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Veiled Integration: The Use of Headscarves among a Christian Minority in Sweden

Author(s): Magdalena Nordin,Andreas Westergren / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2023

Keywords: Integration; religion; tradition; veiling; Syriac Orthodox Church; Sweden;

In this article, we trace a specific ‘situated bodily practice’, namely the ‘act of covering’ the head with a scarf during liturgy, in a church that has migrated from the Middle East to Sweden. This ‘veiled tradition’ is interpreted as a ‘ritual of migration’ that can cast light on the complexities of re-producing traditions in a new setting, functioning as a ‘cultural prism’ for the question of integration. The broader aim is to nuance the symbolic value given to the veil in political discourse in the West, as a sign of (non-)integration. The empirical basis for this study has mainly been film analyses of liturgies in Syriac Orthodox congregations in Sweden. Building on an analysis of this material, four different usages of the headscarf could be traced: as ordinary dress, that in theory should cover the hair, but seldom did; as festal dress, resembling an accessory; as liturgical dress, used both as a token of piety and spiritual authority, and not to dress in a headscarf, resisting gender discrimination. These usages are compared to, but not fully explained by the idea of ‘new veiling’ among Muslim women, and therefore broaden the understanding of veiled traditions in a migration context.

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Who is more religious and ethical, Republicans, Democrats or others?

Author(s): Denni Arli,Gunaro Setiawan / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2023

Keywords: Religion; ethics; Republican; Democrat; Independent;

Reports show most religious groups in the United States, especially Christian evangelicals, are showing more affiliation to the Republican political party. Nonetheless, members of the Democratic political party are also weaving faith into their rhetoric. A citizen’s affiliation with a political party can change over time, and political affiliation might influence behavior. This study compares and contrasts individuals affiliated with political parties and those who are not on their: (1) decision-making process purchasing everyday products, (2) relationship with God, (3) and ethical and sustainable behaviors.Using Pew Research data (n=3,278), this study compares and contrasts individuals affiliated with political parties and those who are not on their decision-making process in purchasing everyday products, relationship with God, and ethical and sustainable behaviors. Despite significant differences between political parties, most of them have thanked God for something and almost half of them have asked God for help and guidance. The results show people in the U.S. with various party affiliations are somewhat religious and spiritual. The notion that only Republicans will be guided by religious beliefs is misguided. Almost half of Democrats in this study show strong religious values.The study has several limitations. First, Republican leaners and Republicans or Democrat leaners and Democrats were not separated. People who are leaning toward a political party may have different attitudes toward various issues. Future research may investigate this issue and contrast differences between these groups. Second, the study did not look at differences between religion and denomination.The paper makes several contributions to this area of study. First, similarities and differences between individuals affiliated with political parties are determined. Second, myths about stigma toward a particular political party are debunked, and finally, insights for religious and political leaders on their followers’ behavior are provided.

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Diseases in the Bible and Quran: differences between grace or punishment from the Jerusalem God

Author(s): Fernando Herbella,Ademir Santos Jr,Edgar Gomes / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2023

Keywords: History of religions; Diseases; Bible; Quran;

Health and religion are strongly connected. This study aims primarily to compile the diseases described in the Bible and Quran with a secondary aim to group the diseases in punishment or blessing. Diseases mentioned in the Bible and Quran were compiled by manual review and grouped as punishment if imposed by the deity as penance; blessing if cured by grace or neutral. The results show difference among the books in the distribution of the diseases as associated to punishment (more prevalent in the first testament), blessing (more prevalent in the second testament) or neutral (more prevalent in the Quran).

