The Palgrave Handbook of Posthumanism in Film and Television

460 Pages·2015·2.425 MB·English

by  Michael Hauskeller, Thomas D. Philbeck, Curtis D. Carbonell (eds.)

The Palgrave Handbook of Posthumanism in Film and Television
The Palgrave Handbook of
Posthumanism in Film and
Television
Editedby
Michael Hauskeller
UniversityofExeter,UK
Thomas D. Philbeck
WorldEconomicForum,Switzerland
Curtis D. Carbonell
KhalifaUniversityofScience,TechnologyandResearch,UAE
Selectionandeditorialmatter©MichaelHauskeller,ThomasD.Philbeckand
CurtisD.Carbonell2015
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Contents
Preface ix
NotesonContributors xv
1 PosthumanisminFilmandTelevision 1
MichaelHauskeller,ThomasD.PhilbeckandCurtisD.Carbonell
Part I PavingtheWaytoPosthumanism:ThePrecursors
2 FromDelGuattoScarJo 11
WilliamBrown
3 ‘Self-ImmolationbyTechnology’:JeanBaudrillardandthe
PosthumaninFilmandTelevision 19
JonBaldwin
4 DerridaonScreen 28
StefanHerbrechter
5 BrunoLatour:FromtheNon-ModerntothePosthuman 37
T.HughCrawford
6 FriedrichNietzscheandthePosthuman/TranshumaninFilmand
Television 45
BabetteBabich
Part II VarietiesofPeople-to-Come:PosthumanBecomings
7 Terminated:TheLifeandDeathoftheCyborginFilmandTelevision 57
RhysOwainThomas
8 OfIronMenandGreenMonsters:SuperheroesandPosthumanism 66
DanHassler-Forest
9 GrowingYourOwn:MonstersfromtheLabandMolecularEthicsin
PosthumanistFilm 77
AnnaPowell
10 Post-SingularityEntitiesinFilmandTV 88
DavidRoden
11 ChimerasandHybrids:TheDigitalSwarmsofthePosthumanImage 99
DrewAyers
v
vi Contents
Part III RiseoftheMachines:PosthumanIntellects
12 AndroidsandthePosthumaninTelevisionandFilm 111
KevinLaGrandeur
13 ‘ChangefortheMachines’?PosthumanismasDigitalSentience 120
SherrylVint
14 AliveintheNet 130
JeffMenneandJayClayton
15 AutonomousFightingMachines:NarrativesandEthics 141
DónalP.O’Mathúna
Part IV BodyandSoul:PosthumanSubjectivities
16 AContestofTropes:ScreenedPosthumanSubjectivities 153
CurtisD.Carbonell
17 DesireandUncertainty:RepresentationsofCybersexinFilm
andTelevision 163
HilaryWheaton
18 AtHomeInandBeyondOurSkin:PosthumanEmbodimentinFilm
andTelevision 172
JoelKrueger
19 ConstructedWorlds:PosthumanisminFilm,TelevisionandOther
CosmopoieticMedia 182
IvanCallus
20 Games,GamersandPosthumanism 192
TanyaKrzywinskaandDouglasBrown
Part V BetterHumans:PosthumanCapacities
21 ‘Life’sabitch,andthenyoudon’t die’:PostmortalityinFilmand
Television 205
MichaelHauskeller
22 ANewLeaseonLife:ALacanianAnalysisofCognitive
EnhancementCinema 214
HubZwart
23 Limitless?There’saPillforThat:FilmicRepresentationasEquipment
forLiving 225
KyleMcNease
24 PosthumansandDemocracyinPopularCulture 235
JamesJ.Hughes
Contents vii
25 NegativeFeelingsasEmotionalEnhancementinCinema:TheCase
ofUlrichSeidl’sParadiseTrilogy 246
TarjaLaine
Part VI CreatingDifferenceandIdentity:Posthuman
Communities
26 Biopleasures:PosthumanismandtheTechnologicalImaginaryin
UtopianandDystopianFilm 259
RalphPordzik
27 OfPosthumanBorn:Gender,UtopiaandthePosthumaninFilms
andTV 269
FrancescaFerrando
28 SharingSocialContext:IsCommunitywiththePosthuman
Possible? 279
DavidMeelerandEricHill
29 OurPosthumanSkinCondition 289
TeodoraManea
30 MuddyWorlds:Re-ViewingEnvironmentalNarratives 299
JohnBruni
Part VII UsandThem:PosthumanRelationships
31 ExecutingSpecies:AnimalAttractionsinThomasEdisonand
DouglasGordon 311
AnatPick
32 TheSunNeverSetontheHumanEmpire:HauntsofHumanismin
thePlanetoftheApesFilms 321
PhilHenderson
33 UncannyIntimacies:HumansandMachinesinFilm 330
AlexanderDariusOrnella
34 PosthumanousSubjects 339
SteenChristiansen
35 Identity:Difficulties,DiscontinuitiesandPluralitiesofPersonhood 349
JamesDiGiovanna
Part VIII MoreHumanthanHuman:PosthumanOntologies
36 TheFinalFrontier?ReligionandPosthumanisminFilmand
Television 361
ElaineGraham
viii Contents
37 TheGhostintheMachine:HumanityandtheProblemofSelf-Aware
Information 371
BrettLunceford
38 ‘TrustaFew,FeartheRest’:TheAnxietyandFantasyofHuman
Evolution 380
PramodK.Nayar
39 OnscreenOntology:StagesinthePosthumanistParadigmShift 391
ThomasD.Philbeck
40 Object-OrientedOntology 401
GrahamHarman
Bibliography 410
IndexofFilmsandTVShows 436
GeneralIndex 443
Preface
Thishandbookisstructuredineightparts.
PartI–PavingtheWaytoPosthumanism:ThePrecursors
This section focuses on some of the intellectual influences that have paved the
wayfortheposthumanistdiscourse.
William Brown begins with posthumanism’s most referenced theorists, Deleuze
andGuattari.Brownhighlightstheoften-citedideaof‘bodieswithoutorgans’and
‘desiring machines’ as critical to understanding Deleuzian posthumanism. These
