Download or read book On Posthuman War written by Mike Hill and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2022-08-16 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tracing war’s expansion beyond the battlefield to the concept of the human being itself As military and other forms of political violence become the planetary norm, On Posthuman War traces the expansion of war beyond traditional theaters of battle. Drawing on counterinsurgency field manuals, tactical manifestos, data-driven military theory, and asymmetrical-war archives, Mike Hill delineates new “Areas of Operation” within a concept of the human being as not only a social and biological entity but also a technical one. Delving into three human-focused disciplines newly turned against humanity, OnPosthuman War reveals how demography, anthropology, and neuroscience have intertwined since 9/11 amid the “Revolution in Military Affairs.” Beginning with the author’s personal experience training with U.S. Marine recruits at Parris Island, Hill gleans insights from realist philosophy, the new materialism, and computational theory to show how the human being, per se, has been reconstituted from neutral citizen to unwitting combatant. As evident in the call for “bullets, beans, and data,” whatever can be parted out, counted, and reassembled can become war materiel. Hill shows how visible and invisible wars within identity, community, and cognition shift public-sphere activities, like racial identification, group organization, and even thought itself, in the direction of war. This shift has weaponized social activities against the very notion of society. On Posthuman War delivers insights on the latest war technologies, strategies, and tactics while engaging in questions poised to overturn the foundations of modern political thought.

Download or read book The Posthuman written by Rosi Braidotti and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-07-11 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Posthuman offers both an introduction and major contribution to contemporary debates on the posthuman. Digital 'second life', genetically modified food, advanced prosthetics, robotics and reproductive technologies are familiar facets of our globally linked and technologically mediated societies. This has blurred the traditional distinction between the human and its others, exposing the non-naturalistic structure of the human. The Posthuman starts by exploring the extent to which a post-humanist move displaces the traditional humanistic unity of the subject. Rather than perceiving this situation as a loss of cognitive and moral self-mastery, Braidotti argues that the posthuman helps us make sense of our flexible and multiple identities. Braidotti then analyzes the escalating effects of post-anthropocentric thought, which encompass not only other species, but also the sustainability of our planet as a whole. Because contemporary market economies profit from the control and commodification of all that lives, they result in hybridization, erasing categorical distinctions between the human and other species, seeds, plants, animals and bacteria. These dislocations induced by globalized cultures and economies enable a critique of anthropocentrism, but how reliable are they as indicators of a sustainable future? The Posthuman concludes by considering the implications of these shifts for the institutional practice of the humanities. Braidotti outlines new forms of cosmopolitan neo-humanism that emerge from the spectrum of post-colonial and race studies, as well as gender analysis and environmentalism. The challenge of the posthuman condition consists in seizing the opportunities for new social bonding and community building, while pursuing sustainability and empowerment.

Download or read book What is Posthumanism written by Cary Wolfe and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to think beyond humanism? Is it possible to craft a mode of philosophy, ethics, and interpretation that rejects the classic humanist divisions of self and other, mind and body, society and nature, human and animal, organic and technological? Can a new kind of humanities-posthumanities-respond to the redefinition of humanity's place in the world by both the technological and the biological or "green" continuum in which the "human" is but one life form among many? Exploring how both critical thought along with cultural practice have reacted to this radical repositioning, Cary Wolfe-one of the founding figures in the field of animal studies and posthumanist theory-ranges across bioethics, cognitive science, animal ethics, gender, and disability to develop a theoretical and philosophical approach responsive to our changing understanding of ourselves and our world. Then, in performing posthumanist readings of such diverse works as Temple Grandin's writings, Wallace Stevens's poetry, Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark, the architecture of Diller+Scofidio, and David Byrne and Brian Eno's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, he shows how this philosophical sensibility can transform art and culture. For Wolfe, a vibrant, rigorous posthumanism is vital for addressing questions of ethics and justice, language and trans-species communication, social systems and their inclusions and exclusions, and the intellectual aspirations of interdisciplinarity. In What Is Posthumanism? he carefully distinguishes posthumanism from transhumanism (the biotechnological enhancement of human beings) and narrow definitions of the posthuman as the hoped-for transcendence of materiality. In doing so, Wolfe reveals that it is humanism, not the human in all its embodied and prosthetic complexity, that is left behind in posthumanist thought.

