Introduction: ‘Recent Reflections on the Posthuman Condition in American Literature and Culture’

The theories and notions around the posthuman have become, in recent years, a key framework to approach contemporary culture and its products. Inspired by the growing cross-disciplinarity in the field of critical posthumanism, as well as by the increased prevalence of posthumanist ideas in North American literature and culture, this Special Issue seeks to map some recent trends regarding the understanding of the posthuman at two different levels: in terms of critical approach and regarding the types of texts explored. Thus, the articles included in this Special Issue resort to the critical tools provided by critical posthumanism, trauma studies, new materialism, transhumanism and digital anthropology, bringing to the fore not just the outstanding critical currency of these disciplines by themselves and their usefulness to approach contemporary artistic products, but also the points of convergence and divergence among them. Apart from their emphasis on cross-disciplinarity, the articles that make up this Special Issue explore a wide breath of cultural products, giving readers a glimpse into the current relevance of posthumanist ideas in the North American literary and cultural scene. At the same time, the contributions in this Special Issue map recent aesthetic and narratological approaches to the posthuman, the non-human and the more-than-human world, pointing to posthumanism as a constantly evolving field. Overall, the articles bring together the most recent scholarship within the fast-changing field of critical posthumanism and explore different twenty-first-century understandings of the posthuman subject at a time when the task of (re)defining what it means to be human is perhaps more pressing than ever.