Posthuman Ecologies of the Corpse. : Erin E. Edwards: The Modernist Corpse:Posthumanism and the Posthumous. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis,2018. [Book finder]

Review of: Erin E. Edwards: The Modernist Corpse: Posthumanism and the Posthumous. University of Minnesota Press : Minneapolis, 2018.Non peer reviewe

Ecologies of Death, Ecologies of Mourning: A Biophilosophy of Non/Living Arts

In the present condition of planetary environmental crises, violence, and war, entire ecosystems are annihilated, habitats turn into unliveable spaces, and shared “more-than-human” vulnerabilities get amplified. Here and now, death and loss become urgent environmental concerns, while the Anthropocene-induced anxiety, anger, and grief are manifested in popular-scientific narratives, art, culture, and activism. Grounded in the theoretical framework of queer death studies, this article explores present grief imaginaries and engagements with more-than-human death, dying, and extinction, as they are interwoven through contemporary art. It is there where an ecological ontology of death is being exposed and ethical territories of eco-grief unfold

Deterritorialising Death : Queerfeminist Biophilosophy and Ecologies of the Non/Living in Contemporary Art

In the contemporary context of environmental crises and the degradation of resources, certain habitats become unliveable, leading to the death of individuals and species extinction. Whilst bioscience emphasises interdependency and relationality as crucial characteristics of life shared by all organisms, Western cultural imaginaries tend to draw a thick dividing line between humans and nonhumans, particularly evident in the context of death. On the one hand, death appears as a process common to all forms of life; on the other, as an event that distinguishes human from other organisms. Against this background, this article explores how contemporary art-in particular, the series of worksThe Absence of Alice(2008-2011) by Australian new-media and bioartist Svenja Kratz-challenges the normative and human-exceptionalist concept of death. By employingqueerfeminist biophilosophyas a strategy that focuses on relations, processes and transformations instead of 'essences', the article examines the ways Kratz's worksdeterritorialisethe conventional concept of death. In this way, it hopes to attend to the intimacies between materialities of a human and nonhuman kind that form part of the processes of death and dying, and what follows, to reframe ethico-ontology of death as material and processual ecologies of the non/living.Peer reviewe

Mourning the More-Than-Human: Somatechnics of Environmental Violence, Ethical Imaginaries, and Arts of Eco-Grief

Theoretically grounded in queer death studies and environmental humanities, this article has a twofold aim. Firstly, it explores the somatechnics of environmental violence in the context of Northern and Eastern Europe, while paying attention to ongoing ecocide inflicted by Russia on Ukraine, and to the post-WW2 chemical weapon dumps in the Baltic Sea. Secondly, the article examines the concept of eco-grief in its close relation to artistic narratives on ecocide. By bridging the discussion on environmental violence and artistic renderings of eco-grief, the article hopes to contribute to a better understanding of the socio-cultural responses to more-than-human death and loss, and their accompanying ethical imaginaries and affordances

Towards a Posthuman Collective : Ontology, Epistemology and Ethics

Celem tekstu jest rekonstrukcja podstaw ontologicznych, epistemologicznych oraz etycznych projektu posthumanistycznego (zwanego też teorią lub narzędziem posthumanistycznym) na podstawie analizy propozycji teoretycznych Karen Barad, Gillesa Deleuze'a i Felixa Guattariego oraz Donny Haraway. Tylko dzięki tak precyzyjnemu zdefiniowaniu narzędzia teoretycznego możliwe będzie zadanie pytania o wspólnotę postludzką oraz posthumanistyczną politykę1941157Praktyka Teoretyczn

Non/living Matter, Bioscientific Imaginaries and Feminist Techno-ecologies of Bioart

Bioart is a form of hybrid artistico-scientific practices in contemporary art that involve the use of bio-materials (such as living cells, tissues, organisms) and scientific techniques, protocols, and tools. Bioart-works embody vulnerability (intrinsic to all beings) and depend on (bio)technologies that allow these creations to come into being, endure and flourish but also discipline them. This article focuses on ‘semi-living’ sculptures by The Tissue Culture and Art Project (TC&A). TC&A’s artworks consist of bioengineered mammal tissues grown over biopolymer scaffoldings of different shapes and require sterile conditions of a bioreactor and constant care in order to survive. The article explores how bioart-works are always already intertwined with multiple (bio)technologies and techniques of care and labour, forming specific feminist technoecologies that challenge conventional bioscientific and cultural imaginaries of embodiment and the relation between physis and techné. TC&A’s sculptures expose life as the non/living: the processual enmeshment of the organic and inorganic, living and non-living, and growth and decay. The article argues that thinking with and through the feminist technoecologies of bioart mobilises philosophical inventiveness: not only does it problematise the entwinement of technology and biomatter and of culture and nature, but it also prompts us to rethink the ontology of life

MacCormack, Patricia (ed.), The Animal Catalyst: Towards Ahuman Theory, Bloomsbury, London and New York, 2014. ISBN: 9781472534446 (Paperback) / 9781472526847 (Cloth), 224 pp., US34.95(Paperback)/US 34.95 (Paperback) / US 104 (Cloth)

The ‘Animal Question’ has occupied Western philosophy for more than a decade now. Whether inspired by the rising urgency of the problem of violence towards and exploitation of nonhuman animals perpetuated by science, technology and culture broadly speaking, or by an enthralment with otherness, an increasing number of theorists engage with the concepts of the animal and human–nonhuman relations. These notions become an incessant impetus for creative and critical inquiry and the exploration of philosophical, political, ethical and artistic thinking. What, however, needs to be asked in the first place is: how can we, as humans, relate to the nonhuman, and more specifically, to nonhuman animals ethically? Is it possible at all? The question of ethics is one of the main driving forces behind The Animal Catalyst: Towards Ahuman Theory, edited by Patricia MacCormack

Queer Death Studies : Coming to Terms with Death, Dying and Mourning Differently. An Introduction

Peer reviewe

Fathoming Postnatural Oceans: Towards a low trophic theory in the practices of feminist posthumanities

As the planet’s largest ecosystem, oceans stabilise climate, produce oxygen, store CO2 and host unfathomable biodiversity at a deep time-scale. In recent decades, scientific assessments have indicated that the oceans are seriously degraded to the detriment of most near-future societies. Human-induced impacts range from climate change, ocean acidification, loss of biodiversity, eutrophication and marine pollution to local degradation of marine and coastal environments. Such environmental violence takes form of both ‘spectacular’ events, like oil spills and ‘slow violence’, occurring gradually and out of sight. The purpose of this paper is to show four cases of coastal and marine forms of slow violence and to provide counter-accounts of how to reinvent our consumer imaginary at such locations, as well as to develop what is here referred to as ‘low-trophic theory,’ a situated ethical stance that attends to entanglements of consumption, food, violence, environmental adaptability and more-than-human care from the co-existential perspective of multispecies ethics. We combine field-philosophical case studies with insights from marine science, environmental art and cultural practices in the Baltic and North Sea region and feminist posthumanities. The paper shows that the oceanic imaginary is not a unified place, but rather, a set of forces, which requires renewed ethical approaches, conceptual inventiveness and practical creativity. Based on the case studies and examples presented, the authors conclude that the consideration of more-than-human ethical perspectives, provided by environmental arts and humanities is crucial for both research on nature and space, and for the flourishing of local multispecies communities. This paper thus inaugurates thinking and practice along the proposed here ethical stance of low-trophic theory, developed it along the methodological lines of feminist environmental posthumanities