OWN theories with mostly European Posthumanists, with a few nods here and there to some from South Asia. I am curious about her other, more recent work, but this was a good primer for me to understand her general context … again, where she “fits” and “sits.”