A posthumanist call against violence in Don DeLillo's oeuvre

Official URL: http://okudell.osmaniye.edu.tr/index.php

Posthumanism tends to be received as a rejection of or/and reaction to the traditional notion of Humanism that centers humans as "the measure of all things", which empowers "Him" for about five hundred years and proves him as someone or as the authority/firm that sexualizes, racializes, naturalizes, and categorizes others; the less Europeans, white, Man, the less humans. By deconstructing such Eurocentric notions, Posthumanism brings a novel approach. Binaries and exclusions, according to this concept, are protective and defensive; they promote nationalism and hence should be avoided and eradicated. Such binaries and exclusions are deconstructed and reconstructed in feminist, decolonial, anti-racist, and other studies. Everything animate/inanimate exists equally and without any distinction. Posthumanism is all-encompassing, including both animate and inanimate worlds. For almost 500 years, the controversial concept of Humanism has manifested in wars, disasters, and brutality against people of various races, sexes, and colors, as well as the environment and other species. To put it differently, the notion of Humanism fosters and encourages violence. Throughout Don DeLillo’s work, I will discover subtle and/or obvious critiques of the concept of Humanism. As an all-inclusive formation or call, posthumanism will be an alternative reception. In this paper, I will discuss how Don DeLillo’s work reflects violence, and how perspectives like Rosi Braidotti’s, Donna Haraway’s, Francis Fukuyama’s, and others establish the Posthumanist call’s emergent necessity.