Together and Apart: A Queer Posthuman Theological Anthropology

Abstract

The early 21st century has unfolded as a series of repeated crises and these crises pile on top of one another to form an interlocking web of “polycrisis”. Polycrisis describes the irreducible interrelation of different crises that face inhabitants of the 21st century. Threaded throughout polycrisis is the reconfiguration of concepts that might once have operated as sites of shared meaning into sites of ethico-political contestation. Two of these sites of ethico-political contestation are particularly generative for Christian theology – contestation over what it means to be human, and contestation over the meaning(s) of gender/sexuality. The former points towards interdisciplinary engagement with posthuman theory, the latter with queer perspectives.

If polycrisis is the defining feature of the early 21st century, then Christian theology would greatly benefit from engaging with the concept if it wishes to continue to make itself relevant to the contemporary world. As such, the central question that this thesis addresses is: “How can Christian theology best respond to a world marked by polycrisis by drawing on both queer theology and posthuman theory?”

To answer this question, this thesis constructs a queer posthuman theological anthropology that is structured around four of the most productive directions of posthuman theory: holobiont, cyborg, posthuman composition, dis/entanglement. Each of these presents a distinctive critique of the conceptual framework of the human and each connects to different modalities of queerness. Moreover each direction of a queer posthuman theological anthropology that is centred on these different articulations of posthumanity advances a different theological response to polycrisis.

Combining these different responses to polycrisis, I argue that Christian theology can best respond to polycrisis by drawing on queer perspectives to advance an account of a posthumanity that is defined by both mutability and connection to others. This figuration of the posthuman is the foundation from which a world beyond the constraints of polycrisis can be built through the creative recombination of existing theological and theoretical material.