Les techniques biologiques actuelles, en particulier celles qui concernent le génie génétique, sont devenues un domaine de discussion philosophique très actif. Elles soulèvent un nombre considérable d’inquiétudes dont le centre problématique réside dans cette interrogation : doit-on laisser à la technique la possibilité d’une fabrication intégrale de l’homme ? Les réponses habituelles avancées se heurtent soit aux problèmes philosophiques de l’essentialisme naturaliste, soit aux limitations des discours utopiques qui prônent l’arrivée du posthumain. Nous tenterons d’emprunter dans cette recherche une perspective différente, impliquant une double démarche conceptuelle : d’une part, une interrogation de l’image de l’homme à l’oeuvre dans les différents projets biotechniques ; d’autre part, la formulation d’une philosophie de la vie capable d’élucider la signification biologique et humaine de ces projets. Nous affirmerons à cet égard que l’image de l’homme-machine élaborée aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles trouve son accomplissement dans les biotechniques actuelles, dans lesquelles l’homme acquiert la condition de locus technicus par excellence. À l’intérieur de cet espace, il s’ouvre la possibilité d’une production technique de l’homme où les capacités normatives de la vie sont mises en question. Nous soutiendrons que les biotechniques s’offrent à l’homme comme une forme d’activité vitale paradoxale, dans la mesure où elles travaillent pour dépasser ou supprimer la polarité dynamique propre au vivant. Il s’agira donc d’analyser– à l’aune de Canguilhem – les fondements de la « fabrique » biotechnique et ses répercussions à l’égard de la valeur biologique de la vie. / Current biological techniques, in particular those concerning genetic engineering have become a veryactive domain of philosophical discussion. These raise a series of significant concerns amongst which thefundamental problem lies in the following issue: should we or should we not allow the technique toassume on its own human improvement in all its dimensions? The customary answers to such matter,encounter with either the philosophical problems of naturalist essentialism, or else, the limitations ofutopian discourses which advocate the virtues of the arrival of the post-human concept. In this research,however, we will attempt to answer through a double conceptual approach. On one hand, a questioningof man’s image, at work in the diverse biotechnical projects; and on the other, the formulation of aphilosophy of life capable of clarifying the human and biological significance of these projects. In thisregard, we will claim that the image of the man-machine outlined in the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries isfully accomplished by present ongoing biotechnologies in which man acquires the condition of locustechnicus par excellence. This scenario opens up the possibility of a technical production of man, one inwhich life’s normative capacities are currently questioned. We will affirm that biotechnologies imply avital yet paradoxical form of activity insofar as these work towards surpassing or suppressing thedynamic polarity peculiar to living beings. Therefore, our approach will analyse – from the standpoint ofCanguilhem – the basis of the “biotechnical fabric” of the human body and its repercussions regardingthe biological value of life itself.

