Posthumanism and trauma

Abstract

Although trauma studies and critical posthumanism have simultaneously developed, only in the last few years have critics started to see the imbrications of both disciplines. Trauma studies and critical posthumanism acknowledge that the traditional definition of the human as autonomous, exceptional, self-willed, and rational subject, distinct from and dominating other life forms, needs to be revised and reconfigured. Whereas classical trauma theory dwells on the wound and the fragmentation that human subjectivity has endured and is concerned with the process of "acting out" and "working through" that will lead to the reintegration of the self's bounded internal equilibrium, critical posthumanism sees the wound as an opportunity to redefine subjectivity as relational, interdependent, and co-evolving with other bodies, machines, and material forms. In the last few years, classical trauma studies has evolved from a Eurocentric, event-based, static conception of trauma to a more embedded and embodied vision of the trauma process that takes into account the ties of humans to other organic bodies, machines, and material forms. In turn, critical posthumanism has found in trauma studies the vocabulary to understand and deal with the wound that moving beyond human exceptionalism and exemptionalism produces on us.