Posthuman Bodies

In many ways, contemporary life profoundly challenges our understandings of what it is to be human. This course explores the ways in which our bodies might be better described as ‘posthuman.’ We will examine our engagements with technology (from Fitbits to IVF), our entanglements with scientific and medical understandings of the body (such as those produced in genomics and neuroscience), and our ever-changing embodied relations to non-human animals and the material planet. Drawing on research and concepts from Science and Technology Studies, the Sociology of Health and Medicine, Feminist and Queer Theory, and Animal Studies, we will work through specific examples – relating to reproductive technologies, pharmaceuticals, self-tracking, and animals in space amongst others – to think about who and what we are today.