The Posthuman and Its After
VIS
201
Winter
2006
Room:
VAF 228
Tuesday:
3:30 to 6:20
Professor:
Ricardo Dominguez
Email:
rrdominguez@ucsd.edu
...In
all creation
Nothing endures; all is in endless
flux....
Nothing retains its form; new shapes
from old
Nature, the great inventor, ceaselessly
Contrives. In all creation, be assured,
There is no death--no death, but only
change
And innovation....
...the earth and all therein, the sky
And all there under change and change
again,
We too ourselves, who of this world are
part,
Not only flesh and blood but pilgrim
souls....
Ovid. Metamorphosis
Over
the past decade, the term "posthuman" has become quite established in various
cultural and techno-scientific domains, functioning as a kind of buzzword, if
not representing a new episteme whose meaning is complex, multiple and still
under (de)construction. The term seems to be both continuous and utterly
discontinuous with post-structuralism and postmodernism, but its philosophical
"origin" can be traced back to Ovid, Mary Shelly, Friedrich Nietzsche, and
Martin Heidegger. Especially Heidegger's brief "ueber den Humanismus" (Letter
on Humanism, 1947) can be seen as initiating the debate that received a
new
impetus with Foucault's Les mots et les choses (The Order of Things, 1966),
where he prophesizes that (man would be erased, like a face drawn in sand at
the edge of the sea).
The
seminar will touch upon this history of the (post) and then focus on more
recent questions concerning the after echos of the posthuman in 20th
art and post-contemporary gestures, as articulated by such thinkers as, N.
Katherine Hayles, Keith Ansell Pearson, Arthur Kroker and more.
Our
guiding hypothesis is that the posthuman is both in/human and re/human; or
perhaps it is the same old story about human nature and identity in constant
metamorphosis coming back in new (dis)guises maybe?
Grading
Policies
Final
Grade Evaluation:
25%
One 20 Minute Presentation.
50%
Attendance and Participation
25%
Final Exam - Take home essay - 10 page essay (MLA Style).
Attendance:
You will
be expected to attend every class. If you have more than 2 unexcused absences,
your final grade will drop 1/2 a letter for every additional unexcused
absence. Two unexcused lateness will be considered an absence.
Watch
Flims On Your Own Time Except 2001.
Readings:
90% of the reading will be on-line the other 10% will handed out.
Class
Schedule
Class 1
(Jan. 10) Intro to the Posthuman Trajectory.
Darwin¹s
- The Origin of Species.
http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/introduction.html
Read:
Nietzsche¹s - Thus Spake Zarathustra.
Zarathustra¹s
Prologue (Section 1 to 5)
http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ucsd/posthuman/ztext.doc
The Three
Metamorphoses
http://www.geocities.com/thenietzschechannel/zarapt1.htm
- meta
Watch:
2001: A Space Odyssey
Class 2
(Jan. 17). Nietzche Contra Darwin
Keith
Ansell Pearson "Nietzche Contra Darwin"
*Viroid
Life: Perspectives on Nietzsche and the Transhuman Condition. (1997).
(The text
will be handed out in Class)
Watch: Angels&Insects
Class 3
(Jan. 24). Ending(s) or the new Post(s)
Darwin and Derrida
Watch:
La Jetee
Class 4
(Jan. 31)
Mutation
and Technology.
Mediating
The Fly: Posthuman Metamorphosis in the 1950s
http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ucsd/posthuman/10.1clarke.pdf
Watch:
The Fly (both versions).
Class 5
(Feb. 7) We Cyborgs.
A Cyborg Manifesto
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html
Watch:
Robocop
Class 6
(Feb. 14) Data Bodies
http://www.othervoices.org/1.3/skunkle/psychosis.html
Watch:
Minority Report.
Race
in the Construct, or the Construction of Race: New Media and Old Identities in The
Matrix
http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ucsd/posthuman/Matrix.doc
http://www.lacan.com/nosex.htm
Watch:
The Matrix
Class 8
(Feb. 28) On Posthuman Speed and
Ecstasy.
Paul
Virilio¹s Aesthetics of
Disappearance and the Rhetoric of Media
Class 9
(March 7) NO CLASS - What Does It Mean To Be Posthuman?
What Does
It Mean To Be Posthuman?
http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ucsd/posthuman/haylestlk.pdf
Watch:
Blade Runner
Class 10
(March 14) Posthuman Flesh and Capital
Read
Chapter One and Two.
http://www.critical-art.net/books/flesh/index.html
Prosthetic Head:
Intelligence, Awareness and Agency
http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=490
Click
Into:
Class 11
(March 21) What Come After the Posthuman?
The
Affect of Nanoterror
http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ucsd/posthuman/NANOTERROR.pdf
Nanotechnology
and the Posthuman
http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ucsd/posthuman/nanotechnology.pdf
MARCH 25
- Final Essay Due.
New
Links Will Be Added As Class Develops.
Postmedia
Arts
http://digitalarts.lcc.gatech.edu/unesco/index.html
Genetic Disorder and Art
Explores Human Genomics
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_5_42/ai_112734996
http://www.eaf.asn.au/ex04.html
Nano Arts
Further
Suggested Reading
http://www.skynoise.net/2006/02/08/cyborg-roach-man/
WAXWEB
David Blair
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/wax/englishStart.html#
Monsters, Terrorist,Fag: The War on Terrorism
Jasbir K. Puar and Amist S. Rai
http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ucsd/posthuman/mtf.pdf
Arina Aristahrkova, Maria Fernandez, Coco Fusco and Faith Wilding
What is Undercurrents?
http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ucsd/posthuman/Undercurrents.doc
Data Trash
- Read Chapter One
http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ucsd/posthuman/DATATRASH.pdf
Theorizing the Global:
The Limits of Posthuman Subjectivity and Collective Agency
The Universal Viral Machine
Jussi Parikka
The
Will to Technology and the Culture of Nihilism
Heidegger,
Nietzsche and Marx
Arthur
Kroker
http://www.ctheory.net/will/index.html
Nomos, Nosos and Bios
http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ucsd/posthuman/NOMOS.pdf
Books:
Our
Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution
N. Badmington
Pictures
of the Body
Pain
and Metamorphosis
Eugene
Thacker
The
Global Genome : Biotechnology, Politics, and Culture
On Beyond
Living
Richard
Doyle
Liberal
Eugenics
Nicholas
Agar
Posthumanity
Brain
Cooney
Nanocluture
Edited N.
Katherine Hayles
The
Cyborg Handbook
Edited
Chris Hables Gray
Wetwares
Richard
Doyle
Cyborg
Babies
Edited
Robbie Davis-Floyd
Robot
Hans
Moravecs
The
Imitation Factor
Lee Alan
Dugatkin
The
Molecular Gaze
Suzanne
Anker
Life
Without Genes
Adrian
Woolfson
Death at
the Parasite Café
Stephen
Pfohl