Home › Glossary › Letter P

Posthumanism

Philosophy
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Posthumanism challenges the traditional concept of the human as a fixed, autonomous subject. It explores the entanglement of humans with technology, animals, and systems.

Detailed Definition
Posthumanism critiques anthropocentrism. In poetry, it appears in themes of cyborg identity, ecological consciousness, and the blurring of species boundaries. Poetic language becomes a site to explore a decentered human, questioning what it means to be a person in a technological world. This gives poetry a speculative and critical edge, pushing beyond humanism toward new ways of being and relating.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poem about the merging of human and machine, a theme in cyberpunk poetry, is posthumanist; The exploration of animal consciousness and rights, as in some of Ted Hughes's poetry, is a posthumanist theme; A poem that questions the centrality of the human subject, like a poem by Jorie Graham, is posthumanist; The use of non-human perspectives in a poem, such as a poem spoken by a tree or a river, is a posthumanist technique.
Additional Notes
Posthumanism is a critical movement that challenges the traditional, humanist concept of the "human" as a fixed, rational, autonomous subject. It explores the entanglement of humans with technology, animals, and environmental systems, questioning the boundaries that separate us from the non-human. It is an extension of the deconstruction of the subject. In poetry, posthumanism appears in themes of cyborg identity, ecological consciousness, and the blurring of species boundaries. Poetic language becomes a site to explore a decentered human, questioning what it means to be a person in a world of machines, animals, and ecological crises. This gives poetry a speculative and critical edge, pushing beyond traditional humanism toward new ways of being and relating.
Also Known As
Post-humanism Transhumanism (related) Anti-humanism
Skip to main content