Review: S. E. Wilmer and Audrone Žukauskaitė (eds.) ‘Life In The Posthuman Condition: Critical Responses to the Anthropocene’
Review of S. E. Wilmer and Audronė Žukauskaitė (eds.), Life in the Posthuman Condition: Critical
Responses to the Anthropocene (Edinburgh University Press, 2023), 312 pages
Abstract
Life in the Posthuman Condition: Critical Responses to the Anthropocene actively engages in the extensive debates surrounding the Anthropocene and Posthuman, offering a sharp critique of the Anthropocene framework. It argues that beneath its aesthetics of disaster lies an underlying anthropocentrism and universalism. By integrating rich and diverse theories (like Gaia, plasticity, vitalism, etc.) from prominent theorists, including Catherine Malabou, it tries to investigate various forms of life between humans and non-humans, life and non-life and their relationships, and further theorize life and related ontology. The book highlights the entanglement of human and non-human actors and advocates mutual inclusion and interdependence, to urge the development of novel approaches to confront the ecological, ethical, cultural, technological, and political dimensions of the posthuman condition.
Reviewed by Yixuan Li
When reading Jane Bennett’s works, I’m also reflecting on the responses of participants in my fieldwork in East China. Almost all of them assert a clear distinction between life and non-life, which led me to ponder: what is life? New materialism, from the perspectives of process, entanglement, and networks, argues that matter possesses vitality—it is active, relational, and differentiated, as evident in Bennett’s use of the term ‘vital’, which plays on its dual meanings. She further emphasizes the dynamic and vibrant inner qualities embedded within substances traditionally regarded as inert and passive. However, Nail points out the potential hazards of equating life with matter. In fact, contemporary research on forms of life remains inadequate, characterized by ambiguity and narrowness. The publication of Life in the Posthuman Condition: Critical Responses to the Anthropocene arrives as a timely intervention, offering possibilities for conceptualizing and theorizing forms of life and their relations on the foundation of diverse interdisciplinary theories. The breadth of life extends beyond humans, encompassing animals, organic and inorganic entities, as well as the various relationships intertwined within.
Indeed, the exploration of life forms is one of the themes addressed in this edited book. The book’s framework is rooted in posthumanism, and opposes anthropocentrism and human exceptionalism. The first section begins with Audronė Žukauskaitė and S. E. Wilmer’s incisive synthesis of the first five chapters in the Introduction. It sharply pulls back the performative veil of the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene, as an aesthetic of catastrophic tragedy, anesthetizes people from confronting the actual consequences taking place. Driven by “a modernist conviction” that humanity can resolve catastrophic outcomes, it implicitly asserts human dominance in the Anthropocene, thereby reinforcing anthropocentrism (2). Subsequently, the editors identify three critical issues brought about by the Anthropocene. First, it obscures the activities of capitalism, equating the Anthropocene with the Capitalocene, and shifts the responsibility for economic class-driven consequences onto impoverished and marginalized groups. Second, it conceals colonialism, where colonizers are portrayed as representatives of all races, serving as the site for the biopolitical regulation and allocation of power. Third, it erases gender realities, overlooking the contributions of feminist theoretical work and perpetuating patriarchal structures within biopolitics.
The discussion of different temporal scales in the first section fundamentally challenged my previously simplistic understanding of posthumanism. Before this, I had naively thought of posthumanism as a linear timeline where humanity imagines the future from the present. However, posthumanism operates through three prisms. The first prism requires humans to recognize the vast temporal scales of Earth’s movements and transformations—spanning hundreds, thousands, and even millions of years. These movements are nonlinear, unstable, and protracted. The second prism emerges from humans’ realization of its eventual transformation into what Haraway terms “humus”, as discussed in the first three chapters. Humans are minor participants in a vast system, with their life and death cycles embedded within the matrix of decomposition and recombination of organic and inorganic matter (29). Consequently, humans neither dominate the world nor can predict all outcomes. Moreover, the idea of “human” extends beyond the “naturalized” human traditionally recognized in modern science or Western culture (37). The third prism, building upon the first two, urges reflection on what humans can do within the present temporal scale to shape the future—whether to foster respect for difference and coexistence, or to spiral into madness and self-destruction. This threefold temporal prism not only directly undermines anthropocentrism but also dismantles the superiority of Western humans’ power to define humanity. By juxtaposing various temporal scales, posthumanism inspires hopeful practices for imagining and enacting a sustainable future.
