My partner Rusten Hogness suggested compost instead of posthuman(ism) (a thought tradition that criticises the role of the human at the center), as well as humusities instead of humanities, and I jumped into that wormy pile.
Human as humus has potential, if we could chop and shred human as Homo, the detumescing project of a self-making and planet-destroying CEO. Imagine a conference not on the Future of the Humanities in the Capitalist Restructuring University, but instead on the Power of the Humusities for a Habitable Multispecies Muddle!
Invitations to contemplate these words and play with your thoughts
What captured our attention
What if we tell a different history
What if “Nature” does not exist
What if we invent an ecosystemic economy
What do you think?
Where does Europe begin and Where does Europe end
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Cross Idea
According to myths, Europa was named after an Asian princess. Europa was abducted by Zeus, who had transformed himself into a bull, while she was picking flowers with her friends on the beaches of Tyre, a city in modern-day Lebanon. The animal carried her from Asia across the sea to Crete, where it …
Cross Idea
Rooted deeply in an anthropocentric perspective, the notion of human superiority over nature has historically gone largely unchallenged. Reevaluating this relationship is essential for building a more sustainable future.
To dismantle this anthropocentric view, we might adopt frameworks that redefine humanity as an interdependent part of the broader ecosystem rather than as its ruler. This shift can take many forms, starting with language that emphasizes our interconnectedness with the Earth. For instance, using terms like “humusities” instead of “humanities” and “compost” instead of “posthumanism” which conceive of humans as part of the soil—humus—and as such engaging in an understanding of a continuous cycle of regeneration and decay with other life forms.
Another approach is to reframe traditionally human-centered activities, like communication, within a broader perspective that includes competencies of other agents. This shift encourages us to see communication as a trait shared across all life and even in non-living matter, placing the human role as one interconnected node within a larger web.
Such rethinking makes non-human and human communication comparable, and transitions between them fluid. For example, bacteria, fungi, whales, and redwoods—alongside rocks, planets, and galaxies—all process information, suggesting that this is a fundamental aspect of existence, not unique to humans. The fluidity across different communicative groups can be seen in how the same voices may be conceived as incomprehensible bird calls or intelligible speech.
