This special issue, guest-edited by Nidesh Lawtoo sets conceptual foundations for the mimetic turn in posthuman studies. Including key figures in posthuman studies as well as a final dialogue with Katherine Hayles, the issue shows, from multiple perspectives that mimesis is central to our process of becoming posthuman. Available OPEN ACCESS HERE.
In her keynote address for the Posthuman Mimesis conference, part of the ERC-funded HOM project, Katherine Hayles relies on her double training in biology and literary theory to promote a mimetic turn in posthuman studies. With roots in Greek classical drama and development in literary theory, mimesis is often regarded as primarily a discursive technique. Recently, however, Hayles argues that its applications in embodied practices have undergone exponential expansion in an unexpected domain: microbial resistance to viruses.
As part of the Homo Mimeticus Seminar (KU Leuven), Postdoctoral researcher Carole Guesse (@CrlGss) provides a short introduction to the posthuman and its discourses: transhumanism and posthumanism. She then explores the various ways in which the posthuman – in both theory and (science) fiction – can be characterized as mimetic.
