After Human

A Critical History of the Human in Science Fiction from Shelley to Le Guin

By: Thomas Connolly

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Paperback | 2 February 2024

At a Glance

Paperback
240 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
23.39 x 15.6 x 1.3

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Shortlisted for the British Fantasy Awards (Non-Fiction) 2022

Shortlisted for the Locus Science Fiction Foundation Non-Fiction Award 2022

SF has long been understood as a literature of radical potential, capable of imagining entirely new worlds and ways of being. Yet SF has been slow to embrace posthumanist ideas about the human subject. The human of the SF tradition is instead a liminal being, caught somewhere between the transcendent 'Man' of classical humanism and the subversive 'cyborg' of posthumanist thought.

This study offers a critical history of the 'human' in SF. By examining a range of SF works from 1818 to the 1970s, it seeks to answer some key questions: What role does technology play in defining what it means to be-or not to be-human? How do these writers understand the relationship between humanity and the rest of nature? And how can we use SF to re-examine our ethical position towards the non-human world and move to more egalitarian understandings of the human subject?

Industry Reviews

'This wide-ranging and original study convincingly shows how science fiction has (almost) always been posthuman. Thomas Connolly's critical and cultural history of "the human" in Anglo-American sf ranges from the nineteenth century through the 1970s, constructing an expansive pre-history of the posthuman before the cyberpunk explosion of the 1980s. This is an exciting new story about the history of science fiction.'
Veronica Hollinger, co-editor of Science Fiction Studies

"This monograph gives a valuable starting point for considering the developments of human figures in science fiction before posthumanism had been articulated and it contributes productively to current conversations about reading such texts retroactively as engagements with the posthuman and posthumanism."
Anna McFarlane, Science Fiction Studies

'For those scholars interested to treat posthumanism not as a given of the 21st century, but as a development of the humanism and anti-humanism that came before, Connolly's book is a valuable resource explaining the lines of thought in sf that have led up to, for example, the cyberpunk multiplication of posthumanism. After Human will help ground current work in contemporary posthumanist criticism by providing a historical perspective.' Lars Schmeink, SFRA Review

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