|
|
|
Thanks for Being Who You Are!
|
|
|
Dearest Posthumans,
It is a great Joy to wish You a special 2025: a Year of Hope, Connection and Existential Commitment inspired by Posthumanism!
We are delighted to announce that the new Board of Co-Directors of the Global Posthuman Network (GPN) has been appointed for the next two years (2025-2027); we are ready to manifest new visions and projects serving the posthuman community worldwide! We would also like to thank the previous Board (2022-2024) for the Commitment, Energy and Vision!
We are also excited to announce that the first Colloquium on Existential Posthumanism will be held at the University "Tecnológico de Monterrey", Campus Puebla, Mexico, May 28-30 2025. This Colloquium will be experiential and experimental, offering not only academic debates and conferences, but also activities in local places of interest: we hope You can join us! The CFP is attached below.
In these times of accelerating challenges and emerging complexities, we wish this Newsletter may serve as a tool to recharge your body-mind entanglements, to pause, breathe, mediatate, and rediscover your-selves in relation to the world around you.
Our vibrant, pluralistic community continues to flourish, developing new events, books, calls, projects, and initiatives worldwide collected in this email: We are deeply grateful for your presence in this shared journey.
|
|
Events:
FORUM (Online): China, BRI and Implications on Digital Governance, Authoritarianism and Future of Human Rights (17 Jan)
SYMPOSIUM: "Francesca Ferrando: The Art of Being Posthuman" by Foreign Object (18 Jan)
LECTURE SERIES: Ecokritike - "The Language of Fungi: Mushrooms, Mycelia, and the Environmental Humanities" by John Charles Ryan (1 Feb)
CFPs:
CFP: 1st Colloquium on Existential Posthumanism: "Re-embracing our Vital Sense", Puebla, Mexico (28-30 May, 2025)
CFP: "Entanglements: Journal of Posthumanities"
CFP: "Genealogías de lo posthumano"
CFP: "Narratives for Ecological and Sustainable Transition(s): Nesting Theory and Praxis through Literature-based Workshops"
New publications:
NEW BOOK: "Posthumanism and India" by D.Banerji, M. Islam, S. Sengupta
NEW BOOK: "Creating Human Nature. The Political Challenges of Genetic Engineering" by Benjamin Gregg
NEW BOOK: "The Philosophical Animal. On Zoopoetics and Interspecies Cosmopolitanism" by Eduardo Mendieta
NEW ISSUE: "Estudios Posthumans" - Arte y Posthumanismo
NEW SPECIAL ISSUE: The Iberoamerican Metahuman Futures Forum 2024
NEW ISSUE: B@belonline - "Postmoderno o ipermoderno? Naufragi e speranze dopo la modernità"
NEW OPINION ARTICLE: "How Ferrando, Björk, Grimes, and Musk Are Shaping Posthuman Future" by Bimal Pratap Shah
NEW BOOK REVIEW: Review of F. Ferrando's "The Art of Being Posthuman" by S. Rozzoni
NEW BOOK REVIEW: Review of F. Ferrando's "The Art of Being Posthuman" by J. Pascoe
Extra:
NEW RESEARCH INSTITUTE: The Posthuman Lab
NEW PLATFORM: Posthuman Studies Association (PSA)
Get involved:
JOINING AND VOLUNTEERING
|
|
|
NEWS FROM THE GLOBAL POSTHUMAN NETWORK
|
|
|
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This Newsletter, January 2025, was kindly complied by our Editor Stefano Rozzoni. Here, you can find more info about our extraordinary Team!
REMINDER: A WAY FOR PROMOTING YOUR EVENTS / CFPs / NEWS
Our Newsletter currently counts with more than 1500 international members. Please check out this page of the GPN website to discover how to promote your event(s). There is no fee to submit. All submissions will be reviewed and, if found in tune with the posthuman turn, will be published in our next Newsletter. Please, keep in mind that the Newsletter is monthly, so if you send an event that expires by the time we send the Newsletter, we will not be able to publish it. Thanks for your interest.
|
|
|
FORUM (Online): China, BRI and Implications on Digital Governance, Authoritarianism and Future of Human Rights (17 Jan)
|
|
|
|
The rapid evolution of digital technologies and connectivity, coupled with a new industrial revolution, has reshaped the societal landscape and geopolitical dynamics of major powers. Data is now regarded as the ‘new gold’, whilst control over critical technologies has become a geopolitical asset. Although the United States has maintained its leading position in digital power, China has emerged as a formidable competitor over the past decade. Under President Xi Jinping's leadership, China has been engrossed in developing a comprehensive digital grand strategy, dubbed 'Digital China'.
Join the Meeting via link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83913730956...
