Dr. Cary Wolfe (Rice) will present the talk “There is No World: Deconstruction and Theoretical Biology” on Wednesday January 24, 2018, 3:30-5:00 pm, PL 600F. All are welcome.
Good news! If you miss one of our talks or cannot take the trip to our partner institution to attend a talk you can now watch the presentations on our YouTube Channel.
Dr. Stuart Murray (Leeds) presents on “Augmented Selves/Interrogating Prostheses” on October 6, 2017.
Dr. Margrit Shildrick (Linköping University) will be presenting the talk “Approaching Posthumanism: prostheses, technologies, and embodiment” on Monday, March 6, 14:00-15:30, in Plaza 600F.
Abstract: In the era of postmodernity, issues of bodies and technologies increasingly challenge not only the normative performance of the human subject, but also the very boundaries of what counts as human. Where in the past, the term prosthesis intended some material object that compensated for a substantive and negatively figured lack in embodiment, the emphasis now is firmly on enhancement and supplement. For many disabled people – whose interface with the world may rely to a greater or lesser extent on the deployment of prostheses – the mode of rehabilitation to normative practices is no longer the point; instead prostheses may be highly productive alternatives that inevitably queer experience itself. Going further, the notion of technological supplementarity can be transformed to encompass an understanding of embodiment as necessarily entailing assemblage – in both organic, non-organic and hybrid forms – as a mode of existence that troubles our human privilege.
Marcel O’Gorman’s talk on Necromedia attracted a big crowd on Monday February 13. 
We will be hosting a public talk by Marcel O’Gorman (University of Waterloo) on “Necromedia: Technology, Death, and the Posthuman” on Monday, February 13, 2-3:30 pm, in Plaza 600F.
Abstract: In his recent book Necromedia, Dr. O’Gorman argues that humans are technical animals, driven forward by a prosthetic way of being that causes us to deny our animality. Of course, part of that animality is our finitude, our inevitable deaths. As O’Gorman argues, death denial is an essential aspect of the human existential situation, and it helps explain why we are so easily seduced by technology’s promise of newness, fame, and immortality. In this talk, Dr. O’Gorman will elaborate on these arguments, present a posthumanist perspective on technoculture, and demonstrate how these ideas have inspired the design of digital objects-to-think-with created in the Critical Media Lab at the University of Waterloo.
Speaker: Dr. O’Gorman is Professor of English, University Research Chair, and Director of Crirical Media Lab at the University of Waterloo. He has published widely on topics ranging from digital writing and maker culture to posthumanist philosophy and “digital dementia.” Dr. O’Gorman is also an active digital artist whose installations and performances involve video, sensor-based computing, interactive media, and sculptural objects such as a treadmill, a cedar and canvas canoe, a penny farthing bicycle, and a handmade arcade cabinet.
We are continuing our discussion of Claire Colebrook’s Death of the Posthuman on Thursday, January 19, 12 to 2 pm at the Karma Kameleon Gastropub in Thorold. Join us to discuss chapters 4 and 5.
We are continuing our discussion of Claire Colebrook’s Death of the Posthuman tomorrow, Friday November 11, 3-5 pm at the Karma Kameleon bistro in Thorold. Come and join us to discuss chapters 2 and 3.
A group of PRI members will be meeting to discuss Claire Colebrook’s Death of the Posthuman (Introduction and Chapter 1) on Thursday October 27, 4-6 pm. Location TBD. Join us if you would like a good conversation on this important reading. This is the first of a series of meetings to discuss the whole work.
