Composting Humboldt: a reconceptualisation of Wilhelm von Humboldt's Bildung understood through Donna Haraway's 'compostist' posthumanism

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Abstract

This conceptual research aims to reconfigure Wilhelm von Humboldt’s Bildung considering Donna Haraway’s ‘compostist’ posthumanism. Three aspects of Humboldt’s Bildung are identified and analysed: individuality, unity of nature and mind, and holistic knowledge. Posthumanism is narrowed to Haraway’s ‘compostist’ conception, with the identified aspects: making kin as ‘oddkin’ and recognising Indigenous Knowledges. The main conceptual argument draws on these analyses to recast Humboldt’s Bildung in the following ways: 1) individuality is understood in terms of ecological relationality; 2) the human mind and ‘nature’ ‘become-with’ one another in more dynamic interplay; and 3) holistic knowledge is revised to incorporate knowledges beyond ’Western’ epistemologies. The paper aspires to open up a new horizon for Humboldt’s Bildung, understood through Haraway’s ‘compostist’ posthumanism. The resulting ‘compostist’ posthumanist Bildung has the potential to shape our formation to be compatible with living on a damaged planet and to lay the preliminary conceptual groundwork for addressing some of our times’ most complex questions.

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Keywords

Bildung, Wilhelm von Humboldt, posthumanism, Donna Haraway, indigenous knowledges

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