Posthumanism and the Posthuman. Chances and Challenges in German and European Literature and Culture, London (23.03.–24.03.2023)
Posthumanism and the Posthuman
Chances and Challenges in German and European Literature and Culture
Thursday, 23 and Friday, 24 March 2023
At the Senate House, University of London, Malet Street, WC1E 7HU
Booking now open: https://ilcs.sas.ac.uk/events/posthumanism-and-posthuman
‘Not all of us can say, with any degree of certainty, that we have always been human, or that we are only that. Some of us are not even considered fully human now, let alone at previous moments of Western social, political and scientific history.' As the philosopher Rosi Braidotti reminds us, one of the central achievements of posthumanism and 'the post-human' has been to enrich and diversify our sense of what it could have meant to be human, and what it might still mean.
At a time of intersecting global crises, this conference seeks to re-evaluate the categories of humaness and 'the human' through the lenses of the posthuman and the transhuman. With a particular focus on German literature, culture, film, and thought from the 18th century to the present, it will explore posthuman(ist) conceptions and figurations of gender, sexuality, interpersonality, ecology, ontology, and – of course – artificial intelligence. The conference's keynote speakers are Karin Harrasser (Linz) and Stefan Herbrechter (Heidelberg), and it includes a writer's workshop with prize-winning graphic novelist Olivia Vieweg.
Programme
Thursday, 23 March 2023
10:30 Arrival / Registration / Coffee
11:15 Welcome
11:30 Panel 1: Proto-Posthumanism 1
Elena Fabietti (University of Regensburg): Posthuman Fantasies in the Age of Enlightenment: A Man with a Window on the Heart in Christian Heinrich Spieß’s Biographien der Wahnsinnigen (1796)
Kerstin Borchardt (Catholic University Linz): Of Man and Superman: The Afterlife of Nietzsche’s “Übermensch” in Politics, Science, and Popular Culture
12:30 Lunch (provided)
13:30 Panel 2: Proto-Posthumanism 2
Ombre Tarragnat (University of Paris 8): Reassessing the Proto-Posthumanism Claims in Jakob von Uexküll: Parasitic Readings of Umwelt Theory from the Tick to the Autistic
Kate Foster (King’s College London): The Doppelgänger: Weimar Cinema and the Posthuman
14:30 Tea
15:00 Panel 3: Ontologies, Ecologies and Geographies 1
Teresa Ludden (Newcastle University): Nonhuman Agency and Differential Becomings in Texts by Michael Donhauser and Oswald Egger
Heinrick Wehmeier (University of Hamburg): The Blurred I: Posthumanist Concepts of Subjectivity in Contemporary Poetry
16:05 Keynote Lecture 1
Stefan Herbrechter (University of Heidelberg): Posthumanism’s German Genealogies
17:00 Wine Reception
17:30 Author Reading and Workshop with Olivia Vieweg
19:30 Optional Conference Dinner at the Tas Restaurant, Bloomsbury (cost £35 per head; drinks not included)
Friday, 24 March 2023
09:00 Panel 4: Ontologies, Ecologies and Geographies 2
Dana Bönisch (University of Bonn): Entanglements: Posthumanist Poetics and Relational Ethics
Peter Arnds (Trinity College Dublin): Transhuman Moments in Norbert Scheuer’s Novels on War and Forced Migration
Sarah Pogoda (Bangor University): The Buoy in the Elevator – Artistic Research into Heiner Müller’s Posthuman Utopia
10.30 Coffee
11:00 Panel 5: (A)lterity, (I)dentity and Connection 1
Maria Roca Lizarazu (NUI Galway) and Simone Pfleger (University of Alberta): In Touch with the In/Human
Marlene Reich (New York University): Hybrid Matters in Berit Glanz’s Pixeltänzer (2019)
12:05 Keynote Lecture 2
Karin Harrasser (Art University Linz): Para, not Post
13:00 Lunch (own arrangements)
14:00 Early Career Researcher Workshop
15:00 Panel 6: : (A)lterity, (I)dentity and Connection 2
Benjamin Schaper (University of Oxford): ‘Nicht einheimisch, aber auch nicht exotisch: Briten eben’: Loneliness and Human-Machine Interaction in Maria Schrader’s Ich bin dein Mensch (2021)
Tobias Heinrich (University of Kent): My Friend Robot: Emotional Relationships with Artificial Intelligence in Fiction and Beyond
Nicole Brandstetter (Munich University of Applied Sciences): Digitalisation, Artificial Intelligence, Social media: Narrative Representations of Posthuman Societies
16:30 Tea
17:00 Rupture, Catastrophe and Renewal
Georgia Panteli (University of Vienna): Pinocchio and Other Posthumans: The Art of Ausonia
Suman Singh (University of Wuppertal): Human and Non-Human Encounters in Arno Schmidt’s Schwarze Spiegel (1951) and Georg Klein’s Miakro (2018)
Friederike Reents (Catholic University Eichstätt-Ingolstatt): Rupture as Creative Potential in Posthuman Scenarios in Philipp Weiss’ Der letzte Mensch (2019), Anja Utler’s kommen sehen (2020) and Jean-Luc Lagarce’s Cartage, encore (1979)
18:30 Closing Remarks / Conference Ends
Conference Organisers: Robert Craig (University of Bamberg); Annegret Marten (King’s College London); Rebecca Wismeg-Kammerlander (King’s College London)
Registration fees: Standard rate: GBP 35.00 | Friends of Germanic Studies/Friends of Italian at the ILCS: GBP 30.00 | Students: GBP 15.00
All are welcome to participate in this two-day event. for which advance online registration is essential at https://ilcs.sas.ac.uk/events/posthumanism-and-posthuman. Registration fees include lunch and reception on the first day, and refreshments on the second. Anyone wishing to attend the conference dinner on the first day is asked to indicate their interest whilst booking; the cost of GBP35.00, not including drinks, is payable in cash on the day.
The organisers are grateful to the Association for German Studies in Great Britain and Ireland, the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD), and King’s College London for generously supporting this conference, and to the University of London John Coffin Trust for sponsoring the author workshop with Olivia Vieweg.
Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies (formerly IMLR)
School of Advanced Study |University of London
Senate House | Malet Street |London WC1E 7HU
Tel: +44 (0)20 7862 8966 | Email: jane.lewin@sas.ac.uk
Website: https://ilcs.sas.ac.uk/