Finlay Darlington-Bell

This article examines the conceptual tensions between Dante’s medieval trasumanar and later transhumanist movements. Whilst the prevailing transhumanism of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries advocates an overcoming of the human condition by means of biotechnology and artificial intelligence, this article argues that the original trasumanar of Dante presents transcendence as predicated on divine grace rather than individual human agency. Through a close reading of Dante’s adaptation of the Greek myths of Glaucus and Marsyas in Paradiso I, this article demonstrates how Dante’s trasumanar stands in direct contrast to the technicity of contemporary transhumanists, in particular pivotal figures of the movement such as Julian Huxley and David Pearce. In its place, this article proposes that filmmaker and writer Pier Paolo Pasolini’s notion of finding transcendence in collective political struggle serves as a radical, secular alternative that both develops on Dante’s trasumanar and resists misappropriations by the current proponents of transhumanism.