Outline for a keynote to be given at the conference 'Between the Human and the Posthuman', Nottingham University in September 2007
In this presentation I will reflect on the fortunes of the term ‘posthuman’ since it first came to prominence in the 1990s, and what it might mean to us now.
I will look back to the period in the last decade when enthusiasm for new technology fuelled speculation about the potential of computers to augment attributes that had hitherto been regarded as uniquely human, such as creativity, imagination, intelligence, and consciousness. From computer science and science fiction came ideas about the enhancement, and even replacement, of humans with technology-based systems.
Looking at the intellectual landscape today we can see where some of those ideas remain influential and where some now appear misjudged. I will argue that in fact two quite distinct conceptions of posthumanism emerged in this period. One held that technology offered a way of overcoming human frailties and eventually supplanting us with a superior species. Another, which I will defend, sees posthumanism as symptomatic of a radical shift in our understanding about what it is to be human in the first place.
