Entanglements
Journal of Posthumanities

Human and Posthuman in Tales of Extinction

Via Braidotti, Ranciére and others, the article notes Australia's massive loss of species and examines fiction that points to this problem, seeking ways by which to engage feelings and change attitudes. In a predominantly humanist tradition, novels and stories move from cute animals dressed as humans to more anguished engagements with bird extinctions. All varyingly push people from complacency to envisaging their own extinction, from melancholia to activism, pointing to a posthuman unlearning in which we are no longer exceptional agents, but one more set of actants in and of nature. Following posthuman theorists like Barad and Braidotti, the article surveys Australia's record of species extinctions and assesses novels by Ethel Pedley, Dal Stivens, Josephine Wilson and Richard Flanagan for their handling of ecological crisis.

Non-Anthropocentric Posthumanism and the Stakes of Relationality

This paper examines the ontological underpinnings of non-anthropocentric posthumanism through an analysis of the work of Jane Bennett and Rosi Braidotti. I argue that their commitment to relational holism tacitly undermines their stated commitment to individuals by subordinating them to their relations. Drawing on Graham Harman’s Object-Oriented Ontology and Jacques Derrida’s commitment to a “Leibnizianism without God,” I propose a model of “non-relationist relationality” that preserves the radical alterity and individuality of entities while enabling contingent interactions.

Social Complementarity – the Duality of Individual Objectivity and Group Uncertainty

Calculus is seen as describing continuous functions through the act of breaking them down to the smallest possible parts, suggesting that the whole is only an aggregation of its parts. But modern science has demanded the creation of new kinds of measurements, where the deterministic rules of classical physics cease to exist and we can no longer see the individual member parts as sole explanations towards the continuity of the whole. There is a duality between states of dis/continuous being, and we seem to be doomed to only see the measured discontinuous version grounded in our own objectivity. But can the knowledge of this duality maybe help us better understand the social consequences of our world’s massively intraconnected social order? With the infrastructure of modern trade, seemingly instant communication possibilities, and newly created tribes numbering beyond what we thought possible; we have created a world that seem to defy our preconceptions of what social groups and responsibility means. Using agential realism and its groundbreaking insights into quantum philosophy with the idea of complementarity, I think we can start to understand these new states of being, and with it bring about a better grasp of the ethics that are an intrinsic part of all. Setting a foundation for how we can understand the duality of groups and individuals across all areas of our world, seeing complementarity as the grounding state of un/certain objectivity.

Dis-ease: The Affective Experience of Being Hospital-adjacent

In this piece of writing-as-analysis (Sharon Murphy Augustine), I seek to make sense of my body’s affective response – the heebie-jeebies – to working at a satellite university campus that is co-located with a hospital. Thinking-with Jane Bennett, Karen Barad, and Donna Haraway, I recount three vignettes – three confrontations – between my body and medical entities that provoke the heebie-jeebies: a feeling of dis-ease. I conclude that staying with the sense of dis-ease may in fact afford the opportunity for doing and being differently in my role as lecturer and education advisor at a medical school.

“Retro-Futuristic” Expedition Of Howard Leed’s Small Wonder

Popular culture and literature have served as fertile ground for the germination of ideas that eventually find their way into the fabric of the everyday lives of human existence. From the pages of science fiction novels to the silver screen of vanes blockbuster movies, inventions, and innovations conceived in the realm of imagination have often transcended the boundaries of fiction to reshape the world. This research project is an endeavor to explore a similar trajectory of representation of humanoids in a ‘reel’ world portrayal, Howard Leed’s Small Wonder, a nineteen eighties American sci-fi sitcom, and its projection to ‘real life’ humanoids of the twenty-first century. The sitcom shall be analyzed through the critical and philosophical lens of Posthumanism. How the sitcom has been instrumental in the early dawning of the technological renaissance, at the same time how it has reinforced certain stereotypes related to robots and gendered artificial intelligence shall be explored. This research is an amalgamation of Humanities, STS, and Literary Studies encompassing various theories and practical applications, to navigate the nuances of Science Fiction and the field of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence.

Waste and Women: A Posthumanist Study of Prayaag Akbar’s Leila

This paper examines Prayaag Akbar’s Leila through the lens of posthumanism, exploring themes of environmental collapse, systemic oppression, and the erosion of individuality in a dystopian future. The novel portrays Aryavarta, a rigidly segregated society where caste, class, and religious identity dictate one’s fate. The study highlights how posthumanist thought critiques anthropocentrism by interrogating the boundaries between humans, technology, and the environment. The research delves into Aryavarta’s technological advancements, such as climate-controlled domes, which exacerbate social hierarchies while offering artificial solutions to environmental crises. It also explores how surveillance, forced assimilation, and bio-political control in Purity Camps reflect posthumanist concerns about dehumanization and ideological programming. Drawing from theorists such as N. Katherine Hayles and Rosi Braidotti, this paper argues that Leila presents a cautionary narrative where oppressive systems reduce individuals to informational entities, stripping them of agency and autonomy. Ultimately, this analysis situates Leila within the broader discourse of posthumanism, emphasizing the urgent need to rethink societal, ecological, and technological entanglements in contemporary dystopian fiction.

Getting Over the Human with Friedrich Nietzsche: Twilight of the Transhuman Idols

Stefan Lorenz Sorgner has argued against Nick Bostrom that the “Overhuman” (Übermensch) of Friedrich Nietzsche counts as a genuine predecessor of both posthumanism and transhumanism. In a reply article, Michael Hauskeller argues that the transhumanist vision does not accord with the Nietzschean Overhuman. While the two share similarities, they are distinct, for Nietzsche did not believe in Enlightenment ideas of liberalism, progress and scientism. Futurologically-informed transhumanist ideas relating to human “enhancement” are too modern and progressive to be Nietzschean. Babette Babich claims that transhumanism constitutes an “all-too-human” position. We conclude that Nietzsche was not a transhumanist, because, on the whole, the overhuman is more a tragic hero who affirms eternal recurrence and deifies Nature, and is not a technocratic denier of nature. It is high time we got over the “human” element altogether.

Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? New York: Doubleday, 1968. Pp. 210. ISBN: 978-1-61523-359-5.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, authored by Philip K. Dick and published in 1968 by Doubleday provides a comparative view of the intricacies of the human emotional psyche. The story, told through the protagonist Rick Deckard, sheds emphasis on the visceral capacities of humans as compared to android artificial intelligence. Dick’s acclaimed novel, which explores the manufactured relationship between man and machine, provides the reader with a rich insight into the rooted, yet often concealed, differences between human characteristics and the rigid traits of robots, providing a tangible contrast between human idiosyncrasies and electronic creations. The novel poses the important question of what it means to be human. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? served as the basis for Ridley Scott's dystopian classic film Blade Runner, and it is to Philip K Dick’s imagination’s immense credit that neither the book nor the film appears irrelevant even in today’s date. The story was undoubtedly ahead of its time. Indeed, seldom a year goes by without some technological advancement that brings Dick’s 1968 vision of the future closer. Hovercars may be a while off but the likes of video conversations and genetic tweaks are clearly in the present. The initial pages introduce “mood-organs,” which are activated to suppress or increase emotions in a needy populace. It's tough not to draw parallels with the internet which is constantly on, always available, yet never truly genuine.

Editor's Note