Download or read book The Future of Post Human War and Peace written by Peter Baofu and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2010-04-16 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is peace really so precious that it is popularly viewed in irenology (peace studies) of our time as “natural” and “a prime force in human behavior”—whereas war, its opposite, is instead condemned as “sinful” and “not” natural? In fact, there is even the prestigious Nobel “peace” prize to be awarded to those who contribute to world peace but not an equivalent Nobel “war” prize to those who do the contrary. This euphoric view of peace is by no means a constant conventional wisdom in human history, as it can be sharply contrasted with an equally seductive view of war in polemology (war studies). For instance, only several decades ago, the well-known writer Thomas Mann once approvingly asked about war: “Is not peace an element of civil corruption and war a purification, a liberation, an enormous hope?” (WK 2009a) This fickleness of conventional wisdom on war and peace has blinded us from the dark sides of both war and peace, with the consequence of impoverishing our understanding of the human condition and its future. Contrary to the two opposing sides of this conventional wisdom in its fickle history, war and peace are neither possible nor desirable to the extent that their respective ideologues would like us to believe. In addition, war and peace cannot exist with each other. Of course, this is not to suggest that irenology (peace studies) and polemology (war studies) are worthless, or that other fields of study (related to war studies and peace studies) like “political science, economics, psychology, sociology, international relations, history, anthropology, religious studies,…gender studies, as well as a variety of others” should be ignored. (WK 2009) Needless to say, neither of these two extreme views is reasonable either. Instead, this book accepts the challenging task to provide an alternative (better) way to understand the nature of war and peace, especially in relation to aggression and pacificity—while learning from different approaches in the literature but without favoring any one of them (nor integrating them, since they are not necessarily compatible with each other). Thus, this book offers a new theory to transcend the existing approaches in the literature on war and peace in a way not conceived before. If successful, this seminal project is to fundamentally change the way that we think about war and peace, from the combined perspectives of the mind, nature, society, and culture, with enormous implications for the human future and what I originally called its “post-human” fate.

Download or read book How We Became Posthuman written by N. Katherine Hayles and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-05-15 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this age of DNA computers and artificial intelligence, information is becoming disembodied even as the "bodies" that once carried it vanish into virtuality. While some marvel at these changes, envisioning consciousness downloaded into a computer or humans "beamed" Star Trek-style, others view them with horror, seeing monsters brooding in the machines. In How We Became Posthuman, N. Katherine Hayles separates hype from fact, investigating the fate of embodiment in an information age. Hayles relates three interwoven stories: how information lost its body, that is, how it came to be conceptualized as an entity separate from the material forms that carry it; the cultural and technological construction of the cyborg; and the dismantling of the liberal humanist "subject" in cybernetic discourse, along with the emergence of the "posthuman." Ranging widely across the history of technology, cultural studies, and literary criticism, Hayles shows what had to be erased, forgotten, and elided to conceive of information as a disembodied entity. Thus she moves from the post-World War II Macy Conferences on cybernetics to the 1952 novel Limbo by cybernetics aficionado Bernard Wolfe; from the concept of self-making to Philip K. Dick's literary explorations of hallucination and reality; and from artificial life to postmodern novels exploring the implications of seeing humans as cybernetic systems. Although becoming posthuman can be nightmarish, Hayles shows how it can also be liberating. From the birth of cybernetics to artificial life, How We Became Posthuman provides an indispensable account of how we arrived in our virtual age, and of where we might go from here.

