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Recent Reflections on the Posthuman Condition in American Literature and Culture
  • ISSN: 1466-0407
  • E-ISSN: 1758-9118

Abstract

Literature and film, as forms of cultural production, have consistently participated in public discourses by raising valuable questions pertinent to contemporary historical and cultural moments. Science fiction film and literature, particularly in the 2010s, have tackled cultural discourse on the human condition by thematically addressing human relationships with technology and articulating complex theoretical discussions in a way that translates into popular culture. This article brings the theoretical concepts of planetarity and the posthuman together in dialogue to conceptualize a planetary posthuman subject who positions their self not in opposition to the other, but in relation to the other, contextualized within the understanding of the planet as an interconnected whole, and embodied in the figure of the cyborg. It focuses on Afrofuturist science fiction and how it intervenes in discourses on race and otherness using this model of a planetary posthuman subject through the analysis of a popular example of mainstream Afrofuturist work. This article explores how the film (2018), directed by Ryan Coogler – a commercially successful and groundbreaking work of Afrofuturist Hollywood science fiction film – addresses cultural discourses on race and otherness while reflecting on the (post)human condition by presenting Afrofuturist planetary posthuman subjects. Finally, it explores how the film, using the theoretical model of the planetary posthuman, intervenes in public discourses on the human condition by mediating in current conceptualizations of race, otherness and technology, challenging neo-liberal global capitalism and its polarizing tendencies.

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2024-12-09
2026-04-16

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/content/journals/10.1386/ejac_00126_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): Blackness; cyborg; Hollywood science fiction; Marvel Studios; speculative fiction; technology

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