Animal Studies: The Final, Post-Anthropocentric Frontier

Since reading Wolfe and Braidotti, I have been second-guessing my every interaction with zoe. The anthropomorphic urge to personify our non-human counterparts, building one-sided relationships with unsuspecting creatures and entities, permeates my exchanges in ways I never realized–or that I chose to ignore; whether it be a phone, bike, backpack, bed, maybe even a pencil, […]

The Divided States of America

Humankind prides itself on varying degrees of difference, finding strength in the individual rather than its extended communities. The nation as we know it–colonized by immigrants, founded upon principles of religious freedom–now stands disjointed down to its precepts; as we watch our own inevitable devastation from the sidelines, humanity is left to contemplate, how can […]

Annotation Nation

With this project, I will evaluate the technological advancements of genetic engineering, specifically in vitro fertilization (IVF), through a post-humanist lens, examining how they interconnect with outside theories and concepts, like transhumanism, (bio)ethics, eugenics, artificial intelligence, evolution, and ectogenesis. I have conducted interviews with both my mother and father respectively, in which each discussed the […]

Which Came First: The Chick or Her Computer?

Though humans have historically been at the heart of change, once our world is uninhabitable (supposedly in twelve years), and man is but a blip on the timeline of Earth, there will be a sole survivor: technology. Humanity’s relationship with its creations–its “monsters,” if you will–is symbiotic in nature, for we have “always co-evolved with, […]

The Ecstasy of the End

Following the model of Cartesian dualism, human lives have historically been divided into two realms: the public and the private. While the former encapsulates any external interactions open to public consumption, the latter represents the “obscene,” the individual’s internal experience. Today, with unlimited technologies available to us with the tap of a home button, the […]

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of a Spotless Mind

What does it mean to you to “be happy”? Though the concept of happiness is universal, its definition is anything but. We all know what it feels like to be unhappy, to experience discontentment, but can we ever truly know pure, unadulterated joy? To strive for happiness as an end, rather than as a means, […]

From Test Tube Babies to Designer Fetuses

Through this project, I intend to investigate in vitro fertilization (IVF), a process that is post-human in its very nature. Other theories I plan on incorporating, like humanism and “transhumanism,” have interacted with IVF and questioned how this procedure is capable of both advancing the human condition and deterring it. With the rise of new […]

Human: The Superior Race or The Ecologically Challenged?

When considering the evolution of humanism, an overarching emphasis has remained on the human being, on the self. Though the individual’s knack for free will and thought have historically placed humanity on a pedestal as the highest form of existence, in reality, it is the networks of interaction, or ecologies, established between said beings that […]

Are we, as Post-Humanist Post-Humans, Post-Feminism?

Despite being a female student with a cluster in women’s and gender studies, when first considering “post-humanism” and its ever-shifting definitions, establishing a connection to feminist theory utterly perplexed me. After all, how could feminism be considered a post-human movement with its precepts so historically intertwined with those of humanism? How could we possibly achieve […]

Human-not-so-Kind: The Dualism of Intentionality

As humans, we are consistently reminded that our most inherent trait is the ability to think, to feel. It is this same, basic capability that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom, that makes it acceptable for us to create the world in our own image, right? WRONG. In “Discourse on Method,” Descartes […]