Download or read book Darwin s Children written by Greg Bear and published by Del Rey. This book was released on 2003-03-04 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Greg Bear’s Nebula Award–winning novel, Darwin’s Radio, painted a chilling portrait of humankind on the threshold of a radical leap in evolution—one that would alter our species forever. Now Bear continues his provocative tale of the human race confronted by an uncertain future, where “survival of the fittest” takes on astonishing and controversial new dimensions. Eleven years have passed since SHEVA, an ancient retrovirus, was discovered in human DNA—a retrovirus that caused mutations in the human genome and heralded the arrival of a new wave of genetically enhanced humans. Now these changed children have reached adolescence . . . and face a world that is outraged about their very existence. For these special youths, possessed of remarkable, advanced traits that mark a major turning point in human development, are also ticking time bombs harboring hosts of viruses that could exterminate the “old” human race. Fear and hatred of the virus children have made them a persecuted underclass, quarantined by the government in special “schools,” targeted by federally sanctioned bounty hunters, and demonized by hysterical segments of the population. But pockets of resistance have sprung up among those opposed to treating the children like dangerous diseases—and who fear the worst if the government’s draconian measures are carried to their extreme. Scientists Kaye Lang and Mitch Rafelson are part of this small but determined minority. Once at the forefront of the discovery and study of the SHEVA outbreak, they now live as virtual exiles in the Virginia suburbs with their daughter, Stella—a bright, inquisitive virus child who is quickly maturing, straining to break free of the protective world her parents have built around her, and eager to seek out others of her kind. But for all their precautions, Kaye, Mitch, and Stella have not slipped below the government’s radar. The agencies fanatically devoted to segregating and controlling the new-breed children monitor their every move—watching and waiting for the opportunity to strike the next blow in their escalating war to preserve “humankind” at any cost.

Download or read book Posthuman Knowledge written by Rosi Braidotti and published by Polity. This book was released on 2019-08-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The question of what defines the human, and of what is human about the humanities, have been shaken up by the radical critiques of humanism and the displacement of anthropomorphism that have gained currency in recent years, propelled in part by rapid advances in our knowledge of living systems and of their genetic and algorithmic codes coupled with the global expansion of a knowledge-intensive capitalism. In Posthuman Knowledge, Rosi Braidotti takes a closer look at the impact of these developments on three major areas: the constitution of our subjectivity, the general production of knowledge and the practice of the academic humanities. Drawing on feminist, postcolonial and anti-racist theory, she argues that the human was never a neutral category but one always linked to power and privilege. Hence we must move beyond the old dualities in which Man defined himself, beyond the sexualized and racialized others that were excluded from humanity. Posthuman knowledge, as Braidotti understands it, is not so much an alternative form of knowledge as a critical call: a call to build a multi-layered and multi-directional project that displaces anthropocentrism while pursuing the analysis of the discriminatory and violent aspects of human activity and interaction wherever they occur. Situated between the exhilaration of scientific and technological advances on the one hand and the threat of climate change devastation on the other, the posthuman convergence encourages us to think hard and creatively about what we are in the process of becoming.

Download or read book Armed Drones and the Ethics of War written by Christian Enemark and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-11 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book assesses the ethical implications of using armed unmanned aerial vehicles (‘hunter-killer drones’) in contemporary conflicts. The American way of war is trending away from the heroic and towards the post-heroic, driven by a political preference for air-powered management of strategic risks and the reduction of physical risk to US personnel. The recent use of drones in the War on Terror has demonstrated the power of this technology to transcend time and space, but there has been relatively little debate in the United States and elsewhere over the embrace of what might be regarded as politically desirable and yet morally worrisome: risk-free killing. Arguably, the absence of a relationship of mutual risk between putative combatants poses a fundamental challenge to the status of war as something morally distinguishable from other forms of violence, and it also undermines the professional virtue of the warrior as a courageous risk-taker. This book considers the use of armed drones in the light of ethical principles that are intended to guard against unjust increases in the incidence and lethality of armed conflict. The evidence and arguments presented indicate that, in some respects, the use of armed drones is to be welcomed as an ethically superior mode of warfare. Over time, however, their continued and increased use is likely to generate more challenges than solutions, and perhaps do more harm than good. This book will be of much interest to students of the ethics of war, airpower, counter-terrorism, strategic studies and security studies in general.

