When the International Conference on Beyond the human at Jawaharlal Nehru University JNU was conducted?

The International Conference on “Beyond Man: Monsters, Mutants and Lonely Machines” was a three-day International Conference held from 21-22 February 2014 at Jawaharlal Nehru University JNU to address, critique and further these trajectories and aspects of the border-crossing between the humans and their alter-entities.

The first of its kind in India, it seek to explore the various dimensions of this question and their representations; but also bring an important postcolonial perspective to bear on it.

Dates - 20-22 February 2014

Conference Venue: Jawaharlal Nehru University Convention Centre

The conference is organized by

Makarand Paranjape, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Debashish Banerji, University of Philosophical Research, Los Angeles

Richard Carlson, Non-Linear Systems, Port Angeles Wa.


Conference Schedule-

Day One (Thursday, 20 February)

9:30–10:45: Inaugural Session:

Chair: Professor Sudha Pai, Rector JNU

Welcome and Introduction to the conference: Makarand R. Paranjape
Inaugural address: Karan Singh
Rector’s Address: Sudha Pai
Introductory Remarks: Debashish Banerji
Concluding remarks from the chair and vote of thanks

10:45: Tea Break

11:00–12:00: Keynote Address I

Chair: Allan Leslie Combs
Speaker: Pal Ahluwalia
12:00–1:00: Session 1.1: Post-human Contexts: Back to the Future

Chair: Saitya Brata Das

Michel Lantelme: “Human, Nothing but Human: From Neanderthal to Clones”
John Tangney: “Platonism, Epicureanism and Transhumanism”

1:00–2:00: Lunch

2:00–3:30: Session 1.2: Machines, Utopias, Cosmism: Probing New Frontiers of Consciousness

Chair: Debashish Banerji

Allan Combs: “Such Stuff as Dreams are Made On: Machines, Consciousness, and the Future”
Peter Heehs: “Utopia, Dystopia, and Attainable Futures”
Andrei Zavaliy: “The Quest for a Post-human Era in the Tradition of Russian Cosmism”

3:30–3:45: Tea Break

3:45–5:15: Session 1.3: Science Fiction: Literature and Cinema

Chair: Makarand R. Paranjape

M K Raghavendra: “Glitches in Mankind’s Imagined Future: The Russian SF Film and its Significance”
Aruna Bhat: “Beyond Bionic Beings: Cybernetics as an Extension of the Human – A Study of William Gibson’s Novel Neuromancer”
Geetha Bakilapadavu: “What is Beyond Human? Science-fictional Perspectives of Arthur C. Clarke”

5:15 onwards: Science fiction film screening

Day Two (Friday, 21 February)

9:45–10:45: Session 2.1: Biopolitics, Psychopower

Chair: Dhananjay Singh

Federico Luisetti: “Technological Vitalism: Rethinking the State of Nature”
Samrat Sengupta: “Autoimmunity, Animality and the Irony of Self-Definition”

10:45–11:00: Tea Break

11:00–12:15: Keynote Address II

[Video] Speaker: Rosi Braidotti: Critical Post-humanism

Discussion
12:15–1:15: Session 2.2: Shaping Future Subjects: Media Effects, Digital Humanities

Chair: Saugata Bhaduri

Niyathi R. Krishna and Sangeeth S. Pillai: “Internalizing Superhuman and Becoming Subhuman—Where Lies the Human?”
Anirudh Sridhar: “Digital Humanities and the University: The Conflict of Koenigsberg”

1:15–2:15: Lunch

2:15–3:45: Session 2.3: Ethics of the Post-human

Chair: Franson Manjali

Anirban Das: “The Many Ways of Thinking the ‘Non-Human’”
Ritu Sen Chaudhuri: “Reading Ajantrik: Talking Technicity”
Ananta Kumar Giri: “Spiritual Pragmatics: New Pathways of Transformation for the Posthuman”

3:45–4:00: Tea Break

4:00–5:30: Session 2.4: Virtual Capital and Digital Fetishism

Chair: John Tangney

Mun-Cho Kim, Nam-Og Kim, Andrew Kim: “Changing Conception of Body in a High-Tech Society”
Prayag Ray: “‘Synthetik Love Lasts Forever’: Sex Dolls and the (Post?)Human Condition”
[Video] Michel Bauwens: “Digital Economies and Networks of Cooperation”

Day Three (Saturday, 22 February)

9:45–10:45: Keynote Address III

Chair: Richard Carlson

Speaker: Amrita Pande: “Beyond the Mother-machine: Surrogacy and Neo-eugenics in India”
10:45–11:00: Tea Break
11:00–12:00: Session 3.1: Technological Progress and the Subaltern

Chair: Amrita Pande

Monirul Islam: “Posthumanism: Through the Postcolonial Lens”
Sucharita Sarkar: “Durga, Supermom and the Posthuman Mother India”

12:00–1:30: Session 3.2: Virtual Violence/Precarious Bodies

Chair: Ritu Sen Chaudhuri

[Video] Arthur Kroker : “When Drones Come to Town”
Heba Ahmed: “Beyond Belligerence? Towards Posthuman War”
Bedatri Datta Choudhury and Promona Sengupta: “The Case of Exploding Humans: The Human Bomb as a Questioning of the Human Condition”

1:30–2:30: Lunch

2:30–4:00: Sessions 3.3 and 3.4 [in two parallel sessions ]

Session 3.3: Science Fiction

Chair: Geetha Bakilapadavu

C.S. Bhagya: “The Final Frontier: The Solipsistic Self in Andrei Tarkovsky’s (and Stanislaw Lem’s) Solaris”
Suryansu Guha: “The Imperialist Post-human: Alien Invaders, the Syndicate and the Politics of Colonisation in the X-Files”
Kanak Yadav: “The Politics of the Im(possible): What underlies the Posthuman?

Session 3.4: Post-human Deferrals

Chair: Ananta Kumar Giri

Saronik Bosu: “The Death of the Machine and its Mystical Journey Beyond the Human”
Huzaifa Omair Siddiqi: “The Postponement of the Post-human: Analysing Post-human Conflict in Science Fiction”
Isha Singh: “The Superhero as the New Age Shaman: What Is It That We Want to Become?”

4:00–4:15: Tea Break

4:15: Concluding Session: Technologies of Self-Transformation and Post-Human Futures

Opening Remarks: Ashis Nandy
Concluding Discussion: Makarand R. Paranjape, Richard Carlson, Debashish Banerji

Contact-

Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Mehrauli Road, Munirka, New Delhi, Delhi 110067