Zoom Meeting ID: 839 1373 0956 / Password: 195743
|
|
|
SYMPOSIUM: "Francesca Ferrando: The Art of Being Posthuman" by Foreign Object (18 Jan)
|
|
|
|
The Art of Being Posthuman offers a comprehensive reflection on the existential condition of the 21st century. A visionary introduction to existential posthumanism, it takes the form of eight meditations. This posthuman journey of self-inquiry engages with a wide range of knowledge and wisdom: from the Paleolithic times to the futures of radical life extension, from multi-species evolutions to the rights of Nature, the Anthropocene and the rise of Artificial Intelligence. The book declutters the habit of being human. Letting go of the need for anthropocentric mastery and species-specific ambitions, the reader emerges regenerated. The manifold paths of posthuman self-realization reveal that we are all co-creators in the existential unfolding: our lives are our ultimate works of art.
For further info, click HERE
PS. Please not that differently from what indicated in the website, the Symposium has been postponed to Saturday, 18th January, 10 am Pacific time.
|
|
|
LECTURE SERIES: Ecokritike - "The Language of Fungi: Mushrooms, Mycelia, and the Environmental Humanities" by John Chalres Ryan (1 Feb)
|
|
|
Saturday, 1st of February 2025
17:00 p.m. EET (Eastern European Time Zone) on Zoom
Registration Link (is open until 31st of January 2025) HERE
|
|
|
CONFERENCE: "1st Colloquium on Existential Posthumanism. Re-embracing our Vital Sense" Puebla, Mexico (28-30 May, 2025)
|
|
|
|
1st Colloquium on "Existential Posthumanism. Re-embracing our Vital Sense"
Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Puebla, Mexico (28-30 May, 2025)
Keynote: Francesca Ferrando, NYU
The purpose of the Colloquium arises from the need for Posthumanism to become a Philosophy of Life capable of facing the challenges of the XXI century on an individual, social, and planetary level. This Colloquium will be experiential, offering not only academic debates and conferences but also activities held in local places of interest: its approach will be both global and local.
Academics, artists, scientists, seekers, practitioners and activists from around the world are invited to gather in person to develop their unique ways of being: unity in diversity.
- Existential Posthumanism and the Meaning of Life
- Everyday Life
- Transhumanism, Technology, and Human Identity
- Bioethics and Posthumanism: Dilemmas and Perspectives
- Posthumanism and the Arts
- Transhumanism and Existential Posthumanism
- Existential posthumanism and education
Abstract submission deadline: February 28, 2025.
For further info, click HERE
|
|
|
CFP: "Entanglements: Journal of Posthumanities"
|
|
|
|
Entanglements: Journal of Posthumanities is inviting submissions for the inaugural issue. This is an open issue.
For further info, click HERE
|
|
|
CFP: "Genealogías de lo posthumano"
|
|
|
|
Les invitamos a participar con artículos y reseñas a la convocatoria N 6 • Otoño 2025. Fecha límite de recepción: 28/2/2025
For further info, click HERE
|
|
|
CFP: "Narratives for Ecological and Sustainable Transition(s): Nesting Theory and Praxis through Literature-based Workshops"
|
|
|
|
This conference moves beyond traditional 20-minute paper presentations with Q&A, adopting a more creative, participatory and involving format through workshops, posters and roundtable discussions on blind questions.
This in-person conference aims to bring together researchers studying narratives—broadly conceived across genres and media—as tools for raising climate change awareness and inspiring individual and collective action, especially along with the framework of cognitive narratology to help understand (Herman, 2019). We specifically invite submissions of scholars who involve in their study literature-based activities through participatory workshops developed within local communities, and that engage with empirical methodologies (qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-method approaches) to evaluate the impact of their activities.
For further info, click HERE
|
|
|
NEW BOOK: "Posthumanism and India" by D.Banerji, M. Islam, S. Sengupta
|
|
|
|
The book is about what posthumanism means in the contemporary Indian context and what different lines of consideration this can take.
The world today has universalized a Eurocentric history of the human with its privileges, oppressions, exploitations and exclusions. On the one hand, this has led to the triumphalist narrative of technology, the blurring of biological embodiment through prostheses and the dream of transhumanist self-exceeding. On the other hand, we are witness to the contemporary eruption of dystopian anomalies due to the dis-balance or revolt of the “others” of humanism – climate crisis, chronic pandemic, religious, ethnocentric and geopolitical violence, ideological and authoritarian state control.
For further info, click HERE
|
|
|
NEW BOOK: "Creating Human Nature. The Political Challenges of Genetic Engineering" by Benjamin Gregg
|
|
|
|
Human genetic enhancement, examined from the standpoint of the new field of political bioethics, displaces the age-old question of truth: What is human nature? This book displaces that question with another: What kind of human nature should humans want to create for themselves? To answer that question, this book answers two others: What constraints should limit the applications of rapidly developing biotechnologies? What could possibly form the basis for corresponding public policy in a democratic society?