Download or read book Human Security written by Mary Kaldor and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-05-03 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a real security gap in the world today. Millions of people in regions like the Middle East or East and Central Africa or Central Asia where new wars are taking place live in daily fear of violence. Moreover new wars are increasingly intertwined with other global risks the spread of disease, vulnerability to natural disasters, poverty and homelessness. Yet our security conceptions, drawn from the dominant experience of World War II and based on the use of conventional military force, do not reduce that insecurity; rather they make it worse. This book is an exploration of this security gap. It makes the case for a new approach to security based on a global conversation- a public debate among civil society groups and individuals as well as states and international institutions. The chapters follow on from Kaldors path breaking analysis of the character of new wars in places like the Balkans or Africa during the 1990s. The first four chapters provide a context; they cover the experience of humanitarian intervention, the nature of American power, the new nationalist and religious movements that are associated with globalization, and how these various aspects of current security dilemmas have played out in the Balkans. The last three chapters are more normative, dealing with the evolution of the idea of global civil society, the relevance of just war theory in a global era, and the concept of human security and what it might mean to implement such a concept. This book will appeal to all those interested in issues of peace and conflict, in particular to students of politics and international relations.

Download or read book Future War written by Christopher Coker and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-11-12 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Will tomorrow's wars be dominated by autonomous drones, land robots and warriors wired into a cybernetic network which can read their thoughts? Will war be fought with greater or lesser humanity? Will it be played out in cyberspace and further afield in Low Earth Orbit? Or will it be fought more intensely still in the sprawling cities of the developing world, the grim black holes of social exclusion on our increasingly unequal planet? Will the Great Powers reinvent conflict between themselves or is war destined to become much 'smaller' both in terms of its actors and the beliefs for which they will be willing to kill? In this illuminating new book Christopher Coker takes us on an incredible journey into the future of warfare. Focusing on contemporary trends that are changing the nature and dynamics of armed conflict, he shows how conflict will continue to evolve in ways that are unlikely to render our century any less bloody than the last. With insights from philosophy, cutting-edge scientific research and popular culture, Future War is a compelling and thought-provoking meditation on the shape of war to come.

Download or read book Prophets of the Posthuman written by Christina Bieber Lake and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2013-09-30 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prophets of the Posthuman provides a fresh and original reading of fictional narratives that raise the question of what it means to be human in the face of rapidly developing bioenhancement technologies. Christina Bieber Lake argues that works by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walker Percy, Flannery O'Connor, Toni Morrison, George Saunders, Marilynne Robinson, Raymond Carver, James Tiptree, Jr., and Margaret Atwood must be reevaluated in light of their contributions to larger ethical questions. Drawing on a wide range of sources in philosophical and theological ethics, Lake claims that these writers share a commitment to maintaining a category of personhood more meaningful than that allowed by utilitarian ethics. Prophets of the Posthuman insists that because technology can never ask whether we should do something that we have the power to do, literature must step into that role. Each of the chapters of this interdisciplinary study sets up a typical ethical scenario regarding human enhancement technology and then illustrates how a work of fiction uniquely speaks to that scenario, exposing a realm of human motivations that might otherwise be overlooked or simplified. Through the vision of the writers she discusses, Lake uncovers a deep critique of the ascendancy of personal autonomy as America’s most cherished value. This ascendancy, coupled with technology’s glamorous promises of happiness, helps to shape a utilitarian view of persons that makes responsible ethical behavior toward one another almost impossible. Prophets of the Posthuman charts the essential role that literature must play in the continuing conversation of what it means to be human in a posthuman world.

Download or read book Social Work in Post War and Political Conflict Areas written by Kristin Sonnenberg and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-04-29 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book offers unique access to theoretical approaches and practical examples of international social work in the context of war and conflicts. The reader gains knowledge about the competences and role of social work, which contributes to mitigating the effects of war and conflict. The book raises the question of how to connect international social work with local approaches and offers suggestions for a development of social work with respect to exchanging knowledge and experiences between the West and the East, the Global North and the Global South. It furthermore discusses the role of social work in reducing the problem of gender-based violence and in the methods of peacebuilding processes in post-war and post-conflict societies.

