Video Games and Posthumanism: Another French Exception?

For a while, two understandings of ‘posthumanism’ competed: on the one hand, posthumanism
with its techno-anthropo-economic focus and its inspirations from hard sciences,
technoscience studies and transhumanism; on the other hand, posthumanism, its with sociophilosophical focus and its (French) theoretical inspirations. However, scholars have become
increasingly aware that posthumanism could only be a combination of these two aspects, to
the extent that studies silencing one of them have rarefied... except in the Francophone –
especially French – academia. Despite several attempted introductions (by Quebec scholars or
French expatriates), French intellectuals and scholars indeed continue to produce a significant
amount of writings that neglects the theoretical dimension of posthumanism (the decentring of
the human subject, the undermining of dualisms) and convey paradoxically humanist
(sometimes, reactionary) notions on the relationship between human and technology. Our
paper will investigate whether French and Francophone videogames featuring posthumans
echo the structural specificity of the French treatment of posthumanism, with questions such
as: do French games question or reinforce humanist notions (mind-body dualism,
anthropocentrism, human subjectivity and agency)? What is the relationship between the
French intellectual landscape and its cultural productions, and do videogames bear any
particularity in this matter? Are French games different from other Francophone productions?