Once upon a time the human was at the center of the universe. Now, the unified and autonomous human subject is a myth. “There is no more a sovereign subject,” Pramod K. Nayer writes in Posthumanism. Humanism has reached its end. A new era has emerged. It’s called posthumanism. It has to do with coexistence, that is, the relationship between human and nonhumans.

Posthumanism is not the same as transhumanism. Nayer clarifies how transhumanism relies on human rationality in order to improve the human, whereas posthumanism move beyond “the traditional humanist way of thinking about the autonomous, self-willed individual agent in order to treat the human itself as an assemblage, co-evolving with other forms of life, enmeshed with the environment and technology.”

In Posthumanism, Nayer tries to revitalize literature as a both ethical and political project of critical posthumanism. According to the author, critical posthumanism rejects both the human as exceptional, and human instrumentalism. The point is that we qua being humans do not have “the right to control the natural world”. What Nayer means by “natural world”, however, is unclear. Posthumanism doesn’t operate with an outside or an ideal from which to take an impartial measurement.

The book shows how critical humanism questions the ranking of both human beings, and everything nonhuman. Gradually, this critical approach leads to the beginning of posthumanism. A crucial element is how posthumanism moves from being to becoming. In posthumanism there is no solid metaphysic. It questions all hierarchies, e.g. human/ nonhuman, human/ machine, human/ inhumane. Also it questions the need for markers such as gender, race and ethnicity – that have caused so many problems of discrimination in the 20^th century. For this reason, many feminist thinkers have been important for the development of the posthuman project. However, as Nayer points out, the challenge for some feminist thinkers is not to fall for the temptation of replacing one absurd ideal (i.e. the man being the ideal) with another (i.e. the woman being the ideal).

Posthumanism is full of exemplary statement and quotes; however, often the philosophical precision is a bit blurry. For example, he quotes Rosalyn Diprose for saying, “it is the other’s alterity that makes me think, rather than ideas I live from that seem to make me what I am.” Is it the same as when Braidotti talks about “becoming-with”? Later, Nayer says, “that the Other is within”. What does it mean to be “within”, if everything is related to everything else? How does it fit with the claim that, “We have to see the self as multiple, fragmented and made of the foreign,” as he writes.

Another example, at the very end of the book it says, “Once we accept that we are difference, perhaps we will cease to be worried about difference as Other.” Yet, Nayer tends to focus on the literature that address “the Other” as someone in opposition to a norm. For example, people with disabilities. This, I believe, opens for questioning whether Nayer understands posthumanism as a project in opposition to a specific position (i.e. a specific human ideal). Based on the many theoretical quotes, the answer is no. Still, one might ask, if Nayer opens a view from nowhere. Posthumanism as a pre-position?

It is a difficult question. Nayer wants to position the relevance of posthumanism as an ethical project; however, at times – for this reader at least – it feels moralizing. It is partly caused the writers that Nayer deals with. Octavia Butler, Kazuo Ishiguro and Ursula Le Guin are having a political agenda. Some questions emerge: Is literature political because it addresses political themes? Or, is literature political because it makes us think and feel differently?

Literature, Nayer says, “offer various modes of humanistic engagements with the non-human Other.” So, once again: From which position does Nayer reads literature? From a human or from nowhere, that is, all perspectives? The latter is posthuman.

Posthumanism read like a status report. The author mixes themes in 20^th and 21th century literature and film. It refers to vast amount of literature. For this reason alone, it is useful for both undergraduate and graduate students of literature, cultural studies and to some extent students of philosophy. However, it is not without challenges. It may be short, but it is dense.

Nayer presents several interesting themes within posthumanism, for example, shared vulnerability of species, or that taking care depends on our knowledge about “the foreign”, which again stresses a need for empathy. Empathy, however, could be dealt with more thoroughly since it touches the books ethical agenda. For example, empathy can help me stepping into the body of another person, understanding their perspective and feelings that can help me to take care the best possible way. This is why we need art. Still, sometimes while reading Posthumanism, I was not sure whether Nayer confuses empathy with sympathy, that is, feeling sorry for somebody. Do we feel empathy for the disabled, the freak and the clones that we read about, or sympathy?

I think Nayer could dare more, because, as mentioned, most of the literature that he refers to is political in a quite traditional oppositional fashion.

Posthumanism, nevertheless, is a useful companion. It deals with a complex and fairly new theoretical terrain. Nayer presents the reader with many good reasons to abandon the human as the center of the universe, but he also – unwillingly, I assume – shows how difficult it is to move beyond. Moving beyond the human is to move beyond good and bad or any other hierarchical ranking.  

© 2015 Finn Janning

Finn Janning, Ph.D. in philosophy, is a writer