John Cabot University is proud to announce its new role as an academic partner of the Journal of Posthuman Studies, coinciding with the publication of Volume 9, Issue 1, 2025. This marks an important step in JCU’s expanding commitment to innovative, interdisciplinary scholarship that deals with the rapidly shifting boundaries between humanity, technology, and the world.
Published by Penn State University Press, the Journal of Posthuman Studies stands at the forefront of global academic discourse on transhumanism and critical posthumanism, serving as a platform for rethinking what it means to be human in an age of accelerating technological change. The Editor-in-Chief of this latest issue is JCU philosophy professor Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, an internationally recognized pioneer in posthuman thought.
A Look Inside the Volume
The volume offers a stimulating collection of articles that confront some urgent questions of our time. The issue opens with Sorgner’s editorial, setting the tone for a series of contributions that explore how emerging technologies, evolving cultural narratives, and alternative forms of life are reshaping our collective future.
In the article “The Future’s Neanderthals,” Kathleen Bryson (University of Oxford) examines how the absence of transitional hominins in the UK school curriculum affects public understandings of human evolution. Aura Elena Schussler’s (Babeș-Bolyai University) “Posthuman Care and Intimacy in Patricia Piccinini’s Posthuman Artworks” investigates how contemporary art imagines new forms of connection between human and more-than-human beings.
Technological innovation receives sustained attention throughout the volume. Matteo Pietropaoli’s (Sapienza University of Rome) “Cyberculture and Metaverse” traces the development of digital worlds from early cyberculture to emerging metaverse spaces, while Alexei Anisin’s (Anglo-American University in Prague) “Theorizing the Impact of Generative Artificial Intelligence on Social Causation” offers timely analysis of AI’s growing influence on social systems. Ethical and political concerns related to neuroscience and enhancement technologies are addressed by Matthew Gildersleeve and Andrew Crowden (University of Queensland), and Luca Valera (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore), in “Neurotechnology Hype, Biopolitics, and a Critique of the Injunction to Enjoy!”
The issue also engages with pressing pedagogical and ecological questions. Gregory Burgin’s (Arizona State University) “The Convergence-Centered Classroom” proposes new models of teaching suited to posthuman realities, while Anton Vandevoorde’s (Ghent University) “The Octopus and Posthumanism” provides a provocative reconsideration of a widely adopted posthuman symbol.
By joining the Journal of Posthuman Studies as an academic partner, John Cabot University strengthens its role as a hub for forward-looking research and dialogue. As explorations of posthuman futures continue to grow in importance, JCU is excited to contribute to and help shape this dynamic and rapidly evolving field.
