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How Not to Be Human

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This book presents an analysis of the poet Robinson Jeffers in view of his contributions to recent debates about the status of “the human” and the development of an inhumanist philosophy.
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  • 09 July 2024
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Current debates in the environmental humanities, animal studies, and related fields increasingly revolve around this question: What to do with “the human”? Is the human a category worth preserving? Should it be replaced with the post-human? Should marginalized and minoritarian groups advocate for a universal humanism? What is the relationship between humanism and anthropocentrism? Is a genuinely non-anthropocentric mode of thinking and living possible for human beings? This book argues that the writings of twentieth-century poet Robinson Jeffers offer twenty-first-century readers a number of crucial insights concerning such questions and timely advice about how not to be human. For Jeffers, our tendency to turn inward on ourselves and to indulge in human narcissism is at the heart of the social, economic, and existential ills that plague modern societies. As a remedy, Jeffers recommends turning ourselves outward—beyond the self and beyond the human—and learning to affirm and even love the inhuman cosmos in all of its terrible beauty. In the process, Jeffers helps us find our way back to ourselves, but this time no longer as “human” in the traditional sense but as plain members of the inhuman world.

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Price: £25.00
Publisher: Anthem Press
Imprint: Anthem Press
Publication Date: 09 July 2024
ISBN: 9781839990403
Format: eBook
BISACs:

PHILOSOPHY / Aesthetics, Philosophy: aesthetics, POETRY / Subjects & Themes / Animals & Nature, PHILOSOPHY / Ethics & Moral Philosophy, Ethics and moral philosophy, Poetry / poems by individual poets

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The book is appropriately cautious in pointing out ambiguities and potential dangers, and it also offers the reader a good sample of Jeffer's poetry. Jeffers's rewriting of Greek tragedies may be of special interest here. —CHOICE

Preface; Abbreviations of Works by Robinson Jeffers; Introduction: Between Poetry and Philosophy; 1. Evil; 2. Saviors; 3. Cosmos; 4. Human; 5. Value; Conclusion: Inhumanism; Suggestions for Further Reading; Index