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Identity, Nostalgia and Religion: Making Sense of Turkey and the Balkan Relations in the Twenty-first Century

Author(s): Ahmet Erdi Öztürk / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2023

Keywords: Turkey; Balkans; Islam; Soft Power; Identity;

This article deals with Turkey’s increasing involvement and activism in the Balkan Peninsula between 2002 and 2022, under the rule of the Justice and Development Party and asks two different questions 1) If the Balkan elites perceive the policies implemented by Turkey differently and relatively pejoratively, what is the reason for this and how can we explain it theoretically? 2) What kind of differences does the current position of Turkey-Balkan relations cause us to observe in classical international relations? To answer these questions, this study seeks to shed much needed light on this aspect of Turkish relations with its Balkan neighbours in the context of the broader shift in Turkish domestic and foreign policy under the AKP from a realist-secular orientation to an ambiguous Sunni Islamic. Therefore, it explains the complex relations between religion, nostalgia and identity, and its reflections on state power.

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The Inexhaustible

Author(s): Rosanne van der Voet / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2023

Keywords: Posthuman subjectivity; Creative writing; Rosi Braidotti;

Adopting a hybrid, creative-critical approach, this article explores how Rosi Braidotti’s notion of posthuman subjectivity based on a negotiation between humans, zoe (nonhumans), geo (earth) and techno (technologies) can be put into practice creatively. Against the background of the low-lying South Holland coast, where sandscapes based on human-nonhuman collaborations prevent coastal erosion, I trace the various voices in the landscape complementing and interrupting each other. Shifting from a human perspective into the perspectives of zoe, geo and techno, the narration of this piece finally coalesces to form a new ‘we’ which represents this posthuman subjectivity. Imagining alternate futures based on this inclusive ‘we,’ this piece explores what a collaboration based on a collective posthuman subjectivity can mean in practice. Moreover, it demonstrates the potential of experiments in form and style to make tangible theoretical insights from posthuman scholarship, introducing an innovative approach that bridges the gap between academic and creative writing.

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Concept-ing with the gift: Walking method/ologies in posthumanist research

Author(s): Carol A. Taylor,Hannah Hogarth,Joy Cranham,Sally Hewlett,Eliane Bastos,Elisabeth Barratt Hacking,Karen E. Barr / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2023

Keywords: Concept-ing; Walking methodology; The gift; Processual methodology; Relational;

This article takes off from a project entitled Get Up and Move! which used walking as a methodology to envisage research in higher education beyond the human and outside individual, instrumental and competitive codings. The Get Up and Move! project activated new research possibilities for walking as an attentive, situated, emplaced and embodied practice of posthuman thinking, doing and becoming; it experimented with walking’s posthuman generativity as a relational and processual methodology; and it aimed to be inventive, experimental, less elitist, and more inclusive. The project’s posthuman orientation was inspired by Donna Haraway’s (2016) concept of sympoiesis as a human-nonhuman doing-making-thinking-creating together, which is outlined in the first two parts of the article. This remainder of the article conceptually entangles this initial framing with/in a further process of concept-ing, which designates a theoretical-creative-speculative doing with the concept to unfold its ongoing potentialities and push its inventive mobilities. The concept we do our concept-ing with is the concept of the gift. Working from Mauss’s theorisation of the gift, we practice concept-ing as a means to trace new movements, possibilities and imaginaries for walking sympoietically. Our concept-ings pursue van der Tuin and Verhoeff’s (2022, 3) suggestion that concepts are “productive and experimental ‘doings,’ enmeshed in practice rather than fixed, retrospective labels for things.”

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Posthumanism for Sustainability: A Scoping Review

Author(s): Çağdaş Dedeoğlu,Nikoleta Zampaki / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2023

Keywords: Sustainability; Posthumanism; Transhumanism; Anthropocentrism; Technology;

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between posthumanism and sustainability and contribute to the interdisciplinary concept of posthuman sustainability. We conducted a scoping review of 45 peer-reviewed journal articles that met our inclusion criteria and employed co-occurrence analysis based on the clustering techniques of the VOSviewer. We identified five themes within the articles: post-humanism, post-anthropocentrism, post-dualism, post-Enlightenment, and post-technologism. Through our analysis, we found that posthumanism can offer insights into ecological issues and help promote alternative sustainable practices. We also identified three immediate concerns for post/humanities scholars: (1) fostering dialogue between critical humanist and posthumanist scholarship based on onto-epistemological plurality, (2) achieving conceptual clarity in the field, and (3) advocating for meaningful engagement with indigenous worldviews in a multidimensional and multitemporal manner. By exploring the relationship between posthumanism and sustainability, we hope to expand our knowledge of the urgent ecological issues we face and contribute to interdisciplinary efforts to address them.

