This book employs perspectives from continental philosophy, intellectual history, and literary and cultural studies to breach the divide between early modernist and modernist thinkers. It turns to early modern humanism in order to challenge late 20th-century thought and present-day posthumanism. This book addresses contemporary concerns such as the moral responsibility of the artist, the place of religious beliefs in our secular societies, legal rights extended to nonhuman species, the sense of ‘normality’ applied to the human body, the politics of migration, individual political freedom and international terrorism. It demonstrates how early modern humanism can bring new perspectives to postmodern antihumanism and even invite us to envision a humanism of the future.
Jan Miernowski is Professor of French at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, and Visiting Professor at the University of Warsaw, Poland. His latest books include La Beauté de la haine (Droz, 2014) and an edited volume on the intersection between the grotesque and the sublime.
Early Modern Humanism and Postmodern Antihumanism in Dialogue, ed. Jan Miernowski (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)
Table of contents
Is the Author Responsible? Artistic Agency in Humanist and Antihumanist Perspectives
Helgeson, James
An Ethics for Antihumanism? Belief and Practice
Hoffmann, George
Should We Practice Justice Toward Nonhuman Animals? Radical Animal Interests, Humanism, and Classical Justice
Langer, Ullrich
What Came Before, What Comes After Normal? Some Humanist and Postmodern Antihumanist Thoughts on the Concept of Normalcy
Long, Kathleen
What Is a Colony Before Colonialism? Humanist and Antihumanist Concepts of Governmentality from Foucault to Montaigne
Hampton, Timothy
Humanists, Antihumanists, and
Randall, Michael
Can a Human Bomb Be Human? Humanist and Antihumanist Perspectives on War and Terrorism
Miernowski, Jan