For instance, in Chapter 1, Bruce Clarke emphasizes that humans exist within Gaia, situated in the vast temporal scale of the Earth which is regarded as an object of observation. Humans must collaborate with Gaia to co-constitute the Gaian being. In Chapter 4, Mintautas Gutauskas examines waste to articulate humans’ dual collapse as a subject, which humans scarcely acknowledge. On one hand, through the accumulation of waste, humans generate an uncontrollable destructive force that undermines the rational subjectivity humans associate with themselves in the Anthropocene. On the other hand, humans become the object of this destructive force, rendered incapable of responding to its harm. Consequently, Gutauskas argues that humans must recognize themselves through the traces of everyday materiality—not only in terms of what they can do but also “what they cannot do” (82).
In Chapter 5, T. J. Demos powerfully clarifies the political dimension, calling for posthumanism to “make a just transition into the future” (99). Beginning with tear gas, he compellingly illustrates how air is being weaponized, paralleling carbon emissions in serving authoritarian capitalism and politics under the guise of climate emergency claims. This politics is multilayered, encompassing biology, climatology, geopolitics, and more. As Demos states, “biogeophysical relationalities and ontological cuts splitting environments of life and death intersect with sociopolitical and techno-economic orders” (93). Tear gas, closely tied to the right to maim, demonstrates how biopolitical power can allow oppressed groups to lose the right to a dignified death—an ongoing reality in Gaza. Moreover, Israel’s use of other nonhuman-targeted weapons in Gaza, such as white phosphorus and depleted uranium, is transforming Gaza into the newest laboratory at the intersection of human and nonhuman suffering, where power and cultural violence intertwine in catastrophes. Through Demos’ thunderous appeal, he argues that humans must reject the instrumentalization of climate and the rise of ecological fascism. He calls for climate justice to be integrated with broader dimensions of justice, recognizing the interconnections between environmental, social, and political issues.
The second section explores the possibilities of multilayered and multidimensional interspecies relationships. Chapter 6, authored by Graham Harman, introduces the concept of punctuation to distinguish between life and non-life on ontological boundaries by the mediation of object-oriented ontology, when emphasizing the semi-permeability of the boundaries between living beings and their environments. In Chapter 7, Anna Barcz and Michael Cronin challenge anthropocentric paradigms of translation and language through the lens of eco-translation. They advocate for a transversal subjectivity that incorporates the voices and semiotic systems of non-humans. Eco-translation is not an act of anthropomorphism but rather “opening oneself up to others as communicative and translatable beings” (136). This approach assumes that animals can perceive and have the ability to shape their experiences of time and space, influencing their behaviors and interactions within their environments.
Anna Barcz and Michael Cronin’s engagement with animals through an animalist perspective, listening to and following the agency of animals, resonates with the themes explored in Chapters 8 and 9. In Chapter 8, Jussi Parikka, through Studio Tomás Saraceno’s ON AIR exhibition, uses spiders and their webs as living diagrams of ontological diffractive models, challenging traditional boundaries between art, science, and environmental knowledge, and integrating them. Similarly, in Chapter 9, Agnė Narušytė states the transformative impact of beavers on landscapes and advocates for a sense of care toward these changes. These works collectively illustrate an interconnected approach to human-animal relationships.
