This book employs perspectives from continental philosophy, intellectual history, and literary and cultural studies to breach the divide between early modernist and modernist thinkers. It turns to early modern humanism in order to challenge late 20th-century thought and present-day posthumanism. This book addresses contemporary concerns such as the moral responsibility of the artist, the place of religious beliefs in our secular societies, legal rights extended to nonhuman species, the sense of normality applied to the human body, the politics of migration, individual political freedom and international terrorism. It demonstrates how early modern humanism can bring new perspectives to postmodern antihumanism and even invite us to envision a humanism of the future.
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1. Is the Author Responsible? : James Helgeson.
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2. The Ethics for Antihumanism : George Hoffmann.
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3. Should We Practice Justice toward Non-Human Animals? Radical Animal Interests, Humanism and Classical Justice : Ullrich Langer.
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4. What Came before, What Comes after Normal? Some Humanist and Post-Humanist Thoughts on the Concept of Normalcy: Kathleen Long.
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5. What is a Colony before Colonialism? Humanist and Antihumanist Concepts of Governmentality from Foucault to Montaigne : Tim Hampton.
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6. Humanists, Antihumanists, and Nouveaux Philosophes on What Makes us Free: Michael Randall.
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7. Can a Bomb Be Human? : Jan Miernowski.- Afterword : Jan Miernowski.
Jan Miernowski is Professor of French at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, and Visiting Professor at the University of Warsaw, Poland. His latest books include La Beauté de la haine (Droz, 2014) and an edited volume on the intersection between the grotesque and the sublime.
