Chapter Eight. Invisible histories: Primate bodies and the rise of posthumanism in the twentieth century

This chapter discusses that although the Second World War may mark a turning point in the science that is considered to frame the posthuman project, animal science has continued on a trajectory right through this period to the point where the organic/ machine interface has been radically realised. Furthermore, despite the fact that the human-machine interface may have excited greater attentionperhaps because it seems less messy, hybridity as both a scientific and cultural practice entails the same sorts of issues, whatever version of the nonhuman one is dealing with; for optimisation read purification, for accelerating information processing read the reconfigured animal body. The chapter then focuses on another important facet of posthumanism which again has significant exemplars in early twentieth-century behavioural science as well as art: the mimicry of the nonhuman. Keywords: posthumanism; primate bodies; twentieth century