This chapter explores why it might be important to consider the relevance, for posthumanist thought, of perspectives on grace within theology, philosophy and literature. Admittedly, this might seem incongruous. Grace carries religious and spiritual overtones and the discourse around it implicitly privileges—exalts—the human. Posthumanism, in contrast, is tendentially secular and materialist, undercutting anthropocentric determinisms. Moreover, is there any grace to be discerned in the posthuman condition? What, indeed, might a graced—or graceless—posthuman condition look like? How might a rhetoric of grace inform the present and futural drift of the posthuman? These questions and others are explored through reference to Dante’s Paradiso, Alain Badiou’s writings on St Paul and Malebranche, Thom Gunn’s poetry, and a range of posthumanist thought and critique.

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Posthumanism and Grace: Pre-texts for an Improbable Relation

  • Ivan Callus

摘要

This chapter explores why it might be important to consider the relevance, for posthumanist thought, of perspectives on grace within theology, philosophy and literature. Admittedly, this might seem incongruous. Grace carries religious and spiritual overtones and the discourse around it implicitly privileges—exalts—the human. Posthumanism, in contrast, is tendentially secular and materialist, undercutting anthropocentric determinisms. Moreover, is there any grace to be discerned in the posthuman condition? What, indeed, might a graced—or graceless—posthuman condition look like? How might a rhetoric of grace inform the present and futural drift of the posthuman? These questions and others are explored through reference to Dante’s Paradiso, Alain Badiou’s writings on St Paul and Malebranche, Thom Gunn’s poetry, and a range of posthumanist thought and critique.