Download or read book Posthuman Dialogues in International Relations written by Erika Cudworth and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-08-10 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Posthumanism represents a significant new research direction both for International Relations and the social sciences. It emerges from questions about inter-species relations which challenge dominant perceptions of what it means to be human. Rather than seeing the human species as ‘in nature’ posthumanist thinking considers the species as ‘of nature’. The work of posthumanist thinkers has sought to dispute accepted notions of what it means to be human, raising profound questions about our relations with the rest of nature. The volume commences with an overview of the influence thinkers have had on the development of posthumanist thinking. Key ideas in International Relations are interrogated and reconceptualised and specific case studies are presented with a focus on inter-species relations. The work allows for a consideration of the limits of the posthumanist move and provides space for critics to argue that such an approach opens the discipline up to a biological determinism, and that a focus on inter-human relations should mark the boundaries of the discipline. The essays collected in this volume provide an overview of contributions from posthumanist thinkers with the particular intention of providing a succinct introduction to the area and should appeal to scholars and students in Politics, IR and philosophy.

Download or read book The Cambridge History of Science Fiction written by Gerry Canavan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-12-31 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first science fiction course in the American academy was held in the early 1950s. In the sixty years since, science fiction has become a recognized and established literary genre with a significant and growing body of scholarship. The Cambridge History of Science Fiction is a landmark volume as the first authoritative history of the genre. Over forty contributors with diverse and complementary specialties present a history of science fiction across national and genre boundaries, and trace its intellectual and creative roots in the philosophical and fantastic narratives of the ancient past. Science fiction as a literary genre is the central focus of the volume, but fundamental to its story is its non-literary cultural manifestations and influence. Coverage thus includes transmedia manifestations as an integral part of the genre's history, including not only short stories and novels, but also film, art, architecture, music, comics, and interactive media.

Download or read book Can War be Eliminated written by Christopher Coker and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-01-14 with total page 93 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout history, war seems to have had an iron grip on humanity. In this short book, internationally renowned philosopher of war, Christopher Coker, challenges the view that war is an idea that we can cash in for an even better one - peace. War, he argues, is central to the human condition; it is part of the evolutionary inheritance which has allowed us to survive and thrive. New technologies and new geopolitical battles may transform the face and purpose of war in the 21st century, but our capacity for war remains undiminished. The inconvenient truth is that we will not see the end of war until it exhausts its own evolutionary possibilities.

Download or read book Savage Ecology written by Jairus Victor Grove and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-16 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jairus Victor Grove contends that we live in a world made by war. In Savage Ecology he offers an ecological theory of geopolitics that argues that contemporary global crises are better understood when considered within the larger history of international politics. Infusing international relations with the theoretical interventions of fields ranging from new materialism to political theory, Grove shows how political violence is the principal force behind climate change, mass extinction, slavery, genocide, extractive capitalism, and other catastrophes. Grove analyzes a variety of subjects—from improvised explosive devices and drones to artificial intelligence and brain science—to outline how geopolitics is the violent pursuit of a way of living that comes at the expense of others. Pointing out that much of the damage being done to the earth and its inhabitants stems from colonialism, Grove suggests that the Anthropocene may be better described by the term Eurocene. The key to changing the planet's trajectory, Grove proposes, begins by acknowledging both the earth-shaping force of geopolitical violence and the demands apocalypses make for fashioning new ways of living.

Download or read book Posthumous Life written by Jami Weinstein and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-28 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Posthumous Life launches critical life studies: a mode of inquiry that neither endorses nor dismisses a wave of recent "turns" toward life, matter, vitality, inhumanity, animality, and the real. Questioning the nature and limits of life in the natural sciences, the essays in this volume examine the boundaries and significance of the human and the humanities in the wake of various redefinitions of what counts as life. They explore the possibility of theorizing life without assuming it to be either a simple substrate or an always-mediated effect of culture and difference. Posthumous Life provides new ways of thinking about animals, plants, humans, difference, sexuality, race, gender, identity, the earth, and the future.