Gender and Posthuman

• Main Author: Redazione La Camera blu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Università di Napoli Federico II 2015-12-01
• Series: La camera blu
• Online Access: http://www.camerablu.unina.it/index.php/camerablu/article/view/3719

This issue of the Camera Blu is an important contribution to the study of gender and the posthuman for different reasons. Currently, posthumanism has become a highly fashionable academic trend. Considering that anthropocentrism is leading to an environmental eco-disaster so deep as to endanger the very survival of the human species, this breakthrough in academia is a great opportunity for social reform. On the other hand, the hegemonic appropriation of the posthumanist discourse is obscuring the core meaning of the posthuman with ironic consequences. The “neutral” subject, that is male, white, heterosexual, Western etc., is rediscovering the posthuman in the name of the Father, in an ahistorical reconstruction in which the decisive contribution of feminism is gradually superseded by names of male theorists, to ensure a phallocratic genealogy to Posthuman Studies. Is this a defeat of the posthuman? Not at all. The interest that posthumanism is attracting can only bring satisfaction to scholars who have been working for years to its promotion. And still, because in this proliferation of the posthuman, the meaning of the term is taking on different shades, colors and nuances, it is crucial to rediscover its roots. Posthumanism stems from Feminism: forgetting this genealogical debt means giving up the deepest identity of the posthuman. This issue of the Camera Blu wishes to emphasize this powerful genealogy, and to lay a platform for further development of gender through the posthuman, and of the posthuman through gender, reflecting on the possible futures of gender in relation to the human and the posthuman species.