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Posthuman Knowledge and the Critical Posthumanities
On the advanced knowledge economy, which perpetuates patterns of discrimination and exclusion, and the threat of climate change devastation for both human and nonhuman entities.
Robots designed to care for people and neglected landscapes of digital trash. The promise of synthetic biology and the panic of living on a dying planet. Wonderful feats of intelligence and systemic acts of violence. Exhilaration and exhaustion. Rosi Braidotti argues that we must think about these apparent contradictions all together in order to make differences that actually matter.
Posthuman Knowledge and the Critical Posthumanities oscillates between evocations and transections of contemporary conditions, for which Braidotti offers what she calls the “posthuman convergence” as a new paradigm for situating and navigating their problems and possibilities. Reflecting on the knotted situation of the academic humanities, cognitive capitalism, and advanced climate change, she delivers an intersectional critique of humanism and anthropocentrism, and targets their exclusions and aporias to address subjectivity, knowledge production, and academic structures within that posthuman convergence. Braidotti's convergence demands imagination, endurance, connectivity, and perspectives multiplied, embodied, and grounded in the only world we have.
Robots designed to care for people and neglected landscapes of digital trash. The promise of synthetic biology and the panic of living on a dying planet. Wonderful feats of intelligence and systemic acts of violence. Exhilaration and exhaustion. Rosi Braidotti argues that we must think about these apparent contradictions all together in order to make differences that actually matter.
Posthuman Knowledge and the Critical Posthumanities oscillates between evocations and transections of contemporary conditions, for which Braidotti offers what she calls the “posthuman convergence” as a new paradigm for situating and navigating their problems and possibilities. Reflecting on the knotted situation of the academic humanities, cognitive capitalism, and advanced climate change, she delivers an intersectional critique of humanism and anthropocentrism, and targets their exclusions and aporias to address subjectivity, knowledge production, and academic structures within that posthuman convergence. Braidotti's convergence demands imagination, endurance, connectivity, and perspectives multiplied, embodied, and grounded in the only world we have.
80 pages, Paperback
Published May 20, 2025
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August 18, 2025
Braidotti's exuberance in discussing phenomenological studies of humanism and post-humanism is an insightful look through an anthropological lense of the current state of socio-political wrongs, as well as the reasons for such wrongs as a comfort to lean toward contemplation in times of distress rather than taking the natural route of distress and distraction. She writes,
"For now, let me stress the importance of using critique also for clinical purposes, to lift our spirits a bit and make complex things thinkable, instead of letting them be so opaque and oppressive. Instead of giving in to the self-indulgent imaginary of disaster, I would like to propose that we pursue this discussion about loss and death through a serious critique of the posthuman convergence, including the necro-political character of cognitive capitalism."
These facets of distraction are a natural consequence of capitalist anachronisms towards fast paced environments void of confusion and of "cognition" as she explains. The visibility and transparency of consumer and producer has excessively become blurred in attempts to create a society more susceptible to control. Like the meat we consume and lack of compromise, we run toward obsolescence without the ability to make the connection between our routine and reality.
"The classical Vitruvian man is completely commodified into a system where planned obsolescence, and design that kills time, is also an integral part of how we live and what we do. Cognitive capitalism capitalizes at top speed on all that lives."
"For now, let me stress the importance of using critique also for clinical purposes, to lift our spirits a bit and make complex things thinkable, instead of letting them be so opaque and oppressive. Instead of giving in to the self-indulgent imaginary of disaster, I would like to propose that we pursue this discussion about loss and death through a serious critique of the posthuman convergence, including the necro-political character of cognitive capitalism."
These facets of distraction are a natural consequence of capitalist anachronisms towards fast paced environments void of confusion and of "cognition" as she explains. The visibility and transparency of consumer and producer has excessively become blurred in attempts to create a society more susceptible to control. Like the meat we consume and lack of compromise, we run toward obsolescence without the ability to make the connection between our routine and reality.
"The classical Vitruvian man is completely commodified into a system where planned obsolescence, and design that kills time, is also an integral part of how we live and what we do. Cognitive capitalism capitalizes at top speed on all that lives."
Displaying 1 of 1 review