Images of the Human Being: Posthumanism

To grasp the Anthropocene—both as a concept and as a material phenomenon—is to confront often contradictory images. On the one hand, one can think of a human cutting a secular tree in the rainforest, a bird trapped in oil on a polluted ocean, a ghostly landfill of discarded electronics, multitudes of humans forced to migrate due to climate change, and the loneliness of many digital natives in hyperconnected environments. On the other hand, other images also emerge: human beings risking their life to protect elephants from poachers, a rhizome of roots and fungi nourish-ing a struggling tree, little birds nesting in a garage to seek protection from nonhuman predators, a breathtaking dawn reflected on the solar-paneled façade of a skyscraper, and the radiant joy of a family reunited by a distant video call. These sets of images reveal the dualities of destruction and care, despair and delight, and beauty and precarity that characterize the Anthropocene. In this entry, such apparent contrasts merge into an integrated perspective which acknowledges the Anthropocene not merely as a condition affecting the planet (including the human and nonhuman lives that constitute it) but as a dynamic field of existential engagement. Approached as a mere source of despair or anxiety—as often occurs in widespread apocalyptic narratives and pessimistic predictions concerning the coming decades—the Anthropocene risks inducing paralysis rather than fostering the necessary transformations to respond to its challenges. Instead, the Anthropocene can be conceived as an open wound, a crack through which we can attend to our interiority—as individuals, societies, and species, as well as a planet and beyond. We can thus recognize our embodyment of and embeddedness in the world as a way to generate meaningful change and the Anthropocene and as a threshold through which regeneration becomes possible.