For further info, click HERE
|
|
|
NEW BOOK: "The Philosophical Animal. On Zoopoetics and Interspecies Cosmopolitanism" by Eduardo Mendieta
|
|
|
|
Humans are animals who fictionalize other animals to asse their "humanness." We are philosophical animals who philosophize about our humanity by projecting images onto a mirror about other animals. Spanning literature, philosophy, and ethics, the thread uniting The Philosophical Animal is the bestiary and how it continues to inform our imaginings. Beginning with an exploration of animals and women in the literary work of Coetzee, famous for his book on the Lives of Animals, Eduardo Mendieta then dives into the genre of bestiaries in order to investigate the relation between humanity and animality
For further info, click HERE
|
|
|
NEW ISSUE: "Estudios Posthumans" - Arte y Posthumanismo
|
|
|
For further info, click HERE
|
|
|
NEW SPECIAL ISSUE: The Iberoamerican Metahuman Futures Forum 2024
|
|
|
|
Ceriani, Alejandra y Jaime del Val, Eds. 2024. Crisis Planetarias y Respuestas desde el Cuerpo: Descolonialidad Radical, Desmontaje del Supremacismo Humano y Redefiniciones Ontológicas de la Corporalidad. Número especial del Foro Iberoamericano de Futuros Metahumanos 2024. En ¡Cuerpo, Máquina, Acción! Año 08 Número 10. Argentina: Universidad Nacional de la Plata.
|
|
|
NEW ISSUE: B@belonline - "Postmoderno o ipermoderno? Naufragi e speranze dopo la modernità"
|
|
|
Un titolo quasi criptico, ma suggestivo, questo scelto per il presente numero di B@bel che invita alla lettura per la peculiarità di tematiche che approfondiscono un ambito innovativo e originale, ma con salde radici nella storia della filosofia e nella filosofia morale. Se per un verso infatti si è voluto, con questi argomenti, evidenziare le possibili formulazioni della riflessione filosofica in un’epoca – la nostra – di decostruzione, ma altresì di ricerca di possibili nuovi sentieri, dall’altra siamo consapevoli che con la nostra riflessione siamo simili ai “nani sulle spalle di giganti”.
***
The issue includes a contribution by Francesca Ferrando, titled " Who are we in the 21st century?".
Real wisdom never goes out of fashion, and yet, it must be updated. Posthuman wisdom, as self-knowledge, is loyal to who we are in the 21st
century. A location is not a prison: it is a point of departure. Being human is not synonymous with being anthropocentric. A constant practice of decluttering is needed to embrace the human as an open trajectory. The history of the construction of the genus Homo tells more about the bias of human exceptionalism in science, than about who we are. We are together: whatever affects one, affects all.
To access the full issue, click HERE
|
|
|
NEW OPINION ARTICLE: "How Ferrando, Björk, Grimes, and Musk Are Shaping Posthuman Future" by Bimal Pratap Shah
|
|
|
|
"The Convergence of Art, Technology, and Philosophy"
Musk, Ferrando, Grimes, and Björk push us to reconsider our understanding of identity, urging a future that is fluid, interconnected, and inclusive. As we navigate the complexities of a technological world, their contributions offer a framework for reshaping humanity’s role in a rapidly changing ecosystem. Through their philosophies and art, they guide us toward a future where humanity’s boundaries are redefined, inviting us to become part of an ongoing, collaborative unfolding of life itself."
To access the article, click HERE
|
|
|
NEW BOOK REVIEW: Review of F. Ferrando's "The Art of Being Posthuman" by S. Rozzoni
|
|
|
To read the review, click HERE |
|
|
NEW BOOK REVIEW: Review of F. Ferrando's "The Art of Being Posthuman" by J. Pascoe
|
|
|
|
To read the book review, click HERE
|
|
|
NEW RESEARCH INSTITUTE: The Posthuman Lab
|
|
|
|
The Posthuman Lab is now a global research institute.
The Posthuman Lab was founded as an international research network by Cagdas Dedeoglu in 2021 After becoming a hub for international scholars, it has officially been incorporated as a not-for-profit organization under the Canada Not-for-Profit Corporations Act. Its official name is The Posthuman Lab for Philosophy, Art, and Science (Le Laboratoire Posthumain pour la philosophie, l’art et la science).
The lab's founding board members represent a diverse group of scholars and activists from around the world, including Cagdas Dedeoglu, Randolph Haluza-DeLay, Amanda Nichols, Gabi Balcarce, Asijit Datta, Jaya Sarkar, and Tahzir Faiaz Chowdhury. With a mission to develop alternative visions and practices for just sustainabilities, the lab looks forward to collaborating with researchers, artists, and philosophers to foster posthumanist innovation and partnerships.
For further info, click HERE
|
|
|
NEW PLATFORM: Posthuman Studies Association (PSA)
|
|
|
The Posthuman Studies Association is a non-profit association that seeks to explore the posthuman paradigm shift connected to the Antropocene, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, as well as the Post-Darwinian evolutionary turn. It seeks to critically analyze the intricate entanglements between science, technology, ethics, aesthetics, art, culture, society, and humanity in the contemporary world. The Association aims to foster, advance, and enhance research in the field of posthuman studies within both national and international cultural and academic communities.
For further info, click HERE
|
|
|
|
If you are interested in joining the community, and / or volunteering, and/ or forming regional posthuman networks in your area, please email us at: NYposthuman[at]gmail.com
Thanks for connecting and sharing your insights and visions!
Peace, Health and Much Appreciation,
The Global Posthuman Network
www.posthumans.org |
|
|
|
|
|
|
