Utrecht, Netherlands

The Intersectional Posthumanities

The course will build on the tradition of neo-materialist, critical feminist posthuman theory that Braidotti is internationally known for. It focusses on the methodological implications of posthuman scholarship in the Humanities across a broad inter-disciplinary range. The course offers a selected overview of the key literature in fields that include philosophy, literature, law, media, pedagogy, postcolonial theory and the arts. Mindful of the patterns of exclusion of the sexualised, racialised and naturalised “others” that were not recognised as belonging to humanity, special attention is devoted to perspectives emerging from Black and Indigenous epistemologies. The other focus is on the efforts to think beyond anthropocentrism, by expanding the notion of subjectivity into an embodied, embedded, relational and affective assembly interconnected with human and non-human entities.

The 2022 intensive Summer School course aims to dig deeper into the methodological innovations introduced by posthuman critical theory, defined as the convergence of critiques of Humanism and critiques of Anthropocentrism. This critical approach introduces new themes and objects of enquiries, but what does it do in terms of methods and approaches? What sort of qualitative transformations are entailed by a critical posthuman framework? Thew course will explore approaches such as: transversal methodologies; neo-materialism; the new empiricisms; current textual practices; non-representational theories; inter/trans and post-disciplinarity; methods to exit colonialism; critical feminist theory and art practices as research methods. The participants will be invited to discuss and present work related to their own research topics and experiences.

The course is offered entirely online and is sub-divided in 5 groups of 20 students maximum. Each group is led by a lecturer/tutor and Braidotti visits all of them in turn.

Each day is structured by a mixture of pre-recorded and live lectures by the course director and invited lecturers; live Q&A sessions with follow all the lecturers; tutorial groups, seminar sessions and artists labs are offered daily. Informal meetings will also be encouraged at lunchtime and at leisure.

Course leader

Prof. dr. Rosi Braidotti

Fee info

EUR 1000: The fee for non-students is €1000. Students will receive a partial fee waiver of €250, resulting in a total fee of €750. Students are asked to provide proof of their student status in their application documents. Without this proof, it is not possible to receive the partial fee waiver.
EUR 200: Housing fee (optional)