Loren, ScottScottLorenStraub, Julia2023-04-132023-04-132012https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/92689What is posthumanist panic cinema? The term should indicate both cinema that depicts representations of the posthuman and threat to humanist philosophies and ideologies. Though the terms posthuman and posthumanism are rather close and have at times been conflated by some theorists, one would be hard pressed to legitimate the claim that posthuman cinema is more representative of posthumanist philosophies than it is of humanist ones, wherein lies the point: posthuman cinema generally depicts various forms of panic expressive of anxiety regarding the status of the LHS. Posthuman cinema has often taken a reactionary stance in opposition to philosophies of posthumanism. If, following popular usage, posthuman cinema consists primarily in stories of artificial intelligence, virtual realities, alien abduction or visitation, and cyborgian science fiction, then the filmic narratives of posthuman cinema tend to position themselves anxiously in relation to logics of posthumanism and nostalgically, even desperately, in relation to tenets of humanism. Posthuman popular cinema, one might say, is in a state of crisis. That is not to say it is in immediate danger of becoming financially unviable. To the contrary: though its concerns might be shifting, posthuman cinema continues to reverberate through multiplexes, across the screens of portable devices and along the corridors of collective imaginaries. With its capacity for metamorphosis and for mirroring desire and anxiety on the border between the known and the yet-to-be known, posthuman cinema is alive, but not well - at least not from a posthumanist perspective. If posthumanist theory attempts to map the philosophical territory that succeeds humanist thought, posthuman cinema has been astute to the turbulence accompanying such a shift.enposthumanposthumanismcinemaessentialismscience fictionconspiracyauthenticitybook section