In a broad outline of current and emerging fields of interests on the literary horizon, seven notable researchers, including Susan Bassnett, Svend Erik Larsen and our own Mads Rosendahl Thomsen present their current research projects and explain why they are essential in the future not of the humanities, but with them. Larsen explains in his introduction, that “What has been gradually forgotten in many disciplines since their beginnings is that the burning problems to be dealt with are located on the margins of the disciplines, the point where interdisciplinary challenges emerge.”, which, in an academic world very different from when the humanities first became established, “create pressure to rethink the disciplines as a whole, to move established boundaries…”

In his paper on the posthuman, Thomsen also notes the obvious benefits of interdisciplinary research in a field that, to a large extent, is innately directed towards several schools of thought and research methods. Many studies of the posthuman condition has naturally tended towards the intersection between the natural sciences, ethics and philosophy, but the interdisciplinary reach of this field of interest in fact extends far further than the technology itself and its ethical implications: “...the posthuman designates a field that is truly interdisciplinary across the natural sciences, medicine, social sciences, theology, philosophy and the arts, each with their strengths and weaknesses in addressing core questions of the existence of humans as bodily, conscious, social beings. None of these dimensions can or should be ignored when trying to understand the possible consequences of changes in the human condition”. As such, studies of the posthuman in art, film and literature can shed light not only on the visions of human futures (2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, superheroes in various media and dystopic novels) but also on the emergence of the posthuman paradigm, reaching as far back as Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and the gothic fascination with electricity and animation (e.g., Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein). Studied in tandem with the ongoing developments in technology, medicine etc., the imagined conditions and consequences of a radically altered human nature as envisioned by artists and writers may well expand our concept of the posthuman significantly: “Within the humanities, we should at least not shy away for providing the best possible contribution to this discussion.”

Humanities is an international, scholarly, open access journal for scholarly papers across all humanities disciplines. Humanities is published quarterly online by MDPI.

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