ABSTRACT
An important emergent concern in contemporary cultural theory centres on how developments in the fields of information technology, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, bioinformatics and biotechnology are giving rise to a new ‘posthuman’ sensibility. Through unmasking the category of ‘the human’ in mainstream social science as one always linked to power and privilege, posthumanist social and cultural theorists have sought to develop alternative forms of knowledge pertaining to human subjectivity, subjecthood and identity as well as innovative forms of social critique that reject classical distinctions of self and other, mind and body, society and nature, human and animal, as well as the organic and the technological. Engaging the influential accounts by Rose and Braidotti, this chapter critically examines the notion of posthuman identities and their personal, social, cultural and political consequences. While the posthuman turn has rightly had a significant impact on cultural theory, this warranting serious attention from the social sciences, crucial questions remain with regard to self-experience, subjectivity, creativity and identity in the light of the transformations entailed. The psychoanalytically informed accounts of Bion and Bollas provide important resources for redressing these limitations.
