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Lessons in Relatability
Posthumanism and Literacy Learning
Roman Bartosch
This chapter critically assesses the potential of posthumanism for educational discussions of literary learning, especially in the context of digitization and literature and media pedagogy. It revisits the notion that posthumanism helps us rethink the porous boundaries between humans, animals and machines, and argues that the current digital transformation of education, by contrast, focused on what critics have described as transhumanisation. It therefore suggests a productive dialogue between both perspectives and argues for the centrality of literary and cultural learning in this regard. Focusing on the pedagogic potentials of novels and internet memes alike, it argues that these media underline the importance of empathetic perspective-taking, reconceptualized as relatability in the English classroom as well as the virtual world of the web.
1. Introduction
In a 2017 paper on teaching climate change, ecocritic Greg Garrard remarked that with regard to students today, “relatable” might be “the top candidate for the neologism most hated by English profs” (Garrard 2017: 123). He was referring to the tendency in more or less inexperienced readers to read a literary text on an affective level and on an affective level only, without critical or historical distance, and solely interested in whether a character was likeable or not. For the purpose of this chapter, this anecdotal remark will help us reflect on the value of relatability, especially in literature and culture pedagogy and the teaching of English. For this, it is important to recall that already in 1977, the theorist of literary education, Jürgen Kreft, has described this tendency of egocentric and uncritical reading in learners as “stubborn subjectivity” (1977: 379). His model of reading competence suggests that learners have to overcome stubborn subjectivity in reading for the sake of a more diligent way of analytical understanding and the eventual application in formal educational contexts. I want to take these two observations and revisit their educational valence in the context of this volume’s concerns about Teaching Transhumanism.
This chapter will proceed as follows: after a brief survey of the conceptual history of post- and transhumanism, it discusses the notion of literary learning, especially in its allegedly humanist appearance as a form of empowerment for critical thought and reflection and in light of current – maybe transhumanist? – forms of the digital. In particular, I will discuss the role of literary learning for media competence – I call that “media competence without new media” – and for aesthetic learning beyond the confines of traditional forms of, say, great books. The latter concern informs the section on “literary learning without literature”. The idea of relatability will be discussed as a potentially pivotal element of readerly reception and affective response as well as a teaching objective in need of further conceptual and analytical examination. Select, tentative suggestions for the practice of teaching are meant to point to the relevance and feasibility of these ideas for pedagogic interventions. Unsurprisingly, and because both critical reflections on the human condition and the practice of remote instruction via digital formats have become everyday concerns for educators lately, I will conclude this chapter with a few remarks on “posthumanism, post-Covid 19”.
2. Post-, or Trans-, or What?
Gauging the merit of posthumanism for education and distinguishing it from what critics have called transhumanism is anything but easy. This is because, as Siân Bayne remarks, the terminology in post- and transhumanist theory
can present a difficult terrain for scholars new to this area of thought – its literatures are wide, cross-disciplinary, complex and in some instances (the relationship between posthumanism and transhumanism being one example) contradictory with itself. This can make it problematic for scholars and practitioners, in education and other areas, who are trying to unpick its implications for applied fields (2018).
The education theorist, John Weaver, even concludes that there are “almost as many ideas and definitions of the posthuman as there are people writing about the subject” (Weaver 2010: 10). What, then, do we need for a productive engagement with posthumanism in literary learning contexts?
Ihab Hassan’s 1977 essay Prometheus as Performer: Towards a Posthumanist Culture? counts as one of the first analytical sources to engage with the fact that “human form […] may be changing radically, and thus must be re-envisioned” (843, emphasis added). I am citing it here and stressing the notion of ‘form’ because the idea that humans can change has never been out of the question, at least not since modernity and, most importantly, the enlightenment. It is, in fact, a staple of humanist thought, not least in education, where we expect, or in fact build a career on the idea that humans are educable. The notion of Bildung most pointedly stands for this conviction, but contemporary discussions of competence acquisition and the teacher’s role in supporting it also belong here. A posthumanist educational concern must therefore be with the question of what happens if, as Hassan put it, the human form changes. This includes the role and status of the human vis-à-vis large-scale ecological crises that force us to rethink long-honed practices of human exceptionalism over and against an allegedly inanimate, non-valuable nature. And it concerns the human as an image of separation from this “external” world, challenged as it is now by technology (cyborgisation by implants and the increasing use of technology) and growing ecological vulnerabilities (of which Covid-19 is just the currently most visible example).
