Table Of ContentThe Posthuman Pandemic
Also Available from Bloomsbury
Political Philosophy in a Pandemic: Routes to a More Just Future, ed. Fay Niker
and Aveek Bhattacharya
Philosophical Posthumanism, Francesca Ferrando
Being Posthuman: Ontologies of the Future, Zahi Zalloua
From Deleuze and Guattari to Posthumanism, ed. Christine Daigle and
Terrance H. McDonald
The Posthuman Pandemic
Edited by
Saul Newman and Tihomir Topuzovski
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK
1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA
29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland
BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks
of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published in Great Britain 2022
Copyright © Saul Newman, Tihomir Topuzovski and Contributors, 2022
Saul Newman and Tihomir Topuzovski have asserted their right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this work.
Cover design by Charlotte Daniels
Cover image: Blank frames hanging on art gallery wall (© Grant Faint / Getty Images)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior
permission in writing from the publishers.
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any
third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this
book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any
inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist,
but can accept no responsibility for any such changes.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: HB: 978-1-3502-3906-7
ePDF: 978-1-3502-3907-4
eBook: 978-1-3502-3908-1
Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
To find out more about our authors and books visit www .bloomsbury .com and
sign up for our newsletters.
Contents
List of Figures vii
Notes on Contributors viii
Introduction: The posthuman pandemic Saul Newman and Tihomir
Topuzovski 1
Part I Philosophy
1 The (post)human and the (post)pandemic: Rediscovering our
selves Christine Daigle 27
2 ‘Life is obviously not easy to define’: Viral politics and dynamic
patterning in Susanne K. Langer’s philosophies of art and life
Iris van der Tuin 43
3 Dead, alive: Deconstruction, biopolitics and life death
Stefan Herbrechter 60
Part II Politics
4 Contagious politics: Posthuman anarchism Saul Newman 81
5 Spectatorial splitting and transcultural seeing in the age of
pandemics Josephine Berry 100
6 Posthuman vectors and the production of a common
flesh Amanda Boetzkes and Anna McWebb 119
7 While you were at home, confined: Control and technology after
the city Rick Dolphijn 141
Part III Art
8 Is human to posthuman as Earth is to post-earth?: Notes on
terraforming and (trans)forming Amanda du Preez 161
9 Quarantine in waiting: Plant clocks and the asynchronies of viral
time Ada Smailbegović 182
vi Contents
10 Thinking and/over/in the pandemic: From contact points towards
contact zones potentially reconciling us with the ultramicroscopic
sub-layers of life Martin Grünfeld 201
11 Viral agencies and curating worldly life differently in museum
spaces Fiona Cameron 219
Index 247
Figures
5.1 View of Trafalgar Square with Heather Philipson’s The End in the
foreground, November 2020 102
6.1 Sue Coe, Factory Pharm, 2001 128
6.2 Sue Coe, Carnivorous Coronavirus, 2020 130
6.3 Sue Coe, Big Pharma, 2019 135
6.4 Sue Coe, Social Distancing, 2020 137
7.1 Advertising column, Rotterdam, near the city centre, the
Netherlands. First picture taken in early April 2020, second one
in June 2020 and third in January 2021 141
8.1 Comparative images of Earth on fire (top) and Mars (below) 165
8.2 Chile’s the Atacama Desert is the driest place on Earth and
therefore often compared to Mars’s rugged, arid terrain 167
8.3 Panoramic view from ‘Rocknest’ position of curiosity Mars rover,
October–November 2012 167
8.4 Famous desert scene by the well from Lawrence of Arabia
(David Lean, 1962) 170
8.5 Scene from The Martian (Ridley Scott, 2015) 170
Contributors
Editors
Saul Newman is Professor of Politics, Goldsmiths University of London.
Tihomir Topuzovski is Interdisciplinary Programme Director, Museum of
Contemporary Arts, Skopje, Macedonia.
Contributors (in order of appearance)
Christine Daigle is Professor of Philosophy, Chancellor’s Chair for Research
Excellence, and Director of the Posthumanism Research Institute at Brock
University.
Iris van der Tuin is Professor in Theory of Cultural Inquiry in the Department
of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Utrecht University.
Stefan Herbrechter is Privatdozent at Heidelberg University.
Saul Newman is Professor of Politics, Goldsmiths University of London.
Josephine Berry is Lab Lecturer, Culture Industry MA, Goldsmiths, University
of London.
Amanda Boetzkes is Professor of Contemporary Art History and Theory,
University of Guelph.
Anna McWebb is a PhD candidate in the Department of Art History and
Communication Studies, McGill University.
Rick Dolphijn is Associate Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, Utrecht
University.
Contributors ix
Amanda du Preez is Associate Professor, Department of Visual Arts, University
of Pretoria.
Ada Smailbegović is Assistant Professor of English, Brown University.
Martin Grünfeld is Associate Professor at Medical Museion, Novo Nordisk
Foundation, Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen.
Fiona Cameron is Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Culture and Society,
Western Sydney University.
