Humanism: The Second Annual Debate of Anthropological Keywords

Anthropology has long centered on the human, taking human life as a main focus and exploring multiple ways to be human. In recent years, however, we have also seen the rise of the idea of the Anthropocene and emerging debates on the place of the “post-human.” Can and should the human still occupy a privileged position in a universe composed of the nonhuman, the other-than-human, the inhuman, and the trans-human? Reckoning with concepts, practices, and relations across these categories requires that we move beyond classical understandings of humanism, to replace them with a contemporary reworking of the possibilities and limits of anthropological humanism. This timely book is the product of the second Annual Debate of Anthropological Keywords, a collaborative project between HAU, the American Ethnological Society, and L’Homme. The aim of the debate is to reflect critically on keywords and terms that play a pivotal and timely role in discussions of different cultures and societies. This volume brings together leading thinkers to reflect anew on humanism and the anthropological project, with insightful contributions from Cléo Carastro, Didier Fassin, Hugh Gusterson, Saba Mahmood, Carole McGranahan, Joel Robbins, Danilyn Rutherford, and Lucy Suchman.