New journal to explore what comes after Humanity 1.0
by Michael Cook | 13 Oct 2018 | 1 comment
This has just come to our attention: a journal launched last year on trans and post-humanism. The Journal of Posthuman Studies is based at the Ewha Institute for the Humanities, a Korean “research institute to overcome the crisis of humanities” and published by the Penn State University Press. Its editor-in-chief is Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, a German philosopher at John Cabot University in Rome.
In an introductory note, Sorgner explains the difference between posthumanism and transhumanism, two terms which are probably regarded as synonymous by outsiders.
The two movements differ significantly in language, style, and methodology. Transhumanists are linear thinkers, employ technical vocabulary, and have a scientific methodology, while posthumanists embrace a nonlinear way of thinking, use metaphors, and have a hermeneutic methodology.
The two movements also have radically different pedigrees. Transhumanism is rooted in Darwin’s evolutionary theory, Mill’s utilitarianism, and Anglo-American analytic applied ethics discourses.
Posthumanism, on the other hand, is more closely related to continental philosophy, literary theory, and cultural studies and affirms narrative approaches to ethical issues. Transhumanists have a particular strength in their analysis of specific applied ethical questions, whereas posthumanists have developed a complex philosophical methodology for approaching wider cultural issues.
The latest issue includes articles on “Moderate Transhumanism and Compassion”, “The Case for Technological Mysticism”, and “Ex Machina and the Fate of Posthuman Masculinity: The Technical Death of Man”.
Saturday, October 13, 2018
Being a good editor requires a certain personality type: someone persnickety, obsessive, hawk-eyed and meticulous. Not being that sort of person myself, I can still appreciate their virtues. A good editor fusses about capitalisation, proper usage, consistent spelling, and the Oxford comma and loses sleep over knaves who cannot distinguish between “discrete” and “discreet”.
But there is one point on which the good editor and I agree: the enormity of writing “normalcy” when one means “normality”. I recently read in a not-to-be-named journal, “As the boundaries between human and ‘the other’, technological, biological and environmental, are eroded and perceptions of normalcy are challenged...” No. No. No. No. The word is “normality”.
The virus of “normalcy” has spread like a particularly pernicious strain of influenza through the media. A quick Google search brings up: “Nikki Haley's Departure Is Shocking Because Of Its Normalcy” and “Anger Recedes as Normalcy, Good Humor Mark Kavanaugh’s First Day on Supreme Court”.
Do you know who put “normalcy” on the map, so to speak? Warren G. Harding, who succeeded Woodrow Wilson in the White House. In 1920 the slogan of his campaign was “a return to normalcy”. The word should have died with his reputation as the worst of American presidents.
Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest. And please don’t get me started on the misuse of “enormity” for “enormousness”.
But there is one point on which the good editor and I agree: the enormity of writing “normalcy” when one means “normality”. I recently read in a not-to-be-named journal, “As the boundaries between human and ‘the other’, technological, biological and environmental, are eroded and perceptions of normalcy are challenged...” No. No. No. No. The word is “normality”.
The virus of “normalcy” has spread like a particularly pernicious strain of influenza through the media. A quick Google search brings up: “Nikki Haley's Departure Is Shocking Because Of Its Normalcy” and “Anger Recedes as Normalcy, Good Humor Mark Kavanaugh’s First Day on Supreme Court”.
Do you know who put “normalcy” on the map, so to speak? Warren G. Harding, who succeeded Woodrow Wilson in the White House. In 1920 the slogan of his campaign was “a return to normalcy”. The word should have died with his reputation as the worst of American presidents.
Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest. And please don’t get me started on the misuse of “enormity” for “enormousness”.
 Michael Cook Editor BioEdge |  |  |  |
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