The main focus of this diploma thesis is picturing ethnicity and race of "non-humans" in first two series of science fiction series Star Trek: The Next Generation, Battlestar Galactica a Defiance. It is based on the postcolonialistic theory, which is dealing with the dominant relationship of the colonist over the colonized. This relationship was created between western civilization colonists and native inhabitants of newly discovered territories. In the case of science fiction, the "non- humans" are in the position of colonized and humans in the position of colonists. Some space is also given to the posthumanistic theory of a creature being based on combination of both biological and mechanical parts. The chosen series are examined through the method of quantitative content analysis. It has been shown, that humans in science fiction are the race, from which the picturing of all other "non-human" races is derived. Also, in most cases, humans are the race superior to other races, which is shown in various fashion. Values accepted by today's western society are presented as values of all human kind. From these values, the perception of "non-humans" and their societies is derived. Science fiction is also mirroring the problems western society had during its beginnings.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2018-11-12T10:55:35Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Pablo Ribeiro Cardoso.pdf: 4461936 bytes, checksum: 63c9955bd9b623838e08da4bcc3fde5b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-11-12T10:55:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Pablo Ribeiro Cardoso.pdf: 4461936 bytes, checksum: 63c9955bd9b623838e08da4bcc3fde5b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-09-18 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This research has as its main objective to discuss overcoming the organic limits of the body through biotechnological interventions, taking as basis the superhero characters. Starting from the field of changes in the biopowers listed by Nikolas Rose and the anthropogenic effects of biotechnologies, it initially seeks to understand the emergence of the posthuman concept and how it implies new ways of thinking the body in the contemporary, especially from the proposals for human enhancement. The posthuman is thought of as an umbrella term to refer to a variety of different movements and schools of thought, including scientific, philosophical, artistic, and mystical discussions of the most varied aspects. Aiming to offer contributions on the subject, contemporary projects of human enhancement through biomedical/biotechnology paths are studied, thus excluding from this research transcendental approaches or the ones that preach the total substitution of the biological body for digital. Once these projects have been explored, based on Lucia Santaella's conceptualization of prostheses, ways of overcoming the limits of the human body through biotechnological interventions are discussed, with biotechnological hybridization of the new prostheses as the main focus. Choosing superheroes as interlocutors in this debate, the research rescues their historical and social backgrounds, delineates who these characters are, and analyze the bodies portrayed by them, named by Scott Jeffery as superhuman bodies. It explores, therefore, the different ways in which superheroes illustrate the idea of an improved human body. Finally, to support the role of superheroes as basis of the discussions proposed in the research, the text dialogues with descriptions of adventures and images from comic books or films which these characters are the protagonists / Esta pesquisa tem como seu objetivo central discutir superação dos limites orgânicos do corpo a partir de intervenções biotecnocientíficas, tomando como disparadores os personagens super-heróis. Partindo do campo das mudanças no âmbito dos biopoderes elencadas por Nikolas Rose e dos efeitos antropogênicos das biotecnologias, busca-se inicialmente compreender a emergência do conceito pós-humano e como ele implica novos modos de se pensar o corpo no contemporâneo, especialmente a partir das propostas de melhoramento humano. O pós-humano é pensado como um conceito guarda-chuva que abriga uma multiplicidade de saberes que envolvem tanto discussões científicas quanto filosóficas, artísticas e místicas das mais variadas vertentes. Visando oferecer contribuições acerca do tema, são estudados projetos contemporâneos de melhoramento humano por vias biomédicas/biotecnocientíficas, excluindo, assim, dessa pesquisa as abordagens transcendentais ou que pregam a substituição total do corpo biológico pelo digital. Uma vez explorados tais projetos, fundamentados na conceituação de Lucia Santaella sobre próteses, são discutidos modos de superação dos limites do corpo humano a partir das intervenções biotecnológicas, com principal destaque para o hibridismo biotecnológico das novas próteses. Elegendo os super-heróis como interlocutores desse debate, a pesquisa resgata seus antecedentes históricos e sociais, delimita quem são esses personagens e analisa os corpos retratados por eles, nomeados por Scott Jeffery como corpos super-humanos. Explora-se, portanto, os diferentes modos em que os super-heróis ilustram a ideia de um corpo sobre-humano. Por fim, para sustentar o papel destinado aos super-heróis como disparadores das discussões propostas na pesquisa, o texto dialoga com descrição de aventuras e imagens oriundas de histórias em quadrinhos ou filmes protagonizados por essas figuras

A presente pesquisa pretende examinar as possibilidades estéticas e subjetivas inerentes a máscaras pós-humanas. A fim de analisar a abordagem artística da face, selecionamos algumas obras de Lygia Clark, Hyungkoo Lee, France Cadet e Sterling Crispin para estudos de caso. Estes, destacados nos capítulos um, dois, três e quatro, nos permitem analisar de forma detalhada, trabalhos que esclarecem indutivamente a dinâmica da situação investigada. Em diálogo com os estudos de caso, é conduzida pesquisa de laboratório em que a face é também elaborada como máscara artística no âmbito da produção da pesquisadora, criada a partir da confluência entre meios artesanais, de produção de massa e meios digitais, ao gerar modelos tridimensionais e sua consequente representação física por meio da fabricação digital. Agrupamos as obras de acordo com vínculos aos procedimentos artísticos de recriação, dissimulação e simulação. Determinados assuntos surgidos das análises das obras ganharam embasamento teórico por meio de tópicos conceituais que discutem aspectos estéticos e subjetivos. Para a realização do estudo, desenvolvemos pesquisa bibliográfica, estudo de caso das obras dos artistas selecionados, pesquisa em laboratório e participações em congressos e mostras ligadas à Arte Tecnológica. Os resultados subjetivos e perceptivos da manipulação da face na arte tecnológica refletem o questionamento acerca da construção de singularidades e as transformações na concepção de ser humano. Assim, intenciona-se contribuir com o meio acadêmico, a sociedade e as artes na discussão sobre as subjetividades emergentes em contexto tecnológico. / This research intends to examine the aesthetic and subjective possibilities inherent to posthuman masks. In order to analyze the artistic approach of the face, we selected some works by Lygia Clark, Hyungkoo Lee, France Cadet and Sterling Crispin for case studies. These, highlighted in chapters one, two, three and four, allow us to analyze in detail works that clarify inductively the dynamics of the situation investigated. In dialogue with the case studies a laboratory research is conducted where the face is also fabricated as an artistic mask within the scope of the researcher\'s production, created from the confluence of artisanal, mass production and digital media, generating three-dimensional models and its consequent physical representation through digital fabrication. We grouped the works in accordance with the artistic procedures of recreation, dissimulation and simulation. Certain issues arising from the analysis of the works have gained theoretical basis through conceptual topics that discuss aesthetic and subjective aspects. For the study, we developed bibliographic research, case study of the works of selected artists, laboratory research and participation in congresses and exhibitions related to Technological Art. The subjective and perceptive results of the manipulation of the face in the technological art reflect the questioning about the construction of singularities and the changes in the concept of human being. Thus, it intends to contribute to academia, society and the arts in the discussion about emerging subjectivities in technological context.

