Human No More
Digital Subjectivities, Unhuman Subjects, and the End of Anthropology
Edited by Neil L. Whitehead and Michael Wesch
University Press of Colorado
Turning an anthropological eye toward cyberspace, Human No More explores how conditions of the online world shape identity, place, culture, and death within virtual communities.
Online worlds have recently thrown into question the traditional anthropological conception of place-based ethnography. They break definitions, blur distinctions, and force us to rethink the notion of the "subject." Human No More asks how digital cultures can be integrated and how the ethnography of both the "unhuman" and the "digital" could lead to possible reconfiguring the notion of the "human."
This provocative and groundbreaking work challenges fundamental assumptions about the entire field of anthropology. Cross-disciplinary research from well-respected contributors makes this volume vital to the understanding of contemporary human interaction. It will be of interest not only to anthropologists but also to students and scholars of media, communication, popular culture, identity, and technology.
Online worlds have recently thrown into question the traditional anthropological conception of place-based ethnography. They break definitions, blur distinctions, and force us to rethink the notion of the "subject." Human No More asks how digital cultures can be integrated and how the ethnography of both the "unhuman" and the "digital" could lead to possible reconfiguring the notion of the "human."
This provocative and groundbreaking work challenges fundamental assumptions about the entire field of anthropology. Cross-disciplinary research from well-respected contributors makes this volume vital to the understanding of contemporary human interaction. It will be of interest not only to anthropologists but also to students and scholars of media, communication, popular culture, identity, and technology.
Human No More raises issues vital to the study of online worlds and an emerging social order that sees so much of our time spent with our bodies in one world but our minds deeply planted in the dark soil of cyberspace. This is an essential text for anthropologists seeking new communities to explore and yearning for a renewed validation of their field.'
—Dr. Michael Strangelove, University of Ottawa
Neil L. Whitehead is a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Michael Wesch is an associate professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University.