Focusing on Friedrich Nietzsche’s reception of the life sciences of his day (including concerns with insects and the emergent social properties they exhibit) and his reflections on technology—research areas as central to Nietzsche’s work as they are to posthumanism—Edgar Landgraf provides fresh readings of Nietzsche and a critique of posthumanist and transhumanist philosophies in his new book, Nietzsche’s Posthumanism. Here, Landgraf is joined in conversation with Christian Emden and Stefan Herbrechter.

Edgar Landgraf is distinguished research professor of German at Bowling Green State University. He is author of Nietzsche’s Posthumanism and Improvisation as Art, and coeditor of Posthumanism in the Age of Humanism and Play in the Age of Goethe.

Christian Emden is Frances Moody Newman Professor at Rice University where he teaches German intellectual history and political thought. He is author of several books on Nietzsche, including Nietzsche’s Naturalism and Nietzsche on Language, Consciousness, and the Body.

Stefan Herbrechter is former Reader in Cultural Theory at Coventry University and former professor of English and cultural studies at Heidelberg University in Germany. He is an independent scholar of critical posthumanism and author of several books including Before Humanity and Posthumanism.

Episode references:

Friedrich Nietzsche

Cary Wolfe

Baruch Spinoza

Jane Bennett

Alfred Espinas

Bernard Stiegler

Ernst Kapp

Charles Darwin

Rosi Braidotti

Francesca Ferrando

Patricia MacCormack

Tamar Sharon

Reading list:

Vibrant Matter / Jane Bennett

On Animal Societies / Alfred Espinas

Nietzsche’s Animal Philosophy / Vanessa Lemm

Meeting the Universe Halfway / Karen Barad

Nietzsche’s Naturalism / Christian J. Emden

Nietzsche on Language, Consciousness, and the Body / Christian J. Emden

How We Became Posthuman / N. Katherine Hayles

Staying with the Trouble / Donna Haraway

Posthumanism / Stefan Herbrechter

The Will to Technology and the Culture of Nihilism / Arthur Kroker

Insect Media / Jussi Parikka

Before the Law / Cary Wolfe

Keywords: Nietzsche, posthumanism, transhumanism, critical posthumanism, swarm theory, insects, history of technology, human agency, posthumanist ethics, posthumanist politics

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