Re/humanizing Education and the Posthuman Turn

Abstract

Abstract: Recent scholarship has interrogated the place of the human, humanism, and humanization in educational thinking. Methodologically positioned as an act of educational theorizing based on literature review, the current paper seeks to add to that body of work by comparing two emerging areas of study: critical posthumanism and work aiming to re/humanize education. First, I describe critical posthumanism as a movement beyond anthropocentrism and European humanism, but one that maintains the subject and the human as meaningful categories. Second, I describe re/humanizing as a reclaiming of the category of the human within neoliberal education systems that seek to diminish it. I then compare critical posthumanism and re/humanizing, highlighting their mutual movements toward equity and relationality before focusing on their different emphases and visions for systemic change. I conclude by suggesting a value in further interrogations of the human in education and by discussing the subjective nature of this paper.