Being Human Today

'Being Human Today will speak to a wide range of readers – not only those engaged in education, art and mental health. Its core ideas are likely to resonate especially with those who, like me, approach education from a Bildung perspective, who advocate for embodied approaches in mental health or who value art for art’s sake. Likewise, it will – perhaps – provoke and challenge readers whose mindset is rooted in instrumental logic. Precisely for that reason, it is worth their attention. I also recognize that the content might be provocative for those who challenge certain humanist perspectives (e.g. disability studies) that question and redefine what it means to be human.

Being Human Today is not merely an exhibition catalogue. I would argue that it is – in itself – a work of art. A work of art that hopes.'

-- Greta Marthinussen, Journal of Applied Arts & Health

ʻBeing Human Today is a highly innovative exploration of the common human experience of becoming an I, joining the world, and recognizing the I of others – not only once, but in a constantly evolving process. The reader is guided through different rooms, as in an art exhibition, featuring authors, and artists, from different disciplines giving words to each other successively, as in a conversation. In this way, readers from any discipline are guaranteed to see what it is to be human today in a new perspective.ʼ

-- Dag Gjerløw Aasland, University of Agder, Norway

‘Being Human Today provides readers with a different and innovative way of navigating concepts and experiences of the self through the variant approaches the volume takes to self as a concept and a sense of being. As a ‘book that was never-meant-to-be’, it invites us to engage with those existentialist dilemmas which neither offer a final sense of resolution nor does it furnish us with quick answers. This open-endedness while still clearly being set within identifiable parameters for those interested in the fields discussed is the book’s strength. The editors have collated a volume with a permanent sense of arrival, which effectively brings together several points over a horizon that keeps expanding. More than authors writing and reader reading, Being Human Today is a space for participants who are willing to take the role of actors-artists coinhabiting a curated space.’

-- John Baldacchino, University of Wisconsin-Madison,