decentringconceptsofthehuman,leadingawayfromagrounded,circumscribed,
individuatedentity,challengesimplistictranshumanistnotionsoftheself,allow-
ingBrownacritiqueofcinemafromaposthuman/Deleuzianperspective,inwhich
he argues that cinema has always represented a world ‘teeming with life’ to the
pointwherehumanshavelittleornocontrol.
Jon Baldwin follows with a look into media theorist Baudrillard and his think-
ing that the digital world reduces us to the inhuman. Baldwin focuses on how
alteritymaybelostinourposthumanmoment,inparticularhowvirtualrealityis
representedasaspaceinsciencefiction(SF)fortheeradicationofdifference.The
copy and the clone become the hyperreal, or the new real, and the posthuman
experiencedivorcesusfromourselves.
Stefan Herbrechter wades into the difficult work of deconstruction theorist
Derrida, arguing that ‘Derrida is both a “proto-posthumanist” and a “media
philosopher”’,andthatposthumanismandcontemporarymediawouldnoteven
existwithoutDerrideandeconstruction.Herbrechterteases apartDerridaas both
someonescreenedandsomeonewhocommentsonmovingpicturessuchasfilm
andtelevision,andonvisualmediaingeneral.
T.HughCrawfordprovidesanexaminationofLatour’scritiqueofmodernityand
how it relates to posthumanism. Crawford notes that Latour’s critical approach
undermines the notion of the posthuman because, as with being modern, we
haveneverbeenhumaninthenaïveEnlightenmentsense.Latour’sfocusonthe
non-humanprovidesa‘theatreofproof’,wherebyscientistslikePasteurwereable
to foreground certain dramatic elements in their experiments, thus making an
impactinmuchthesamemodeascinema.
BabetteBabichendsthissectionwithanoverviewofNietzsche’sZarathustra2.0,
detailinghowthephilosopher’snotionoftheÜbermenschrelatestoSingularitarian
ideas of posthumanity, and how the popular imagination skews Nietzsche’s idea
towardsposthumansupermen.
ix
x Preface
PartII–VarietiesofPeople-to-Come:PosthumanBecomings
Thissecondpartdealswiththevariousdifferentwaysweimaginetheposthuman
and the transhuman to be; that is, what we may one day be and what we are
alreadyintheprocessofbecoming.
Rhys Owain Thomas starts the section off with a look at the cyborg in film
and television. Thomas locates the postmodern cyborg within the discourse of
critical theoryso thatits posthuman inflectionsare noted,namely, those of sub-
ject creation and identity. The screened versions reflect shared anxieties of the
technologizedhuman.
Dan Hassler-Forest applies ideas from critical theory to screened superheroes,
accordingtowhichposthumanbodiesarediscursiveprocessesbeingwrittentoday
by technology. He sees the posthuman as providing a necessary tension for the
superheroparadigminitsquesttoovercomethebody’slimitations.
AnnaPowellprovidesaDeleuzianreadingofhowtheposthumanmonstrousis
comprisedofprocessesof‘becoming,assemblages,anomalies’.Shemovesthrough
examples of screened cloning texts, slowing down with a detailed reading of
Casshern, a film with multiplicities of narrative, style and content that imagine
posthumansasDeleuzianneo-sapiens.
DavidRodentacklesposthumanismwithinthecontextofthetechnologicalsin-
gularityasseeninfilmandtelevision,attemptingtounderstandhowwewillknow
thatwehaveenteredatrulypost-singularityworld.
DrewAyersendsthissectionwithauniquelookintohowswarmtechnologyin
digital media provides a metaphor for understanding posthumanism. For Ayers,
the combination of digital and analogue elements forms a hybrid synonymous
withourposthumancondition.
PartIII–RiseoftheMachines:PosthumanIntellects
Artificialintelligence(AI)isthefocusofthethirdsection.
ItbeginswithKevinLaGrandeur’sexaminationofandroidsasacinematictrope
wherein anxieties over the human losing control of its creation appear again
and again, from outright enslavement to more subtle, nuanced representations
ofandroid/humaninteraction.
Sherryl Vint provides a comment on digital sentience, or ‘supercomputers, dis-
tributed network AIs’, to show that real-world posthumanism in this context is
about the fusing of the human and the digital, while film and TV attempt to
representanxietiesaboutsuchintegrations.
JeffMenneandJayClaytonexaminetwofoundationalrepresentationsofAI:cen-
tralized, self-contained intelligences that grow in size and power, and those that
comeintobeingvianetworks.Theyexaminehowthecountercultureofthe1960s
and 1970s does not appear in the movies until much later than expected. Even
morerecentistheexplorationoftheposthuman.
Finally,DónalP.O’Mathúnalooksintoautonomousfightingmachinesandhow
they reflect our current posthuman moment. Mining both contemporary realist