نبذة مختصرة : My contribution concerns something as simple- seeming as terminology. According to dictionaries, “symbiosis” is a collaboration between living organisms, to the advantage of both. That sounds encouraging. I would like to reflect on the implications of this concept, but not in view of a “posthuman” position. I have been militating against the frequent use of “post- ”, which suggests that what follows can be or has been left behind. This is deceptive, especially when what is left behind cannot be discarded. We can strive for a “posthumanism” in the sense of “post- anthropocentric”, although it will be a hard struggle to really achieve that. “Post- human”, in contrast, is impossible, unless we let the clowns that rule the world continue their narcissistic destruction by disavowing the responsibility of each of us “humans” to do something about it. As long as they do so, thereby sustaining the current hysterical capitalism and global injustice that make especially “post- colonial” a ludicrous misnomer, “post- ” is dangerous and misplaced. Sometimes, precision in language is politically indispensable. In my contribution to this volume I explore “symbiosis” as an “inter- ship”. With that term I have been advocating the deployment of the preposition “inter- ” over the facile “trans- ”, which means nothing but traversing without, precisely, engaging. In contrast, “inter- ” means “between”, in relationship with. And if the neologism I coined resembles “internship”, so much the better. For, that educational term refers to learning through practice. The combined (“symbiotic”) discussion of these terminological issues will inevitably lead to a proposal to change the term “Humanities” as well. My grounding in this reflection is in “image- thinking”, an activity that opens up disciplinary knowledge to the creative contributions to thinking that can come from image-making.
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