Humanity under duress

What does it mean to be human at a time of increasingly rapid social, economic, technological and political change? Our contemporary lives are destabilised and re-made by new senses of human identity and experience. Humanity Under Duress offers a diverse collection of ideas and perspectives on what it means to be human today written by a leading group of academics and writers.

All around us we see dehumanising processes and narratives - political populism, life enhancing/changing/adapting technologies and constraining or disabling economic programmes. In addition the imposed withdrawal of support for public services and supports have pronounced impacts on how we understand our condition and how that condition is reshaped and limited. The limits to our ecological condition raises questions about where ‘we’ are going as well as our aspirations for greater self-knowledge. Similarly there is growing curiosity about transcendence and belief systems that might help to assuage existential anxieties. This open access collection features a series of short-form interventions by writers from across the social sciences.