Screening the Posthuman

by Molloy, Missy; Duncan, Pansy; Henry, Claire

• ISBN13: 9780197538579
• ISBN10: 0197538576
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780197538593
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2023-06-13
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

From AI to climate change, recent technological, ecological, and cultural transformations have unsettled established assumptions about the relationship between the human and the more-than-human world. Screening the Posthuman addresses a heterogenous body of twenty-first century films that turn to the figure of the "posthuman" as a means of exploring this development.

Through close analyses of films as diverse as Kûki ningyô [Air Doll] (dir. Hirokazu Koreeda 2009), Testrol és lélekrol [On Body and Soul] (dir. Ildiko Enyedi 2017) and Nomadland (dir. Chloé Zhao 2020), this wide-ranging volume shows that, while often identified as the remit of science fiction, the posthuman on screen crosses filmic genres, national contexts, and industrial settings. In the process, posthuman cinema emphasizes humanity's entanglement in broader biological, technological, and social worlds and exposes new models of subjectivity, community, and desire.

In advancing these arguments, Screening the Posthuman draws on scholarship associated with critical posthumanist theory—an ongoing project unified by a decentering of the "human". As the first systematic, full-length application of this body of scholarship to cinema, Screening the Posthuman advocates for a rigorous posthumanist critique that avoids both humanist nostalgia and transhumanist fantasy in its attention to the excitements and anxieties of posthuman experience.

Author Biography

Missy Molloy is Senior Lecturer in Film at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.

Pansy Duncan is Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand.

Claire Henry is Lecturer in Screen at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Pansy Duncan, Claire Henry and Missy Molloy

1. Posthuman as Genre
Pansy Duncan, Claire Henry and Missy Molloy

2. Envisioning Posthuman Apocalypse
Missy Molloy

3. From Cyborg Theory to Posthuman Mothers
Missy Molloy

4. Queer Posthumanism
Claire Henry

5. The Cinematic Convergence of Posthuman and Crip Perspectives
Pansy Duncan and Missy Molloy

6. Post-anthropocentrism: Rejecting Human Exceptionalism
Claire Henry

7. The Eco-material Posthuman in the Age of the Anthropocene
Pansy Duncan

Conclusion
Pansy Duncan, Claire Henry and Missy Molloy

Bibliography
Index