Prelims

Half Title Page

Malleable, Digital, and Posthuman

Title Page

Malleable, Digital, and Posthuman: A Permanently Beta Life

By

Ignas Kalpokas

Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2021

Copyright © 2021 Ignas Kalpokas

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-80117-621-7 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-80117-620-0 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-80117-622-4 (Epub)

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my daughter Rachele Ona, who was born at the beginning of my writing process.

Acknowledgements

Where do I even start giving thanks for making it possible to write a book in the midst of the pandemic? As usual, at the top of the list must be my wife Julija, without whose help and support this book would have been impossible. Then my boys Klemensas and Frederikas, who struggle to understand the concept of their parents working from home. And who can blame them?

Then things get messier – testament to a very messy year indeed. A big thank you to my students, whom I have come to know perhaps more closely than I would otherwise would – their home environments, their kitchen (and, well, other) sounds, etc., and, no doubt, this has been mutual. Worn down by lockdown, by writing, by being confined to home with the children, they have known me at my worst and most miserable. And, in some cases, so have I.

It is by no means a surprise that this is a book about interconnectedness and malleability through mutual testing. Even though the book was started in the months prior to the pandemic, the experience of 2020 has certainly further underscored the fallacy of anthropocentrism, of any idea that we can lead self-sufficient lives insulated from our environment. Definitely, 2020 was the year when the world struck back – both nature and, in response to the nature-induced crisis of the pandemic, the technological layer of our existence. Combining life in full knowledge of being a mere node in multiple intersecting agglomerations in a social environment still primed to human exceptionalism, one that formulates demands accordingly, is bound to be a challenging experience. Hence, this book is written in the hope that we will leave the pandemic world wiser and not with our heads more deeply buried in sand. Let's explore!