Humanity is dead and we have killed it: Using Michel Foucault and Byung-Chul Han to explore the construction and erasure of the modern human

This article examines the construction and potential erasure of the modern human through the lens of Michel Foucault and Byung-Chul Han. The first three sections of the article trace humanity's formation: from early modern rational inquiry, to its articulation as a biological species, and finally its biopolitical production as homo economicus . The later four sections explore the potential dissolution of each of these interconnected figures. In doing so, the article explores issues of economic crises, scientific advances and digital technologies that are undermining long held economic, biological and epistemological assumptions about the nature of humanity and reality. As reality becomes increasingly complex, chaotic and overwhelming, humans increasingly struggle to orientate themselves and navigate it. Under these conditions, this article argues that humanity stands at a critical juncture where the construction of, and control over, life may be ceded to the very technologies designed to serve it.