Recalibrating the 'human'

As technology continues to progress beyond the limits of what was once thought impossible, questions concerning the state of the human dominate Western thought. However, while the lines between 'human' and 'nonhuman' are perpetually disintegrating, the human seems reluctant to move beyond humanist paradigms that deploy notions of ‘essence’ as both a unique human quality, and the justification of immobilising the value of nonhuman species in a dichotomous hierarchical structure. How can the human reconcile their position at the top of any hierarchy when the species-boundaries are blurred in the wake of posthuman technologies that seek to enhance and alter the mythos of the pure human form? This article argues that a recalibration of contemporary conceptions of the human is required in order to account for posthuman technologies. Deploying the notion of the contemporary human as cyborgic in nature, this article examines the role played by technologies of body modification in the disruption to hegemonic narratives of the human, specifically regarding disability, gender, sexuality and subjectivity.