D. H. Lawrence, science and the posthuman

"What is the 'posthuman'? Does it represent a nightmare future in which human nature disappears, or a benign condition of kinship between humans, animals and machines? This book is the first reading of D.H. Lawrence's work from the perspectives of the contemporary posthuman. Going against the grain of traditional approaches to Lawrence, it argues that Lawrence's work reveals a complex, ambivalent relationship to scientific knowledge and to the idea of the machine. Links are forged between the materialist debates of Lawrence's time and the current posthumanist concerns of neuroscience and cybernetics. The book presents a detailed re-reading of Lawrence's fiction and philosophy in the light of contemporary thinkers such as J.M. Coetzee and Francis Fukuyama and of the new 'Bergsonism' of Deleuze and Guattari. Lawrence's writing shows us that our humanity can only be preserved by a searching examination of the taboos surrounding it, and by loosening the boundaries that separate us from the material world."--Jacket.