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Documenting data-ghosts: Visualising non-human life and death through what is undocumented in early childhood education

Author(s): Jo Albin-Clark / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2023

Keywords: Ethical response-ability; early childhood education; documentation practices; data-ghosts; posthuman praxis;

What happens with ethical response-abilities that linger in early childhood education documentation practices? Thinking-with research-creation, I problematise the human focus of three and four-year old children caring for eggs in a classroom hatchery. Foregrounding non-human life (and death) brings an ethical disquiet that sticks around. Instead, the past-present-future becomes blurred with ghostly matters. What is particularly haunting is the disposability of non-human life after human educational events are over. Haunting data that is not easy to think with and irritates through time is conceptualised as a data-ghost. Through methodological creative experiments inspired by digital visualisations of non-human data-ghosts, I ponder with the minor of what is unthought, half-said and non-documented when chicks are returned to commercial hatcheries. Posthuman praxis leads me to trouble the human-centric focus of documentation practices and wonder what new questions are generated for multi-species flourishing when the foreground slips and flips to the non-human.

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Fairchild, N., Taylor, C. A., Benozzo, A., Carey, N., Koro, M., & Elmenhorst, C. (2022). Knowledge production in academic spaces. Disturbing conferences and composing events

Author(s): Éva Mikuska / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2023

Keywords: Book Review;

In this unique book the authors debate the many aspects of (post)human / more-than-human / materialist / feminist materialist aspects of the AcademicConferenceMachine. In their ‘co-argument’ the authors address how the traditional can be resisted. The specificities of conference performances introduced in this book illuminates new, creative forms of knowledge production and its presentation. The events in the book provide provocations of what audiences are not normally accustomed to be engaged with, to hear or to see in conference panels.

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Baelo-Allué, S. and Calvo-Pascual, M. (Eds.) (2021). Transhumanism and Posthumanism in Twenty-First Century Narrative

Author(s): Ilaria Biano / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2023

Keywords: Book Review;

The basic tenet through which Sonia Baelo-Allué and Mónica Calvo-Pascual frame their edited collection is the conviction that the world emerged from four consecutive and relatively quick industrial revolutions have been profoundly shaped by the technological development, and exponential growth determined by that processes. And the way that shaping has acted on culture, society, and people can be – and has been – understood both “as marks of progress or as processes of dehumanization” depending on how we conceive “progress and being human” (p. 1). The perspective we adopt to read the world and its processes determines the valuation of those processes. As basic and obvious as this consideration may seem, it actually has a lot of value when touching the subjects this edited collection aims at analyzing through contemporary fiction.

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Introduction: Metahuman Futures Forum and Ontological Therapies

Author(s): Jaime Del Val,Çağdaş Dedeoğlu / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2023

Keywords: Metahumanism; posthumanism; transhumanism; planetary holocaust; ontological therapy;

This special issue is dedicated to the 1st Metahuman Futures Forum held in Lesvos on 1-2 October 2022, as part of the Bodynet-Khorós project co-funded by the European Union[1] and contains part of the theoretical research of the project. The issue comprises a collection of seven papers, a book review, and the Metahuman Futures Manifesto, all of which contribute to the understanding of metahumanism and its relationship with posthumanism and transhumanism in the age of planetary holocaust.

