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The Hysterical Sublime

Humanism in the Age of Posthuman Capitalism

Matthew Flisfeder (University of Winnipeg, Canada)

$170

Hardback

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English
Bloomsbury Academic
24 July 2025
Developing the concept of the hysterical

sublime, first theorised by Fredric

Jameson, to challenge posthumanist

perspectives on the Anthropocene, this

book facilitates the rethinking of universal

and dialectical humanism as concepts for

grappling with 21st-century capitalism.

In recent years, posthumanist theories

have been concerned with the

overlapping dilemmas of global climate

change, digital automation, and artificial

intelligence, corresponding to the age

of the Anthropocene. Matthew Flisfeder

explores how the fear of technology

becomes, for Jameson, a substitute for

the fears of the capitalist system, and

shows that posthumanism displaces such fears onto the figure of the human

and anthropocentrism. Drawing on

Hegelian-Lacanian theory, the book

argues that to rethink dialectical

humanism requires moving past the

historicist versions of Marxist humanism

that imagine a complete reconciliation

with non-human nature that includes a

process of dis-alienation. Flisfeder also

studies posthumanism’s “performative

contradiction” of dismissing humanism

while at the same time depending on the

very concepts that constitute the core

of humanist thought: freedom, equality,

responsibility, and autonomy.

Through the concept of the hysterical

sublime, this book argues that, not only

is anthropocentrism and humanism

the unconscious core of posthumanist

theory; emancipatory politics must take

ownership of this perspective and renew

universalist and dialectical humanism as

the core of the political project resistant

to capitalism and the Capitalocene.
By:  
Imprint:   Bloomsbury Academic
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 234mm,  Width: 156mm, 
ISBN:   9781350536104
ISBN 10:   1350536105
Pages:   264
Publication Date:  
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Preface Introduction 1. Renewing Humanism Against the Anthropocene: Towards a Theory of the Hysterical Sublime 2. From Posthumanist Anaesthetics to Promethean Dialectics 3. Variations of the Posthuman Fantasy 4. Defending Representation; or, Thinking the Paradox to Its Limit 5. Develop the Superstructure: Althusser and the Humanist Controversy Reconsidered 6. Freedom and Alienation; or, Humanism of the Non-All Conclusion

MATTHEW FLISFEDER is a Professor of Rhetoric and Communications at The University of Winnipeg, Canada. He is the author of Algorithmic Desire: Toward a New Structuralist Theory of Social Media (2021), Postmodern Theory and Blade Runner (2017), and The Symbolic, The Sublime, and Slavoj Žižek’s Theory of Film (2012). He is also the co-editor of Žižek and Media Studies: A Reader (2014).

Reviews for The Hysterical Sublime: Humanism in the Age of Posthuman Capitalism

Our period is one of crisis. Against the growing hegemony of posthumanism as the ideology of twenty-first century capitalism, Matthew Flisfeder disrupts our received wisdoms about our time by showing how dialectical humanism can better conceptualize our understanding of the present. The Hysterical Sublime is an essential theoretical intervention which everyone must read * Agon Hamza, Co-author of Reading Hegel (2021) * Flisfeder’s book is the rare case of a work which appears at the right moment doing the right thing. The Hysterical Sublime conclusively demonstrates that the ongoing global crisis of the Anthropocene is at its most fundamental not just an economic or social crisis but a properly metaphysical crisis centering on the very core human subjectivity: it is not enough just do what is required from us, we have to rethink the entire frame of our posthuman situation in order to arrive at an adequate cognitive mapping of our predicament in 21st century capitalism. And what better way to do this than to begin with Flisfeder’s magnificent book! * Slavoj Žižek, author of Zero Point (2025), Against Progress (2024) and Christian Atheism (2024), all published by Bloomsbury *


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