The Relevance of Michel Serres’s Idea of Bodily Hominescence for a Convergence of Posthumanism and Transhumanism: A Trans/Posthuman Body

Faced with the challenge of arguments about the relation of post-,and trans-humanism,putting forth questions on their“antagonism”,or“convergence”,I propose to(re-)evaluate/highlight the relevance of the thinking of Michel Serres for posthuman debates.It specifically seems to me that Serresian idea of bodily hominescence can be read as a suggestion of“convergence”of post-and trans-humanism.Starting from the assumption that the body is a crucial node of both of them in that its consideration by one and the other marks a major front of their divergence(tool body according to transhumanism,dimensional body according to posthumanism),I seem to grasp,within the Serresian theme of the hominescent body as totipotent/virtual,the idea of bodily virtuality as a point of their convergence.Following Serres’s argument that,due to its virtuality/potentiality(intended as the totality of the possibilities),the body,though always involved in(technological)hybridization processes,is difficult to be artificially reproduced and to be reduced to information,I assume virtuality as an“operational concept”capable of“producing”convergence of post-and trans-humanism.Such a concept allows me,in fact,to read the body(re-)invested,by technology as an infiltrative agent,of a dimensional role as hybridizer(and in this sense normalized).Through virtuality,therefore,I think to be able to understand the body as a meeting ground between trans-and post-component,in the sense that technological“intervention”no longer constitutes an enhancement of the body,but a hybridizing event not implying dis-incarnation but rather normalization of body’s dimensional value;precisely such,due eminently to hybridization with otherness within a process of technological infiltration.The body normalized by such a technology is therefore a trans-posthuman body,in the sense of being contaminated by technological processes keeping it in its dimensionality.In order to better illustrate this idea,I propose to examine Serresian metaphor of the body as a trunk without branches with cultural cut twigs,which seems to me to effectively express the theme of the body as a ground/condition of hybridization,i.e.,as an anthropo-techno-poietic dimension.I aim so at showing the relevance of Serres’s thought to conceive,in a convergent perspective,a body,not to be strengthened,but to be normalized in its dimensionality,namely,a trans/posthuman body in a trans/posthumanist context.

Michel Serres and the Posthumanism: Silencing, Recognizing, and Working on Absences

Faced with a socio-political-mediatic arena that continues to return the ballet of pandemic,climate change,fourth industrial revolution,sixth mass extinction,war etc.,the reflection of Michel Serres and Posthumanism put forth instances for silencing of the anthropocentric logos,and for recognition of the multiplicity,variety,possibility of things and of the human in co-belonging with them,as well as instances for working on these same multiplicities,varieties,possibilities,that are often absences,black holes,repressed of philosophical thought.

Alienation and Existential Predicaments of Clones:Interpreting Never Let Me Go in the Context of Posthumanism

The literary background of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go sets in a highly developed scientific and technological world where clones are created by human and“educated”in the Hailsham School for the sake of“donating”their vital organs to human three or four times before death.By depicting miserable fate of clones,the novel conveys deep concerns on the consequences of abusing technology in modern society.Ever since the burgeoning development of life science and artificial intelligence in the 1990s,the trend of posthumanism/transhumanism has emerged.Posthumanism promotes approaches to enhancing human body condition and organism,and extending human lifespan to augment human capacity and well-being by the advancement of technology.In literary field,contemplation on the relationship between human beings and technology has become a major concern of posthumanism.Putting Never Let Me Go in the context of posthumanism,this essay probes into the significant themes of the novel from three aspects:(1)clones’torments in the existential predicaments imposed by human;(2)human’s violation to the principles of bioethics causing the existential predicaments of alienated clones;(3)appealing to human to ruminate on the relationship between scientific technology and ethics.

Anthropo-Eccentric Variations on Times of Crises With Michel Serres and Posthumanism

Michel Serres’s and Posthumanism’s reciprocally isomorphic reflections may offer not mainstream suggestions of an overall human repositioning,now,in times of war,pandemic/post-pandemic,environmental crisis,political,economic,and cultural problems,more mandatory than ever.If in fact,as it seems,it is question of de-anthropocentering/de-anthropomorphizing the world,to allow common principles and interrelationships between entities to emerge from within,Serresian and Posthumanist variations on the theme of the parasite/virus and the recognition of the world would provide profitable ideas on this way.

