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
