Rosendahl Thomsen, Mads

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CriticismVolume 61 | Issue 2 Article 72019Monkey Wrench?: Virtues of a WeakPosthumanismMads Rosendahl Thomsenmadsrt@cc.au.dkFollow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/criticismRecommended CitationRosendahl Thomsen, Mads (2019) "Monkey Wrench?: Virtues of a Weak Posthumanism," Criticism: Vol. 61 : Iss. 2 , Article 7.Available at: https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/criticism/vol61/iss2/7 271Criticism 61.2_06_Thomsen.indd Page 271 29/06/19  2:56 PMCriticism Spring 2019, Vol. 61, No. 2, pp. 271–273. ISSN 0011-1589. doi: 10.13110/criticism.61.2.0271© 2019 by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, Michigan 48201-1309Posthumanism comes in many varieties. Some theories are focused on the importance of technology that could lead to transhumans, others engage in the decentering of the subject and the problematic privileged position of the human race, both epistemologically and morally. In addition, there are numerous ways by which human-animal-matter divisions are being criticized. It is often telling if it is possible to spot a hero in a theory: Is it other large animals that dis-play emotions, or all of Earth’s fauna? Should flora be included, or is matter as such the real new hero? Obviously, the human is not a hero, but not always a villain either.In Monkey Trouble, a lively and passionate book, Christopher Peterson asks how this can be, and criticizes work in the field of posthumanism for having thrown out a lot with the bath water of anthropocentrism. Some of the motives behind radical discourses may be the urge to create a strong position in academia, Peterson argues in the opening, and sug-gests that an element of academic branding is taking place (21). On the other hand, we certainly live in a time where both the future of the Earth’s ecosystem and the question of human identity, and its possible interventions into its own nature, makes it difficult to blame anyone who wants to tackle these issues for being overly MONKEY WRENCH?: VIRTUES OF A WEAK POSTHUMANISMMads Rosendahl ThomsenMonkey Trouble: The Scandal of Posthumanism by Christopher Peterson. Fordham University Press, 2018. 160 pp. Hardcover: $95.00, Paperback: $28.00.272 MADS ROSENDAHL THOMSENCriticism 61.2_06_Thomsen.indd Page 272 29/06/19  2:56 PMall quite relevant to explore the discourses of posthumanism, but they neither provide the basis for a new and convincing argument nor are they analyzed in a way that does justice to the works them-selves. The human-animal divide seen through Coetzee, immanence seen through Lars von Trier’s and Alfonso Cuarón’s films, and the totality of everything seen through Whitman all makes sense, but also seems to evade a more thorough discussion as well as a clearer engagement with the political dimension of posthu-manism. Nonetheless, there is of course an elegant rhetorical point in juxtaposing the arguments of works of fiction and their distinc-tive viewpoints with the positions taken in posthumanist theory, not least because the artistic visions are not based on undisturbed abstractions but engage with fully-fleshed worlds. Peterson also seeks to clear up arguments concerning posthumanism through recurrent references to the work of Jacques Derrida. He shows how Derrida’s work today remains relevant for understanding discourses of post-humanism, and Derrida’s regular but scattered presence in the book shows the value of pushing con-ventional wisdom out of its com-fort zone.There are number of impor-tant issues that are touched upon but are not developed more thor-oughly. Race, which Peterson has grandiose. Peterson’s suggestion that a “‘weak’ posthumanism” is worth pursuing, implicitly fol-lowing Gianni Vattimo’s call for a “weak thought,” is a sympathetic proposal, not least in the light of Peterson’s critique of the tendency to go for the paradigmatic shifts. Peterson deftly shows how one of the foremost scholars of the field, Cary Wolfe, evades the temptation of building a strong thinking but keeps the aporia open.Monkey Trouble’s four chap-ters take up questions of language and ontology. Chapter 1 argues that the advanced stage of human language does make a difference and separates humanity from other species without giving it a higher moral status, and Chapter 2 continues in this track but shi-fts the perspective to the silence of the others. Object Oriented Ontology is criticized in Chapter 3 for going all in on a flat ontol-ogy that preaches immanence, which Peterson is not the only one to be skeptical about, also getting in a few zingers: “Size apparently doesn’t matter for OOO (unlike its XXX counterpart)” (71). However, Monkey Trouble is a short book, and Peterson has wanted to bring too much into it. Art, literature, and film are drawn on frequently but mostly in a way that does not go beyond the thematic level. J. M. Coetzee’s novel Foe, the poetry of Walt Whitman, and the films Gravity and Melancholia are  ON MONKEY TROUBLE 273Criticism 61.2_06_Thomsen.indd Page 273 29/06/19  2:56 PMimmanence has become dominant. So, for all the flaws that could be pointed out, Monkey Trouble is a welcome and refreshingly pro-vocative book that urges people to think carefully about lavish claims on the state of the world that may not need heroes or superstars but rather a continued involvement with the complex web of beings.Mads Rosendahl Thomsen is Professor with Special Responsibilities of Comparative Literature at Aarhus University, Denmark. He is the author of Mapping World Literature: International Canonization and Transnational Literature (2008), and The New Human in Literature: Posthuman Visions of Changes in Body, Mind and Society (2013). He has published in the fields of literary historiography, world literature, and historical representations of the posthuman.written about in a previous book, and gender are both important issues in posthumanism, but do not take up much space in his new work. The same goes for other drivers of posthumanist dis-courses—not least transhuman-ism, computational systems, and climate change—that each in their way challenges anthropocentrism. The question of rights and poli-tics is also mentioned rather than discussed, although it is certainly a key issue for Peterson. The lure of a “cosmocracy,” where every-thing is equal, is contrasted at the end with democracy and the need for being able to steer. Peterson rightly asks how this is possible when humans are fully decen-tered and a flat ontology of pure 

Monkey Wrench?: Virtues of a Weak Posthumanism

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Monkey Wrench?: Virtues of a Weak Posthumanism

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