The Rise of Posthumanism:Challenge to and Prospect for Mankind

Posthumanism has in the past few years been one of the most cutting-edge theoretical topics increasingly attracting the critical attention of scholars of both humanities and social sciences.The author holds that the rise of"posthumanism”in the West during the past decades indicates that in the present era,man,like those living animals and plants on the earth,is nothing but one of the species in nature,whose existence and development to a large extent depend on natural law.It is true that posthumanism came after the crisis of humanism,but it has continuity with and transcends over the latter.It informs us that over-evaluating the role of man is by no means adequate,for man has entered into a"posthuman"stage,in which man is no longer viewed as the only species that has rational thought,nor is he the head of all the species on the earth.But man can create various wonders,some of which are even beyond man's control.Although the rise of posthumanism has raised a severe challenge and even threat to traditional humanism and human existence,the author still hopefully finds some prospects for mankind,especially in current China where a sort of ecocivilization should be built up and digital humanities may well bridge up the gap between science and humanities.

Inchoative Apocalypses of the Human at the Time of the Anthropocene

In the Apocalypse,the chiliastic-eschatological meaning has been superimposed on the original literal meaning of dis-velation.A phenomenon,this one,seems to have favored the formation of neuralgic force fields between the end,the beginning,which in some way refer to each other,and precisely dis-velation.If the whole of history seems to be disseminated and sometimes informed by these fields,the Anthropocene temperament certainly does not seem to be an exception.The apocalyptic Anthropocene interstitial spaces are particularly crowded and lively and,among the many voices animating them,those of Serres,Latour,and the posthumanist perspective,to which the one and the other,so to speak,wink,are of particular interest.What the Serresian-Latourian posthuman apocalyptic Anthropocene force-field seems to be reviving is,so to speak,a new recognition of the already-since-ever-been,i.e.the recognition that the human has always been inchoative in and with the world in becoming in relationship,that the post has always been an engine,resistant to repetitiveness,obviousness and habit,that the new is this very recognition,and that the recognition of the already-since-ever-been is precisely action,dynamism,a process of construction(of human in and with the world).

Being Human in a More-Than-Human World:Between a Silence Catalyst for(Re)Aestheticization and an Art Catalyst for Relationships

The contribution moves from highlighting how,in the context of Michel Serres’and posthumanism’s proposal of rethinking the human and the world in a perspective of inter-implication and universal co-belonging,silence(of the human word)assumes the function of a catalyst for the recognition/re-aestheticization of the human body in its sensory-aesthetic-cognitive-relational-hybrid dimensionality,and,with and for it,of the world in its agency(including artistic).Within the framework of this perspective,the investigation thus proposes a reading of art as a relation/catalyzer of relations,that is,as a(re)activation of positive relations of the human with and for a world that reveals itself to be increasingly hyper-complex,that is,more-than-human,in the continuity/inseparability of nature and culture.Taking Serresian ideas on artistic practices as non(only)human forms of expression and posthumanist“isomorphic”positions on non-human agency as tools,the research then highlights the“more-than-human”scope of art and the fact that artistic practices are responsive actions.So much so that,the human being emerges as co-agent and,of course,co-owner.

Between the Middle Ages,the Contemporary,and the Future:(Towards)a Trans-Post-Humanist Body

Faced with the challenges of emerging technologies and impossibility of thinking human beings in the humanistic sense,I propose a convergent philosophical approach to posthumanism(s)and transhumanism(s).So,by means of ideas drawn from(medieval and contemporary)philosophy,my contribution is informed by conceiving a non-anthropocentric and posthumanist transhumanism.My focus is the body as a crucial node of both transhumanism(s)and posthumanism(s),in that its consideration by one and the other seems to mark a major front of divergence between them(tool body according to transhumanism(s),dimensional body according to posthumanism(s)).My reflection is carried out,by drawing two theoretical reservoirs:the thought of Roger Bacon(13th century)and of Michel Serres.I take the former as a reference for transhumanist front and the latter as a reference for posthumanist one.I thus hypothesize that Bacon’s doctrine of the prolongation of life can be considered as an anticipation of the transhumanist research of earthly human immortality.So,I examine Bacon’s idea that the adhesion of human activity(alchemy and medicine)with the course of nature can produce,through the preparation of a long life drug,the aequalitas terrena,which is an operation of restoration/conservation of the state of bodily natural balance(health),with the connected prolongation of life within the limits allowed by nature.I therefore dwell on the Baconian idea of a body in whose wholeness of person the solution of continuity between the biological and the spiritual is attenuated,and on the connected idea,not of transcending the earthly man,but of the restoration of his fullness of person.In my thesis,Baconian ideas,anticipating transhumanism(s),can induce positions in it of care of body,without transpassing in the empowerment;of body normalization,without going beyond it;of consideration of the body as a dimension of the human and not as an instrument or burden;of the consideration of man as a natural form and not as a center.These positions can also find convergences with posthumanism(s)and Serres,that carry forward the idea of informational irreducibility of the body as well as that of its irreproducibility,and therefore of its dimensionality for man(in hybridization with nature and technology).I assume that these convergences can lead to an idea of the body as a meeting ground between transhumanism(s)and posthumanism(s):a trans-post-humanist body.