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Metahuman Studies, Choral Ontopolitics and Earth Liberation

Author(s): Jaime Del Val / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2023

Keywords: Metahumanism; Movement philosophy; Trash-human; Human Supremacism; Chorus;

Metahumanism is presented as an evolution from critical posthumanism both in terms of an intensified critique of the Planetary Holocaust and of a radical pragmatics of becoming based on a movement philosophy which has diverse precursors back to the pre-Socratics and beyond. Metahuman studies and its critical counterpart in Trash-human studies is the corresponding studies field promoted by the Metahuman Futures Forum, an alternative whose urgency is justified due to the prevailing human supremacism in other existing intellectual and activist milieus, and which culminates in the performative proposal for a ‘Trial against Humanity’. A choral politics of moving bodies is introduced through the Vision Statement of the Bodynet-Khorós EU project, aiming at a liberation of al life forms from human dominion and its extinction loop, for a metahuman r/evolution.

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Metahuman Futures Manifesto

Author(s): Lesvos Assembly-Chorus MFF 2022 / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2023

Keywords: Metahuman; metahumanism; manifesto; metahumanfuturesforum;

The Metahuman Futures Manifesto has been revised and approved by the Lesvos Metahuman Futures Assembly-Chorus, following the first draft discussed at 1st Metahuman Futures Forum in Lesvos in 2022.

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Misunderstandings around Posthumanism. Lost in Translation? Metahumanism and Jaime del Val’s Metahuman Futures Manifesto

Author(s): Evi D. Sampanikou / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2023

Keywords: Critical Posthumanism; Metahumanism; Manifesto;

Posthumanism is still a largely debated new field of contemporary philosophy that mainly aims at broadening the Humanist perspective. Academics, researchers, scientists, and artists are constantly transforming and evolving theories and arguments, around the existing streams of Posthumanist thought, Critical Posthumanism, Transhumanism, and Metahumanism, discussing whether they can finally integrate or follow completely different paths towards completely new directions. This paper, written for the 1stMetahuman Futures Forum (Lesvos 2022) will focus on Metahumanism and Jaime del Val’s “Metahuman Futures Manifesto” (2022) mainly as an open dialogue with Critical Posthumanism.

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Beyond Anti-natalism and Hannah Arendt’s Metaphysics of Natality: Towards a Metahuman vita contemplativa

Author(s): Philipp Wolf / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2023

Keywords: Antinatalism; Natality; Metahumanism; Vita contemplativa;

Anti-natalism has drawn the attention of Meta- and Posthumanism. Given the latter’s non-anthropocentric approach and the devastating human impact on the world’s ecosystem, the cessation of the human species seems to be a plausible option. I will therefore outline some ecological, utilitarian, and existentialist arguments, which are indicative of the assumption that humans present a misrouted development of evolution. To account, however, for the ongoing attraction of having children, I will turn to a representant of natality, Hannah Arendt, whose approach is far from ideological or reactionary. Yet, from a metahumanist viewpoint, I have objections against either attitude. Anti-natalism would mean a theoretical surrender, which could forego many of the premises posthumanism/metahumanism is founded on, namely human plasticity, the wisdom of the body (Nietzsche), and other-relationality, the idea of becoming and a fruitful coexistence with the other. Arendt’s humanist combination of natality and a vita activa comes down not only to a metaphysical idealization of birth but also to a furthering of liberal-capitalist growth. Alternatively, I will offer an aesthetic ethics of (active) inactivity and resonant relationality, which may well be compatible with metahumanism.

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Animals: Who Gave You the Right to Experiment with My Body?

Author(s): Ioanna – Maria Stamati / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2023

Keywords: Animals; Chimera; Posthuman; Organ Farming Phenomenon; Life;

The Science Fiction genre has been a means for humans to comprehend reality. A major part of the fantasies in the genre is cross-species beings of human and animal DNA. Recent studies show that in some countries the legislative framework accepts research and experimentation with guinea pigs to create cross-species beings with transhumanistic purposes. According to Bokota the umbrella term to refer to the results of the above phenomenon is Chimeras. The results of this technological process are unquestionably impressive but, who has gotten permission from these animals to use their bodies and take their genetic material for the possibility of humans to survive a bit longer than expected? This study focuses on the definition of the human, the monster, and their bodies, on bio-ethical issues that highlight the fragile equality of beings and answers to the question of whether Chimeras can be an alternative term to refer to Posthumans.

