#post-humanism

Need to talk this here because no way i am the only person who think like this, but:

I HATE fans of the 2001 anime when they decide to talk about Seras. For me it's a kind of redflag when I see these guys want to say that the first Seras is better than the Ultimate one because she's more "serious, nihilistic (? wtf are u talking), intelligent" and reduce the 2006 one as a "whiny girl with big breasts who is disposable". I feel disgust, hate and want to murder anyone who says that, I've already written about Redpills co-opting Alucard as a "symbol of macho-man" (even though his character goes against EVERYTHING of that), these people are usally 5 options:

-Only consumed the 2001 and nothing else

-Only saw edits/scenes on the internet, thought it was cool to put Alucard's icon and made a larp about being a Hellsing fan

-Watched the 2 animes and read the manga, but only to do mediocre power scaling because when you actually ask about the story THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO ANSWER ANYTHING, NOT EVEN THE BASICS OF THE BASICS OF HELLSING THAT YOU HAVE TO KNOW...

-Only watched the Abridged because it's based on the argument of "it's funnier and better than the original!!!" (lmao yes, a parody that has a humor that is the juice of 2010 and that only a few scenes save it - and even with those that are saved, they became EXTREMELY saturated by fans to the point that it's annoying when you go into a cosplayer's comment or Hellsing fanart and only have Abridged jokes)

-Or just an avowed Nazi (but that doesn't mean he's separate from the other options above, because I've seen a lot of these guys in what I mentioned in the 4 topics who have far-right attitudes in their veins)

and realize that it's usually straight men lmao.

But back to Seras, I cried watching Ultimate again after years and she is one of my favorite characters. I love both versions of her character (Gonzo's or Madhouse's), but the 2006 one has my heart because I identified with her a lot at certain moments. Seras was someone who only suffered in her life but continued to be strong and the sweetheart that she is. People think that someone who is not "serious, without emotions and feelings" is not someone strong and worthy of respect. Guys, the 2006 Seras adapts the Seras from the manga. In Ultimate and in the manga she constantly questions about the afterlife (becoming a vampire, since she is dead) and at first she couldn't dissociate herself from the "human" because it was something so sudden, she got a fucking shot in the chest at a time when she was almost going to be r**ed and killed, she was taken to Hellsing (without knowing anyone) and still has to deal with more deaths in front of her (whether caused by her or not). Do you really think she's mentally stable?

IMO, I think those scenes with Alucard where he tells Seras to forget that she was human are very important, because if you look at it from a post-humanist perspective, it makes a lot of sense, because it brings up the debate about "humanity" not being something good outside of common sense but rather as a colonialist and violent concept, which arises with the rhetoric of civilizing discourse against native peoples (as a Spanish-Brazilian, it's extremely sad to see the effects of colonialism, especially against indigenous peoples) . We notice this even more in the current context when we see how society deals with trans people, disabled people, racialized people, women and any social minority that does not follow the correct standard of "being human", all in defense of a human security system (which is just racism, patriarchy and all the ways to maintain the structures of violence that kill us every day). Alucard is disappointed when Seras doesn't drink the blood precisely because he wants her to be strong and finally independent, that she came out of that suffering as a human and can now have a new life (I don't like this reading of saying that Alucard was "enslaving her").

and that's why I like Seras from 2006, especially in the scene where she feeds on Pip to defeat Zorin, you see a new Seras indeed. You see our cute and charismatic blonde vamp finally accepting being more than human, accepting the change and wanting to protect those she loves in that chaos in London. Seras from the OVA has development, that's why I hate the guys who only like Seras from 2001 saying that she had "no development at all and only exists for the sake of existing".

(a bit of "A Cyborg Manifesto" by Donna Haraway vibes but in the Hellsing context)

It's one thing if you like the anime version of Gonzo better and that's fine, I understand and respect it (i love this version of her too), but saying that Seras from the OVA is a horrible, useless and undeveloped character really upsets me.

Dr. Stacy Alaimo

(she/they)

Professor of English, Director of Graduate Studies for English;

Core Faculty Member, Environmental Studies;

COLT Participating Faculty; CSWS Faculty Affiliate

University of Oregon

I write about the strange and often volatile relations between environmentalism, science, theory, literature, art, popular culture, and gender. My concept of trans-corporeality links material feminism, new materialism, environmental justice, and environmental posthumanism. While my first three books build one coherent theoretical argument, my recent work turns to ocean life, developing the "blue" or oceanic humanities along with marine science studies.

Current Project:

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The Abyss at Hand: Aesthetic Encounters in the Science, Art, and Literature of Deep Sea Creatures.

