The Hysterical Sublime
eBook - PDF

The Hysterical Sublime

Humanism in the Age of Posthuman Capitalism

  1. 265 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

The Hysterical Sublime

Humanism in the Age of Posthuman Capitalism

About this book

Developing the concept of the hysterical sublime, first theorised by Fredric Jameson, to challenge posthumanist perspectives on the Anthropocene, this book facilitates the rethinking of universal and dialectical humanism as concepts for grappling with 21st-century capitalism.

In recent years, posthumanist theories have been concerned with the overlapping dilemmas of global climate change, digital automation, and artificial intelligence, corresponding to the age of the Anthropocene. Matthew Flisfeder explores how the fear of technology becomes, for Jameson, a substitute for the fears of the capitalist system, and shows that posthumanism displaces such fears onto the figure of the human and anthropocentrism. Drawing on Hegelian-Lacanian theory, the book argues that to rethink dialectical humanism requires moving past the historicist versions of Marxist humanism that imagine a complete reconciliation with non-human nature that includes a process of dis-alienation. Flisfeder also studies posthumanism's "performative contradiction" of dismissing humanism while at the same time depending on the very concepts that constitute the core of humanist thought: freedom, equality, responsibility, and autonomy.

Through the concept of the hysterical sublime, this book argues that, not only is anthropocentrism and humanism the unconscious core of posthumanist theory; emancipatory politics must take ownership of this perspective and renew universalist and dialectical humanism as the core of the political project resistant to capitalism and the Capitalocene.

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Yes, you can access The Hysterical Sublime by Matthew Flisfeder in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Philosophy & Aesthetics in Philosophy. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Half Title
  3. Series Page
  4. Title Page
  5. Copyright Page
  6. Dedication
  7. Contents
  8. Preface
  9. Acknowledgments
  10. Introduction
  11. Chapter 1: Is It Possible to Renew Humanism in the Anthropocene?
  12. Chapter 2: From Posthumanist Anaesthetics to Promethean Dialectics
  13. Chapter 3: Variations of the Posthuman Fantasy
  14. Chapter 4: Representation and the Mapping of Contradiction
  15. Chapter 5: Develop the Superstructure: Althusser and the Humanist Controversy Reconsidered
  16. Chapter 6: Toward a Humanism of the Non-all
  17. Conclusion
  18. Notes
  19. Works Cited
  20. Index