Lecture 4: Figures of Post-Humanity
We will tackle straight on the old metaphysical topic: is it possible for us, finite and
mortal humans, to achieve some kind of contact with the Absolute? After a brief
overview of the traditional and modern answers (ecstatic religious union with the
Absolute, immersion into the primordial Void, identification with the
destructiveness of nature, intellectual intuition, transcendental-historical reflection,
etc.), we will propose the Lacanian answer: sexuality is our primordial brush with
the Absolute – sexuality as our basic experience of failure, of impossibility. This
becomes palpably clear in our historical moment when this status of sexuality is
under threat. In deploying this thesis, we will pass through many particular topic:
Beckett’s art of abstraction; neurotheology; sexbots; fake news; quantum physics;
posthumanity.
Literature:
- Slavoj Žižek, Incontinence of the Void, Cambridge: MIT Press 2017, chapters 1, 2, 4.
- Samuel Beckett, Catastrophe (available online)
Auditors are welcome for these 4 sessions. Please send an email to german.dept@nyu.edu for access to the graduate lectures presented by Slavoj Žižek.
*Organized by the Dept of German