RCCS is co-sponsoring this talk, hosted by the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures.
Abstract:
This talk explores critiques of posthumanism in works by Chen Qiufan, Wang Jinkang, and Liu Cixin. Driven by biogenetic and information technology, techno posthumanism views human life and nonhuman biospheres as sources for extraction, accumulation, and profit. Thriving in the context of neoliberalism, techno posthumanism not only restores the arrogant anthropocentric subject of humanism but is also leading towards an unholy alliance of money and power under the sign of capitalist oligarchy. The ceaseless growth of capital and private enclosure of common resources widens the abyss of inequality, destroys communities and people, and damages natural environments and all lifeforms, leading humanity and Earth down the path of catastrophe and extinction.
Bio
Ban Wang is the William Haas Professor of Chinese Studies in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University. His major publications include The Sublime Figure of History, Illuminations from the Past, China in the World: Culture, Politics, and World Vision, and At Home in Nature: Technology, Labor, and Critical Ecology in Modern China. In addition to his monographs, he has edited and co-edited numerous volumes, including Chinese Visions of World Order: Tianxia, Culture, and World Politics, Words and Their Stories: Essays on the Language of the Chinese Revolution, Trauma and Cinema: Cross-Cultural Explorations, and Eco Writing in the Age of (Un) Natural Crises. He has previously taught at SUNY-Stony Brook, Harvard University, Rutgers University, East China Normal University, the University of Zurich, Yonsei University, and Seoul National University.
