It is widely acknowledged that the unhuman plays a significant role in the definition of humanity in contemporary thought. It appears in the thematization of "the Other" in philosophical, psychoanalytic, anthropological, and postcolonial studies, and shows up in the "antihumanism" associated with figures such as Heidegger, Foucault, and Derrida. One might trace its genealogy, as Freud did, to the Copernican, Darwinian, and psychoanalytic revolutions that displaced humanity from the center of the universe. Or as Karl Marx and others suggested, one might lose human identity in the face of economic, technological, political, and ideological forces and structures. With dazzling breadth, wit, and intelligence, Unhuman Culture ranges over literature, art, and theory, ancient to postmodern, to explore the ways in which contemporary culture defines humanity in terms of all that it is not. Daniel Cottom is equally at home reading medieval saints' lives and the fiction of Angela Carter, plumbing the implications of Napoleon's self-coronation and the attacks of 9/11, considering the paintings of Pieter Bruegel and the plastic-surgery-as-performance of the body artist Orlan. For Cottom, the unhuman does not necessarily signify the inhuman, in the sense of conspicuous or extraordinary cruelty. It embraces, too, the superhuman, the supernatural, the demonic, and the subhuman; the supposedly disjunctive animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms; the realms of artifice, technology, and fantasy. It plays a role in theoretical discussions of the sublime, personal memoirs of the Holocaust, aesthetic reflections on technology, economic discourses on globalization, and popular accounts of terrorism. Whereas it once may have seemed that the concept of culture always, by definition, pertained to humanity, it now may seem impossible to avoid the realization that we must look at things differently. It is not only art, in the narrow sense of the word, that we must recognize as unhuman. For better or worse, ours is now an unhuman culture.

Collection of essays examining the ways in which humanity is enmeshed in its surroundings.

Turning an anthropological eye toward cyberspace, Human No More explores how conditions of the online world shape identity, place, culture, and death within virtual communities. Online worlds have recently thrown into question the traditional anthropological conception of place-based ethnography. They break definitions, blur distinctions, and force us to rethink the notion of the "subject." Human No More asks how digital cultures can be integrated and how the ethnography of both the "unhuman" and the "digital" could lead to possible reconfiguring the notion of the "human." This provocative and groundbreaking work challenges fundamental assumptions about the entire field of anthropology. Cross-disciplinary research from well-respected contributors makes this volume vital to the understanding of contemporary human interaction. It will be of interest not only to anthropologists but also to students and scholars of media, communication, popular culture, identity, and technology.

Every United Nations member state is part of the human rights treaty system through the ratification of at least one of the six major human rights treaties, rendering universal participation a reality. For human rights victims, the treaty system is of central importance because international legal standards may offer benefits which political fora may not: the potential to generate remedies, attention, accessiblity. At the same time, the implementation mechanisms associated with the human rights treaties were designed at a time when the argument that international interest in human rights was an interference in domestic jurisdiction was at its peak. The challenge for the 21st Century is to move the theory of universality of international human rights standards towards effective implementation of human rights obligations. This book is a major contribution to the effort to focus attention on effective implementation of the human rights treaties. The contributors examine the major implementation shortfalls of the UN human rights treaty system, and offer concrete recommendations as to where future implementations efforts should be placed. The contributors are in a unique position to formulate and share their insights. They are drawn from among all of the constituencies involved in the human rights treaty system: the treaty bodies themselves, the NGO community, the UN secretariat, regional human rights regimes, UN agencies, UN human rights actors from the Human Rights Commission, the judiciary and academia. The book also includes, as a unique resource, all of the major documents concerning the UN human rights treaty system: the text of the treaties, the text of all amendments, statistics on individual communications to the treaty bodies, the text of all meetings of the chairpersons of the treaty bodies, reports and commentaries submitted to the UN Human Rights Commission, recent resolutions of the Human Rights Commission and the General Assembly on the human rights treaties, reform proposals by the International Law Association, regional human rights instruments. In the words of Philip Alston, the author of the UN report on enhancing the long-term effectiveness of the UN human rights treaty system, Professor Bayefsky's work `...has been more systematic and comprehensive, and has continued over a longer period of time, than any other comparable sholarly work on the subject.' (March 2000) In this volume Professor Bayefsky has collected the views of a range of authors immersed in the contribution and welfare of the UN human rights treaty system in the 21st century. It is necessary text for all those interested in the future of the international protection of human rights.

The current crisis in thinking the “human” raises questions not only about who or what may come after the human, but also about what happened before. What dark secrets lie in our ancestral past that may be stopping us from becoming human “otherwise”?

The global burden of chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as hypertension, diabetes and cancers, and of common mental disorders such as depression and anxiety, has a disproportionate impact on the low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) of Africa, Asia and Latin America. The pattern persists in African and Asian migrant populations in European and North American countries, despite the higher standards of living and improved health infrastructure. The consensus of experts is that pragmatic, cost-effective and sustainable interventions are required, and that these must prioritise the social determinants of NCDs as well as the social participation of affected communities. Despite the growing emphasis on the role of social processes in health system responses to chronic disease in LMICs, there has been no definitive volume that brings together LMIC perspectives on these issues. This book aims to address this major gap by presenting new conceptual and empirical perspectives on the interconnections between culture, ethnicity and chronic conditions in LMICs and their implications for research, intervention and policy. The chapters focus on lay and institutional meanings, experiences and responses to chronic conditions in selected countries in Africa, Europe and the Caribbean. This book was originally published as a special issue of Ethnicity and Health.

Featuring new essays by such prominent cultural theorists as Tony Bennett, Homi Bhabha, Donna Haraway, bell hooks, Constance Penley, Janice Radway, Andrew Ross, and Cornel West, Cultural Studies offers numerous specific cultural analyses while simultaneously defining and debating the common body of assumptions, questions, and concerns that have helped create the field.