This book employs perspectives from continental philosophy, intellectual history, and literary and cultural studies to breach the divide between early modernist and modernist thinkers. It turns to early modern humanism in order to challenge late 20th-century thought and present-day posthumanism. This book  addresses contemporary concerns such as the moral responsibility of the artist, the place of religious beliefs in our secular societies, legal rights extended to nonhuman species, the sense of ‘normality’ applied to the human body, the politics of migration, individual political freedom and international terrorism. It demonstrates how early modern humanism can bring new perspectives to postmodern antihumanism and even invite us to envision a humanism of the future. 

Jan Miernowski is Professor of French at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, and Visiting Professor at the University of Warsaw, Poland. His latest books include La Beauté de la haine (Droz, 2014) and an edited volume on the intersection between the grotesque and the sublime.