This book investigates the science, art, film, science fiction, and science writing about deep sea creatures, from the work of William Beebe and Else Bostelmann in the 1930s to the Census of Marine Life, which concluded in 2010. It investigates how aesthetic recognition of deep sea creatures scrambles scientific epistemologies and expands the terrain of environmental concern. I grapple with colonialist global visions, critique white masculinist narratives of exploration, analyze the categories of the surreal, weird, and alien; and swirl together emerging theories and methods in the blue humanities, while suggesting a more fluid and potent sense of the aesthetic. As the threats to ocean ecologies accelerate and the deep seas receive scientific, popular, and political attention, I hope this book will incite more discussion of the abyss at hand.

Exposed: Environmental Politics and Pleasures in Posthuman Times (Minnesota 2016) contends that the anthropocene is no time to set things straight. The book resists the temptation to engage in any sort of grand mapping that would be inimical to the embedded modes of epistemological, ethical, and political engagement that it traces, working instead through a surprising mix of theory, science, art, and activism. It begins by considering the pleasures of inhabiting places where the domestic refuses to domesticate and the walls decline to divide. It ends with an imaginary inhabitation of the dissolving shells of sea creatures who epitomize extinction in anthropocene seas. Along the way it considers queer animals, naked protests, the strange agencies of plastic pollution, and the gendered politics of climate change. Dwelling in the dissolve, where fundamental boundaries have begun to come undone, unraveled by unknown futures, can be a mode of ethical engagement and political inhabitation, which emanates from both feminist and environmentalist practices. Exposed locates new materialisms and material feminisms in fleeting ethical moments and compromised political sites that make up the massive temporal and geographical expanse of the anthropocene.[Cover art: Marina Zurkow, video still from "Slurb."]

Italian translation, published by Mimesis, 2023.

Korean translation, translated by Myung-Joo Kim, Chungnam National University Press, 2023.

Chapter,“Eluding Capture: The Science, Culture and Pleasure of “Queer” Animals,” translated into Greek by John Giannis/Rigas Ioannis, for a DIY activist zine, with new illustrations, 2017.

Inspired special issue of Simulacrum magazine (Amsterdam) “Practicing Exposure.” Including an interview with Max Litjens and Michelle Geraerts, 2019. http://simulacrum.nl/2019/call-for-papers-practicing-exposure-simulacrum-x-fiber-festival/

Special session, “Author Meets Readers” at the Association of American Geographers, 2018.

Podcast Interview, with Chris Richardson, This is Not a Pipe, February. 2018.https://www.tinapp.org/episodes/exposed

U of MN: Blog post: “Climate Change, Carbon-Heavy Masculinity and the Politics of Exposure” http://www.uminnpressblog.com/2016/10/climate-change-carbon-heavy-masculinity.html (October, 2016)

Culture of Energy Podcast, #39, with Cymene Howe and Dominic Boyer, Center for Energy & Environmental Research in the Human Sciences, Rice University

Podcast interview: New Books in Environmental Studies, New Books Network: Feb., 2017.

Finalist for 2017 ASLE Book Award for Ecocriticism

Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self (Indiana UP, 2010). Environmental justice, environmental health, and material feminisms occupy the "trans-corporeal" sites where body, place, and substance intersect. Bodily Natures develops my new materialist, material feminist conception of environmental thought and practice. [Cover art: "Toxic Girl," Fawazo.]

Winner of the ASLE Book Award for Ecocriticism, 2011

Featured in New Books Network interview and podcast, 2013: http://newbooksnetwork.com/stacy-alaimo-bodily-natures-science-environment-and-the-material-self-indiana-up-2010/

Plenary book session at the International Association of Environmental Philosophy, Eugene, Oregon, 2013.

Korean translation,by Joon Yun, Konkuk University, Seoul, Institute of Body and Culture, published by Greenbee, as 말, 살, 흙, Word, Flesh, Dirt, 2018; second printing, 2018.

Chapters translated into Portuguese, Spanish, Polish,

Key concept, “trans-corporeality” taken up widely in humanities and social sciences, and included as an entry in Rosi Braidotti’s The Posthuman Glossary

Art exhibit, “Transcorporeality” at the Museum Ludwig, Cologne Germany, Fall 2019; published essay in catalogue, Fall 2020.

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Undomesticated Ground: Recasting Nature as Feminist Space (Cornell 2000) Written during a time when academic theory spurned the concept of "nature," this book delves into the negative discursive histories of that term, while posing more positive visions for feminist environmentalisms. By drawing on poststructuralist feminist theory and cultural studies, I advocate gender-minimizing, queer, intersectional feminisms that recast nature as feminist space. Darwinian feminists, Marxist feminists, birth control activists, postmodern artists and novelists, and queer writers reinvent the concept of "nature," contending that culture, not "nature" is the ground of essentialism and gender normatively. [Cover art: Ana Mendieta.]

Excerpts on “Mother Earth” reprinted in Nuda Paper(commercial paper sold in Stockholm, Paris, Berlin, and London), Fall 2019.