124070 VO Culture, Society and the Media (2021W)

Since at least the Renaissance, the "human" has been the central, organising concept of cultural, philosophical, scientific, political, economic, historical, literary and critical debates. However, in recent years significant theoretical developments and advancements in animal studies, nonhuman studies, posthumanism, ecocriticsm, and ecofeminism have challenged the correctness and ethics of studying culture exclusively through theoretical paradigms and constructions that centre and elevate 'the human’. By focusing rather on media representations, narratives and experiences of animals, landscapes, machines, networks, cyborgs, and AI in diverse historical contexts, cultural practices, and representational modes, together we will explore the very notion of culture (what it excludes and why, its unspoken assumptions and exploitations) and consider how, in an increasingly mechanised and digitised cultural realm, the limits of the human are being redrawn.