Studiens syfte är att undersöka hur posthumanistisk teori kan bidra till måluppfyllelse och kvalitet i förskolan genom att synliggöra relationer mellan aktörer i ett tematiskt arbetssätt. Forskningsfrågor som ämnar svara på detta är; hur samverkar pedagoger, barn samt icke-mänskliga ting i förskolans temaarbete? Samt vilka handlingar möjliggörs därigenom för det systematiska kvalitetsarbetet? Problemområdet beskrivs utifrån stora skillnader i kvalitet mellan förskolor samt att undervisning i samband med den reviderade läroplanen tar stöd i nya teorier. Data har samlats in genom semistrukturerade intervjuer vilka analyserats med aktör-nätverksteori. Resultatet visar att icke-mänskliga aktörer som miljö, material samt läroplan kan vara utgångspunkt för ett utforskande arbetssätt. Med detta som utgångspunkt i arbetsprocesser för systematiskt kvalitetsarbete kan en samverkan med ett målinriktat arbetssätt skapas genom pedagogers stöttande förhållningssätt. Slutsatsen är att posthumanistiska teorier kan bidra till förskolans måluppfyllelse och kvalitet genom en rörelse mellan olika teorier.

My PhD is a study of the politically charged literary and visual works that have emerged in response to escalating violence in contemporary Mexico. Providing close, comparative readings of fictional, theoretical and documentary works by critically-acclaimed authors Jorge Volpi, Cristina Rivera Garza, Mario Bellatin and Juan Pablo Villalobos, and award-winning filmmakers Carlos Reygadas, Amat Escalante and Natalia Almada, my chapters examine explicit and oblique cultural engagements with topics such as the political assassinations of the 1990s, the dispossession brought on by the neoliberal restructuring of the economy, and the violence prompted by the so-called ‘War on Drugs’. The cultural texts I examine share a concern with visualising and deconstructing the close relationship between death and power that marks the contemporary political terrain. I contend that narrative has become a critical site of cultural contestation, and discuss the ways in which experiments with the assemblage and frustration of narrative intertwine with issues related to visuality, embodiment and the nonhuman. Through my discussion of these themes, I trace out the ways in which cultural texts frequently employ narrative strategies that are rooted in dispersal, displacement and loss when engaging with destructive power. These strategies, I argue, pose urgent questions about the interrelation of violence and aesthetics, speak to critical shifts in the relationship between culture and the nation-state, and are marshalled to launch tentative appeals to forms of politics and ethics that work through spaces of shared dispossession. My thesis offers an innovative framework through which to theorise these cultural processes by reframing the notion of ‘excess’, a foundational concept in scholarship on death and power that has seen a resurgence in contemporary political philosophy. In dialogue with authors such as Georges Bataille, Achille Mbembe, Adriana Cavarero, Roberto Esposito, Michel Foucault and Jacques Rancière, and with close reference to the ‘necropolitical’ theory and cultural texts authored in Mexico, I posit excess as an analytical term that can encompass both reflexive critiques of spectacular violence and latent forms of resistance to this violence that proceed through loss and displacement.

The annual science fiction anthology series The Best Japanese SF started publication in 2009 and showcases domestic writers old and new and from a wide range of publishing backgrounds. Although representative of the second golden era of Japanese science fiction in print in its diversity and with an emphasis on that year in science fiction, as the volumes progress the editors’ unspoken agenda has become more pronounced, which is to create a set of expectations for the genre and to uphold writers Project Itoh and EnJoe Toh as exemplary of this current golden era. This thesis analyzes the context of the anthology series’ publication, how the anthology is constructed, and these two writers’ contributions to the genre as integral to the anthologies and important to the younger generation of writers in the genre.

