Transhumanism and Posthumanism in Twenty-First Century Narrative

Perspectives on the Non-Human in Literature and Culture.

This collection explores the different ways in which the posthuman has been addressed in key narratives written in the second decade of the 21st century. From a critical posthumanist perspective the scholars in this collection analyse the aesthetic choices these authors make to depict the posthuman and its aftereffects.

Transhumanism and Posthumanism in Twenty-First Century Narrative brings together fifteen scholars from five different countries to explore the different ways in which the posthuman has been addressed in contemporary culture and more specifically in key narratives, written in the second decade of the 21st century, by Dave Eggers, William Gibson, John Shirley, Tom McCarthy, Jeff Vandermeer, Don DeLillo, Margaret Atwood, Cixin Liu and Helen Marshall. Some of these works engage in the premises and perils of transhumanism, while others explore the qualities of the (post)human in a variety of dystopian futures marked by the planetary influence of human action. From a critical posthumanist perspective that questions anthropocentrism, human exceptionalism and the centrality of the ‘human’ subject in the era of the Anthropocene, the scholars in this collection analyse the aesthetic choices these authors make to depict the posthuman and its aftereffects.