In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • The Nonhuman Turn ed. by Richard Grusin
  • Mikhail Epstein (bio)
Richard Grusin, ed., The Nonhuman Turn (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015), 255 pp.

A tendency of the humanities these days is to refrain from association with anything uniquely human. In his introduction to this collection, the editor, Richard Grusin, focuses his critique on "conceptual or rhetorical dualisms that separate the human from the nonhuman." But his own rhetoric, including the term non-human in the book's title, is itself an example of such a dualism. Even the affects, the experience of feelings obviously rooted in human emotions, are claimed here to be "independent of . . . cognition, emotion, will, desire, purpose, intention, or belief—all conventional attributes of the traditional liberal humanist subject." This dismissive attitude toward the "humanist subject" is an expression of the humanities' current self-hatred. Arguably, there are noble intentions behind efforts to decenter the human in favor of the nonhuman (including animals, technologies, and organic and geophysical systems), but, again, the self-decentering is another manifestation of what it is to be human. It is the unique capacity of humans, given their cognitive openness and creativity, to pass beyond their species niche and engage with other forms of being. Insofar as such "transspecies" curiosity is characteristic of humans, it is part of the humanities, along with the "cognition, emotion, will, purpose, [and] intention" of which the "nonhuman turn" is so very suspicious. The project of "nonhumanities" is self-defeating, because promotion of the "nonhuman," as exemplified by this collection, is a step in human self-transcendence and thus in human self-affirmation. The "nonhumanities" are inscribed in the domain of the humanities, just as atheism has no meaning outside of the history of religion. [End Page 550]

Mikhail Epstein

Mikhail Epstein, founding director of the Center for Humanities Innovation at Durham University and professor of Russian literature and cultural theory there, is the author of more than thirty books and seven hundred articles, published in English or Russian and translated into eighteen other languages. He is a recipient of the Liberty Prize for Russian-US Cultural Relations and of the International Essay Prize of Weimar for "Chronocide," which appeared in the spring 2003 issue of Common Knowledge.

...

pdf

Share