Tests of a Posthumanist (Franciscan) Religion: The Case of Michel Serres

Starting from the question of whether there is still a space for religious experience in posthumanist reflection,and if so,how this space can be configured,the contribution first examines nerve nodes/junctions,such as body/nudity,bonds/intersections,Biogea/Sciences of Life and Earth,in which the thought of Michel Serres,at the same time,is intertwined,so to speak,with the posthumanist one,and develops its Franciscanism.Through this analysis,the contribution opens itself the possibility of identifying/proposing,in an idea of religion(religio)as etymologically understood by Serres in the sense of bond/relationship/universal binder of livings(religare),humans and things,the space/justification of religious experience in and for the posthumanism.Mysticism of immanence within the Posthumanism?Maybe…But even further:the way is in fact that of bonding,inclusion,synthesis.

A Reflection on the Posthuman Human:The Postranshominescent

The essay presents a reflection on the current human condition,the novelty of which reveals itself to be an-already-always-been that continually begins and renews itself in the space of generative and inventive relationality,expressed,in its toti-potentiality,by Posthumanism and by Michel Serres.In this horn of abundance,pre-existing and passing beyond form a single body,seeking their expression in an inchoative composed neologism as postranshominescent.

Excess,Unavoidability,Reverberation:The(According to the)Posthuman Body

The contribution reflects on the crucial role that the body assumes in the context of the posthuman need/process of integral redefinition of the notion of the human.And,dialoguing,so to speak,even with positions from contemporary philosophical thought,such as those of Michel Serres,it specifically comes to highlight body characteristics of excess,unavoidability,reverberation.So:excess,in the sense that the body intentionally comes out of itself,hybridizing with the world and thus becoming a dimension of ontological,ethical,and cognitive construction of the human.Unavoidability,in the sense of the substantial irreproducibility-even in the context of technological hybridization-of the body,precisely by virtue of its anthropological dimensionality.Reverberation,in the sense that the body,as a dimensional space of redefinition/reconstruction of the human within the relationality with alterities,emerges as a reverberating mirror and catalyst of the posthumanist work of building a hybrid thought of(human)hybridization.

The Virus in Serresian-Posthumanist Sauce:A Hopeful Monster Parasite

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic,a tripartite blanket of disease/containment/return to normality has crystallized around the virus.But is it possible to grasp the frayed shirt of this blanket and gradually try to undo it?This is the attempt that this contribution makes.And that,drawing on a toolbox made up of the reflections,in this case converging between them,of Michel Serres and the posthuman on the dynamics inventive of new homination horizons,which the virus,beyond the contingency of its pathogenicity,as a hopeful monster parasite,can trigger.

The Nature-Culture Distinction in Disaster Studies:The Recent Petition for Reform as an Opportunity for New Thinking?

This article constructively challenges the often cited distinction between the so-called hazard and vulnerability perspectives in disaster studies.In a context of increasingly intertwined,dense,and complex socioeco-logical dynamics,disaster scholars often hold onto an apparently untenable distinction between nature and culture,manifested as either a hazard or a vulnerability approach.This article maintains that the typically undesired approach(the hazard approach)is inherent to the preferred(vulnerability)perspective.The article builds on Oliver-Smith’s(2013)critique of the magnitude of requirements placed upon practitioners given the full implications of the vulnerability perspective.Although critical of the vulnerability perspective,this article does not fundamentally disagree with the validity of its claims.Instead,by drawing on the pragmatist philosophy of Rorty(1989)and by demonstrating the potential value of posthumanism for disaster studies,I wish to argue for greater pragmatism within disaster scholarship.The article considers the recent petition or manifesto for disaster studies(Gaillard et al.2019)for more inclusive disaster research as a potential opportunity to challenge the aforementioned nature-culture distinction in the field,as the petition signed by a number of disaster scholars outlines various concerns over the asymmetrical power relations between local and external researchers.These power relations have adverse consequences for the appropriateness of knowledge production in many contexts.I am primarily ISI Gideon van Riet Gideon.vanriet@nwu.ac.za 1 School for Government Studies,North-West University,Potchefstroom 2531,Northwest Province,South Africa concerned with the very local level of disaster occurrence,where posthumanism might be most valuable.