Paola Partenza – författare

The idea of desacralization has become almost commonplace, attributing to the word the rejection of what is sacred. One might think that it is strictly connected to theology and its system, or suppose that it implies the relationship human beings have with anything that can express a denial of the spiritual part of life. The concept of desacralization has numerous meanings, either from a philosophical or a literary viewpoint. The scholars'' investigation of Dynamics of Desacralization has made this collection of essays rich and varied, revealing new worlds the different authors have created. What they do is to narrate various types of desacralization interrogating the nature of novels, poems or works of art; certain aspects of being are revealed through various expressions, engaging the multiple levels and the meaning of desacralization providing an articulation and interpretation of it.

Within art, society, culture, philosophy, literature and many other spheres, a constant issue being dealt with is that of sin. Reevaluation of this concept has proceeded down varied stimulating paths in relation to the multidisciplinary appraisal, although philosophical aesthetic and epistemic emphases commonly reflect issues present in literature. In certain instances, texts clearly refer to sin, while in other it is more of an ambiguous and obscured notion. Alongside the established understanding of sin, discourse, poetry and novels have responded to sin variously, due to the blossoming of ideas. French, American and British literature''s responses to the notion of sin will be investigated through the academic studies included in this volume.

The concept of the "human" has been broadly re-visited and modified, and the term "posthuman" has now become a term of continuous inquiry. Gender (representations) play(s) a critical role in works of literature, culture, and art, and focusing on gender is crucial to uncovering the anthropocentrism or androcentrism that may underlie the work and the times to which it belongs. While maintaining a solid literary emphasis, the ten chapters included in this volume focus on feminist debates about women, technology, and the body, on gender representation and the posthuman, on post-gender figurations, on gender and trans/post/humanism, biotechnology/biopolitics/bioethics, on feminist posthumanism, on animals, the human-machine, and ecological posthumanism. The aim of the volume is to analyse how useful these concepts may be for thinking about the subject, its definition and identity in a changing society.