The Future of Humanity: Revisioning the Human in the Posthuman Age (Future Perfect: Images of the Time to Come in Philosophy, Politics and Cultural Studies)

What is the future of humanity? What does it mean to be ‘human’ in the posthuman age? What responsibility does humankind have towards others and their environments? How are the stories that humans tell themselves implicated in the very power asymmetries and eco-political challenges that they bemoan? Taking a cross-disciplinary approach to the posthuman age, the essays in this collection speak to the multifaceted geographies and counter-geographies of humanity, probing into the possible futures we face as planetary species. Some of these include: ecological issues generated by centuries of neglecting our environment(s); power asymmetries stemming from economic and cultural globalization; violence and its affective politics informed by cultural, ethnic, and racial genocides; religious disputes; social inequities produced by consumerism; gender normativity; and the increasing impact of digital and AI (artificial intelligence) technology on the human body, as well as historical, socio-political, not to mention ethical relations. Contents Introduction I: Humanity, Big History, and Politics of Progress 1 Humanity Has a Choice 2 Investing in Disaster 3 Gender, Religions, and the SDGs II: Genocidal Fractures: The Eternal Return of the Past 4 The Pilgrimage to Auschwitz 5 From Gas Chambers to 9/11 6 Art, Trauma, and History: A Survivor’s Story III: Doctrines Revisited: Rewriting the Margins 7 The Shock Doctrine in Apocalyptic Fiction 8 Guy Vanderhaeghe and the Future of the Marginalized Canadian Male Part IV: Posthuman Futures 9 Human versus Cyborg Life 10 “Not Born in a Garden” V: Humanity in the Digital Era 11 Radical Post-Cartesianism 12 Actual Fantasy, Modulation Chains, and Swarms of Thought-Controlled Babel Drones Index About the Editors About the Contributors This volume offers an interdisciplinary conversation about several possible futures for the human species. The contributors elaborate on the issues that trouble our very understanding of what it means to be human in the 21st century, expanding on recent scholarly discussions about the posthuman and nonhuman turn