ABSTRACT
The chapter seeks to shed light on expressions that are sometimes used in overlapping ways: post-human, transhuman, posthuman (and posthumanism). The expression post-human, with the hyphen, can be used to define something that comes after the human, in relation to the possible future evolution of the human being. The term “posthuman,” not hyphenated, indicates the desire (or need) to overcome the binary distinction between the human and the “other,” whatever the other is. Transhuman is related to a technologically enhanced human being. Posthumanism considers the posthuman product of transhumanism (the cyborg) as a metaphor, in order to break three dichotomies — between human and animal, between organism and machine, and between physical and nonphysical. Having set this theoretical framework, the chapter moves on by first analyzing post-human scenarios, like those proposed in the novel The Time Machine (1895, H.G. Wells), then the loss of humanity, or most of the salient features of humanity, in different texts presenting a variation of zombie apocalypse, or control over fertility and genetic manipulation, with the goal of improving the human species. The review concludes with transhuman creations, in the form of androids and cyborgs.