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Mutation in Human Nature. The Doll as a Posthuman Being and the Formless Metahuman as ‘Other’

Author(s): Nikolitsa Gourgouli / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2023

Keywords: Doll; Figure; Human; Posthuman; Metahuman;

Humans live and survive in an environment, that they constantly destroy. The human being incapable of seeing beyond its own limits, while the obsession with beauty standards and ideals, the aesthetics of the masses, and immortality, deluges its everyday life, and defines the inside and outside appearance. The human changes its nature while intervening in others' nature, ignoring the consequences upon its body, and creating a new being (or several), a new formula/model, which is increasingly alienated from the human and the human genome. The concept of the doll which I introduce in the article, aims to discuss the challenges between the human figure and the “other”—which has many different interpretations- while using a term with historical and artistic value (the doll) that bridges the gaps between species, entities, humans, and animals etc. and leads the way to a new form of entity, infused with life and technology.

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Metabody in Posthuman Architecture: Virtualizing Spatial Dynamics for Transformative Spaces

Author(s): İpek Kuran / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2023

Keywords: Virtualization; Posthumanism; Architecture; Body;

This research examines the concepts of metahumanism and metabody to explore the production of posthuman space. It examines the dynamic nature of posthuman space, which is characterized by fluidity, lack of form, and the interplay of relationships and interactions. Using Deleuze's distinction between the virtual and the actual, this study examines how posthuman space emerges as a convergence of these concepts, continuously shifting between fluid and solid states to accommodate the diverse posthuman experience. Virtualization is a crucial instrument for investigating posthuman architecture, especially within digital environments that foster creative expression and experimentation. Through a case study, this research examines the role of virtualization in forming a posthuman architectural landscape, demonstrating how digital domains offer unique opportunities for innovative space production and exploration. By highlighting the novel spaces that can be realized through virtualization, the study demonstrates the ability of posthuman architecture to cultivate new modes of interaction and engagement, thereby fundamentally altering our relationship with and perception of the built environment. This research contributes to the comprehension of the influence of virtualization on the formation of a posthuman architectural landscape by shedding light on its transformative capacities and implications.

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Reflections on Trash-humanism as Performed by Jaime del Val

Author(s): Yunus Tuncel / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2023

Keywords: Metahuman; Trash-humanism; embodiment; relational ethics; Dionysian;

In the online event, Metahuman Futures Forum, which took place in August 2022 and was co-organized by Reverso/Metabody and the Posthuman Lab, I had reflected on Jaime del Val’s ‘Trash-human Enhancement and Planetary Health’ and made the following observations, which can be grouped in five parts: a) the place of the body and embodiment; b) relational ethics; c) alternatives and the healing process; d) transvaluation and what the future holds for humanity; e) protestation, resistance and cultural transformation without utopianism.

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Alonso, A., & Arzoz, I. (2021). El desencanto del Progreso. Para una crítica luddita de la tecnología

Author(s): Victoria Mateos de Manuel / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2023

Keywords: Esquirol; Arzoz; Alonso; filosofía de la cibertecnología

‘The Disenchantment of Progress. Towards a Luddite Critic of Technology’ is a book by Andoni Alonso and Iñaki Arzoz, which was ready for publication in 2019, although it appeared two years later, in 2021. This review focuses on the theoretical changes from the authors’ perspective on technology by taking into account the time lapse of almost twenty years between two common publications: Cybergolem. The Fifth Digital Column: Communal Anti-treatise of Hyper-politics, which they published in 2005, and The Disenchantment of Progress, published in 2021. Following the theses argued in this second book, the initial hopes on internet, a cyberspace that tried to share open access to information and increase the democratic grade of society at an international level, have failed. Being capable of developing self-criticism and exercising intellectual honesty, the authors propose to develop what they have called reflexive Luddism, a term explained along the review.

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