The third section builds on the foundation laid by the previous two, offering a clearer philosophical exploration of the question of life. In Chapter 10, Cary Wolfe critiques how increasingly specialized disciplines have not only created a virtual image of “the planet”, but also rendered the object of it more and more complex (197). Most significantly, this has led to a dichotomy between Earth and life within knowledge systems. Wolfe argues that ecosystems are not equivalent to the concept of nature within human culture. Ecosystems are characterized by the nonergodic principle—unpredictability, creativity, and openness. Ecosystems exhibit a “decoupling in the locus of control”, where macro-level properties regulate components’ behavior, loosening the deterministic link from micro to macro levels (202). Wolfe further critiques Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory (ANT) ontology concerning ecology through the lens of deconstructionism. He contends that Latour’s framework operates as a first-order systems theory, which overlooks systemic self-referentiality, self-production and emergence while oversimplifying the relationships between “inside” and “outside” or “neighbor” and “environment” (210). Similarly, Haraway’s symbiosis theory faces fundamental boundary issues. Wolfe argues that ANT reduces the contingency and complexity of biological and ecological systems. Furthermore, the flattened ontology of ANT preprograms and linearizes biological autonomy and self-direction, neglecting their capacity for creativity and internal transformation. In light of the foregoing, Wolfe asserts that the second-order systems theory provides a critical challenge to these boundary issues, recognizing that observers are themselves part of the systems they study. Second-order systems theory acknowledges emergence, complexity, and contingency within systems, focusing on self-referentiality and self-producing processes. This approach offers a more nuanced understanding of life and ecosystems.
Similar to Cary Wolfe’s argument that consciousness cannot be reduced to the material processes that give rise to it, Chapter 11 by John Ó Maoilearca critiques new materialists for avoiding discussions of spiritualism—a missed opportunity for ontological innovation. Maoilearca argues that life should not be positioned in opposition to matter; instead, life and matter should be placed on the same continuum. In a parallel vein, Thomas Nail in Chapter 12 challenges Bennett’s neo-vitalism, criticizing it as politically inadequate, historically questionable, unnecessarily metaphysical, and conceptually vague. Nail proposes that organic life should instead be understood as a form of movement, a perspective that addresses these shortcomings and offers a more robust theoretical framework.
Both Chapter 13 and Chapter 14 incorporate Catherine Malabou’s theory of plasticity, attempting to extend the discussion to include non-life. In addition, Chapter 13 by Audronė Žukauskaitė explores the theories of Simondon and Ruyer, aiming to establish a morphing ontology that maintains differences while extending continuity from organic to inorganic, and from human to non-human. She posits that “life is a formation, a form-taking activity (278). The final chapter, written by Catherine Malabou, offers profound reflections on the future of posthumanism. Drawing on Kant’s idea that art is a subject of nature that helps nature create itself, Malabou raises thought-provoking questions regarding the development of synaptic chips: Can artificial intelligence develop a sense of self, and can it establish a relationship between technology and the self through mimicking nature (including humans and natural biological functions)? Although Malabou's work is grounded in the resemblance between brain-developed chips and the human brain, she leaves the relationships between self, nature, art, technology, and the human brain quite ambiguous. In this ambiguity, some bold thoughts in my mind echo this chapter: Can AI or technology become a real self, rather than merely being seen as mimicking humans? Can technology become a self-generative process, free from human-defined positions and frameworks according to humans’ traits, and without inducing fear due to its likeness to humans? In such a scenario, humans may also no longer become tools of themselves or are digitized by themselves. This opens up the possibility of a world where, all kinds of beings—animals, organics, inorganics, technologies, and so on, on Earth could sit together in negotiation with mutual respect. This vision hints at a radically different future, one where coexistence transcends boundaries and hierarchies.
In summary, the book offers rich theoretical insights and gathers influential voices that attempt to reframe posthumanism through various forms of nonhuman life. However, caution is needed. From animal to ecological and technological issues, the assumption that attention follows unconsciously what appears risks naturalizing academic responsiveness as reactive rather than reflective—something Latour (2004) warns against in distinguishing matters of fact from matters of concern. Posthumanism must resist following emerging concerns uncritically and instead ask how things become concerns, for whom, in what contexts and how to practice. In other words, while projecting into futures, posthuman thought must also stay with the present—pausing, even looking back—to consider how posthuman perspectives unfold in daily life. This is not to separate theory from ordinary life, but to highlight their entanglement. Posthumanism is not only about futures, but about how we live, relate, feel and practice in current social structures. Without such attentiveness, posthumanism risks becoming yet another grand narrative—disconnected from the very lives it seeks to reimagine.
References
Latour B (2004) Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of
Concern. Critical Inquiry 30(2): 225–248.
Yixuan Li is a sociology PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh. She is interested in social theory, new materialism, posthumanism, and emotion. Inspired by her cat, science fiction movies and Bruno Latour’s theory, her research focuses on humans and non-humans in their daily lives at home.
Email: Y.Li-530@sms.ed.ac.uk
