Transhumanism and Posthumanism in Twenty-First Century Narrative

Sonia Baelo-Allué is Senior Lecturer at the Department of English and German of the University of Zaragoza (Spain) where she currently teaches U.S. Literature and British and American Culture. Mónica Calvo-Pascual is Senior Lecturer at the Department of English and German of the University of Zaragoza (Spain) where she teaches Contemporary U.S. Literature and British Culture.

• (Trans/Post)Humanity and Representation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Anthropocene: An Introduction. Sonia Baelo-Allué and Mónica Calvo-PascualSection I. Theoretical Approaches: Looking Back, Looking Ahead1. Before Humanity: Or, Posthumanism Between Ancestrality and Becoming Inhuman. Stefan Herbrechter2. From Utilitarianism to Transhumanism: A Critical Approach. Maite Escudero-Alías3. Posthuman Modes of Reading Literature Online. Alexandra GlavanakovaSection II. Transhumanism: The Uneasiness of Human Enhancement4. Vigilance to Wonder: Human Enhancement in TED Talks. Loredana Filip5. Patterns of Posthuman Numbness in Shirley & Gibson’s "The Belonging Kind" and Eggers’s The Circle. Francisco Collado-Rodríguez6. Subjects of the ‘Modem’ World: Writing U. in Tom McCarthy’s Satin Island. Margalida Massanet AndreuSection III. Transhumanism: Trauma and (Bio)Technology7. The Paradoxical Anti-Humanism of Tom McCarthy’s C: Traumatic Secrets and the Waning of Affects in the Technological Society. Susana Onega 8. Don DeLillo’s Zero K: Transhumanism, Trauma, and the Ethics of Premature Cryopreservation. Carmen Laguarta-Bueno9. A Dystopian Vision of Transhuman Enhancement: Speciesist and Political Issues Intersecting Trauma and Disability in M. Night Shyamalan’s Split. Miriam Fernández-SantiagoSection IV. Posthumanity: Post-Anthropocentric Scenarios10. The Call of Anthropocene: Resituating the Human through Trans- & Posthumanism;Notes of Otherness in Works of Jeff Vandermeer and Cixin Liu. Justus Poetzsch 11. "Am I a person?" Biotech Animals and Posthumanist Empathy in Jeff Vandermeer’s Borne. Monica Sousa12. Posthuman Cure: Biological and Cultural Motherhood in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam. Esther Muñoz-González13. Posthuman Transformation in Helen Marshall’s The Migration. Sherryl Vint Conclusion: Towards a Post-Pandemic, (Post)Human World. Sonia Baelo-Allué and Mónica Calvo-Pascual

"The book is thus a brilliantly assembled and articulated look at both the literature of the last decade reflecting  on  some  of  the  most  pressing  issues  of  our  time  and  the  theoretical  and  practical implications of those same issues." - Ilaria Biano