ABSTRACT
Cyborgs, robots, mutants, and other monstrous others constitute an elemental part of the posthumanities in both critical and popular spheres. Since these nonhuman characters allow deconstructing the ambiguous boundaries and differences between human, nonhuman, and inhuman in the reading process, they offer the posthumanist literary critic valuable opportunities for “witnessing ghosts”. Karoliina Lummaa’s chapter on “Posthumanist Reading” begins with a review of such deconstructive readings, as performed by Stefan Herbrechter, Ivan Callus, Neil Badmington, and Tom Cohen. These previous analyses are then amended with an additional, affirmative approach to posthumanist reading, an approach that focuses on nonhuman influence and poetic agencies. Drawing on the works of N. Katherine Hayles, Aaron M. Moe, Lambros Malafouris, and others, Lummaa suggests, in other words, that various material things like linguistic signs, animals, electricity, and computer software can be used to summon forth nonhuman powers. For the purposes of demonstration, the chapter goes on to apply this new posthumanist way of reading to contemporary Finnish digital, visual, and sound poetry, including the works of Dan Waber and Marko Niemi (2008), Jouni Tossavainen (2007), and Jukka-Pekka Kervinen (2008).
