12th Beyond Humanism Conference

12th Beyond Humanism Conference
Critical Posthumanism and Transhumanism
Antagonism or Convergence?

Mytilini – Lesvos, 1st- 4th of July 2020
University of the Aegean, School of Social Sciences, Department of Cultural Technology and Communication

CALL FOR PAPERS

For the third time, the Beyond Humanism Conference Series will be hosted by the University of the Aegean. The 2nd BHC, ten years ago, as well as the 7th BHC 5 years ago took place in Mytilini, too. In the meantime, Posthuman Studies has turned into established and intensely debated academic discipline. Academics, researchers, scientists and artists have undergone a series of transformations and continuous change of their theories and arguments in relation to which side they are standing, e.g. [Critical] Posthumanism, Metahumanism or Transhumanism. The annual Beyond Humanism Conference Series was central for the development of posthuman reflections. It started eleven [plus] years ago in Belgrade and so far eleven conferences of the series have taken place all over the world. Posthuman reflections have met a lot of challenges related to the inclusion of new approaches. They also had to dynamically adapt to the flow of continuously changing political realities.

The forthcoming 12th Beyond Humanism Conference will take place in Mytilini, Lesvos, a place with a special posthuman interest due to consequences of a continuing international political and humanitarian crisis. It draws an extra attention to new arguments about the evolution of the relation of critical post-, and transhumanism, putting forth questions on their hypothetical ongoing “antagonism”, or potentials for maybe unexpected “convergences”. Special attention will also be given to metahumanism, whose guiding nodal points were publicly presented for the first time 10 years ago at the 2nd BHC.

In the forthcoming 12th Beyond Humanism Conference several questions arise as topics to be further discussed:

• Re-evaluating the contribution of pre-modern and modern: Spinoza and Bergson, Heidegger, Russel and Habermas, Benjamin.
• Re-evaluating the relevance of postmodern thinking for Posthuman debates, e.g. Lyotard, Wittgenstein, Deleuze [and Guattari], Baudrilliard, Virilio, Flusser, Foucault, Danto, e.t.c..
• Re-evaluating Marxist approaches for posthuman challenges, e.g. Gramci, Adorno, Althusser, Horkheimer, Lukacs, Jameson and Harvey.
• Re-evaluating Phenomenological thought: Husserl, Merleau-Ponty.
• Re-evaluating epistemological questions of natural sciences: Jean Cavallies, Gaston Bachelard, George Ganguilem, Thomas Kuhn.
• Re-evaluating the history of the beyond humanism movements, e.g. Darwin, Nietzsche, Russian Cosmism, Freud, Julian Huxley.
• Re-evaluating science: The contribution of mathematics and artificial intelligence research and the vast possibilities opened by the writings of Marvin Minsky, Joseph Weizenbaum, Hans Moravec.
• Re-evaluating the arts and literature in the context of posthuman insights, e.g. contemporary art, science fiction, horror literature, bioart, digital arts, and the posthuman
• Re-evaluating posthuman pop cultures, e.g. cinema, documentary, comics, series,….
• Re-evaluating posthuman performance arts, e.g. dance, theatre, performances, metaformances….

Moreover, submissions on the following topics are particularly appreciated:

• Emphasis on non-western cultures, philosophies and religions (African culture, Buddhism)
• Immigration and posthuman issues. The contemporary refugee wave.
• Critical approaches to all meanings and nuances of «gender» as well as post-gender theories
• Dialectics between theory and technology
• Non-dualistic ontologies of becoming and post-, meta-, and transhumanism.
• Ontological reflections of Ionian philosophers and their relationship to beyond humanism movements
• Reflections on the topic critical post- and transhumanism: antagonism or convergence
• Physics and natural sciences and their ‘objectivity’.
• History and the notion of ‘progress’, e.g. non-progressive histories, personal history, oral histories, big history….
• Ethical code(s): Relational ethics versus liberal ethics of autonomy?
• Posthuman types of religiosity
• Economics and emerging technologies
• War and innovation
• Deep-learning and AI
• Ethics of space: beyond geocentric ethical theories

More: http://beyondhumanism.org/?fbclid=IwAR3NOzbgGeoCUuaQvDEj_klwAHyBkHxToFgAt7LwjSRAToNZGmELSgypMqQ