The Non-Human as Such

On Men, Animals, and Barbers

What, if anything, is a non-human? A superficial reply seems to be on the surface: a non-human is anything other than human. It can be an elephant, a diamond, a wasp, a robot, a flower, a cloud, a cyborg, a stone, a computer program, a star, a work of art, a zombie — there is an endless list of worldly things that are different from the human being. They return from a long exile of ontological and epistemological subordination to the human, who, by historically expanding his habitat, appointed himself the hub of the universe. […]

Affective Bodies

Nonhuman and Human Agencies in Djuna Barnes's Fiction

Reading fiction makes us face all kinds of situations, characters and phenomena that we might consider strange and uncanny, yet enchanting and immersive. This way, it also puts us face to face with the nonhuman in its various forms. Some fictional encounters with the nonhuman may become accentuated and even disturbing, especially ones in which the nonhuman presents itself as profoundly entangled with what we consider as human, which entails elements such as agency based on individual subjectivity, psychologically motivated actions, […]

Scenes of Trash

Aesthetic Order and Political Effects of Garbage in the Home

Non-human artifacts and simple everyday objects are deeply involved in the way we think about political questions. The things that become politically relevant can be as grave and hazardous as nuclear waste or polluted water, or as ordinary and uneventful as a free plastic bag in the supermarket. Objects present themselves as political beings when they make a difference: a difference with respect to issues of equality, with regard to forms of exclusion, or in relation to revolt and dissent — when they become “matter [that] comes […]

Editorial

The Editorial Board in collaboration with Beatrice Michaelis and Martin Zierold

The conceptual footing of On_Culture, reflected in the pilot issue on “Emergence/Emergency,” is kept up in the second issue with its focus on “The Nonhuman.” There could not have been a better turnout for this issue, and the Editorial Board is particularly proud to present a collection of eight double-blind peer reviewed academic _Articles and two _Perspectives, all of which investigate, problematize, and develop key concepts and methods in the field.