In this article, I argue that the vampires in Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse novels illustrate clearly the posthuman self in its connection beyond itself to other vampires, humans, and non-humans. Learning to co-exist becomes problematic in Harris’ series, where we encounter a “new” representation of vampire. These vampires have come out of the coffin, and their revelation allows us to explore how they can be viewed in connection to the human world and how their transcendence can be seen as a move toward posthumanism, as its particular blend of body and community help demonstrate what the self expanded could be. As a species that differs from us “typical” humans and yet must co-exist with us and other non-humans, the posthuman provides a theoretical framework for how we can approach this new representation as a disembodied non-unitary subject. Through their transcendence from the world of the living to the life of the undead, these vampires let us see humanity as a distinct moment in evolution that is a continuous process, not a resolution. There are six areas where we see these common characteristics between posthumanism and Harris’ vampires. The first is the vampire being represented as an other. Like the posthuman, Harris’ vampires are juxtaposed against the human population and because vampires are marked as other this creates tension where they must co-exist with humans and yet still be examined from an anthropocentric perspective. Another way the posthuman allows us to interpret this fear of vampires is from the position of the de-centered human. Because humans prior to the “great revelation” in Harris’ fictional world, believed themselves to be what defined humanism versus their non-human others; they must shift in where they are located on the species podium due to vampires and that creates a fear. Another correlation is that of immortality; which is what vampires inherit when they become a member of the undead, but for the posthuman it is encoding and dematerialization that allows us to transcend these mortal bodies. This notion of disembodiment demonstrates the body being a rhetorical strategy to create an effect, such as manipulation. Since the body for the posthuman is seen as materiality and therefore they are not embedded to only exist within it, the vampire likewise is able to exploit the body in order to accomplish its purpose. Next for the posthuman, transcendence is the way they not only become immortal, but also how they move from identifying as individuals to identifying as part of a larger community. For the vampires in the Stackhouse series, their consciousness lies in their information and not in their material bodies, thus they are able to situate themselves within the larger network with other vampires, humans, and non-humans. And lastly the connection through the exchange of blood, which for the vampire is a literal connection, but for the posthuman is instead an ideal network which removes individuality.

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. / My grandfather was in a fix. He wasn’t black, like his father, but he wasn’t quite white either, like his mother. He was marrying a woman who also wasn’t-black-but-wasn’t­quite-white. The problem was that his mother was worried that her future daughter-in-law’s father was a bit too ‘dark, Oriental looking’, whilst her mother was worried because his father was half-black ‘negro’. It really was a case of pot calling kettle black. And she was already three months pregnant, so everyone was worried about whether ‘the throwback thing’ would mean that they would have a black, ‘negro’ baby. My grandparents had managed to modify their ‘brown’ bodies so they could ‘pass’ as ‘white’, but could they also somehow also modify their potentially ‘non-white’ offspring? What might the materially affective mechanisms be, that have the power to ‘fix’ bodies, so as that a brown body can become white? Franken-rat, in a different time and place, was a rat in a laboratory who had a human ear growing on its back. Its body was hideous, a monstrous blend of ratty-human flesh. Franken-rat lived and died in a laboratory, in the service of science and humanity. But how does its body, and the discourses surrounding it, materialise certain understandings about our bodies and their relationships to ‘others’ and to the world? How might our bodies understand that relationship? If my understanding of my relationship to ‘others’ is based upon a liberal humanist construct that separates ‘self’ from ‘other’ and such fleshy intertwinings as monstrous, then can I ‘become posthuman’ and affectively create that relationship as a generous and welcoming of ‘otherness’? Can posthumanism ‘overcome’ the abjection and horror of liberal humanist ideas of monstrosity? This thesis is a fictocritical exploration of bodies and their dynamic discursive and material relations with the world. If the world is a site continually in flux, how might bodies modify or be modified in order to continually belong to it? And how might we sift through the facts, the stories and the affects of family narratives, institutional spaces, historical documents, philosophical ideas, and cultural texts, discourses and practices, in order to find spaces of integrity in connection and becoming, and affective, corporeal knowledges to take into the future?

Departing from humanist models of American intellectual history, this dissertation proposes an alternative posthumanist approach to the thought of Jonathan Edwards, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Charles Sanders Peirce. Beginning with Perry Miller’s influential scholarship, American thought is often cast as a search for “face to face” encounters with the unaccountable God of Calvinism, a figure that eventually evolves to encompass Romantic notions of the aesthetic, imagination, or, most predominately, individual human feeling. This narrative typically culminates in the pragmatism of William James, a philosophy in which human feeling attains priority at the expense of impersonal metaphysical systems. However, alongside and against these trends runs a tradition that derives from the Calvinist distinction between a fallen material world and a transcendent God possessed of absolute sovereignty, a tradition that also anticipates posthumanist theory, particularly the self-referential distinction between system and environment that occupies the central position in Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory. After systems theory, the possibility for “face to face” encounters is replaced with the necessary self-reference of communication and observation, an attribute expressed in Edwards, Emerson, and Peirce through, respectively, the figures of “true virtue,” an absent and inexpressible grief and, in its most abstract form, Peirce’s concept of a sign. In conclusion, Edwards, Emerson, and Peirce represent an alternative posthumanist genealogy of pragmatism that displaces human consciousness as the foundational ground of meaning, communication, or semiosis.