Program Unit Online June Annual Meeting 2025

Human Enhancement and Transhumanism Unit

Call for Proposals

For the June meeting we encourage you to submit abstracts for very brief (3-4 minutes) presentations on the theme of Fascination and Fabrication in Human Enhancement and Transhumanism. Presenters will speak in the manner of an "adult show and tell," with the aim being to introduce the audience to what has been most influential in the lives and work of scholars of human enhancement. The focus of the participant may be, for example, a person, work of scholarship, artifact, technology, event, or fictional creation. Our theme this year for the online conference builds off of last year's theme of increasing access in the field, providing opportunities to share and to hear brief and impactful presentations.

Statement of Purpose

“Transhumanism” refers to intellectual and cultural movements that advocate the use of a variety of emerging technologies to enhance human persons. The convergence of these technologies may make it possible to take control of human evolution, providing for "desirable" physical, moral, affective, and cognitive enhancements and the amelioration of aspects of the human condition regarded as undesirable. These enhancements include the radical extension of healthy human life, uploading consciousness / brain patterns, advanced prosthetics, and genetic modifications. If these enhancements become widely available, they would arguably have a more radical impact than any other development in human history — one need only reflect briefly on the economic, political, and social implications of some of the extreme enhancement possibilities. The implications for religion and the religious dimensions of human enhancement technologies are enormous and are addressed in our Unit. We are interested in encouraging and providing a forum for a broad array of diverse scholarly input. 

Chair Mail Dates
Jacob Boss jaboss@iu.edu - View
Victoria Lorrimar, University of Notre Dame… victoria.lorrimar@nd.edu… - View
Steering Member Mail Dates
Jeremy F. Cohen, McMaster University cohenj10@mcmaster.ca - View
Calvin Mercer mercerc@ecu.edu - View
Melanie Dzugan melaniedzugan@fuller.edu - View
Seth Villegas sethv27@alumni.stanford… - View
Nicholas Low nil057@g.harvard.edu - View
Beth Singler, University of Zurich beth.singler@uzh.ch - View
Tom Berendt tom.berendt@temple.edu - View
Review Process: Participant names are visible to chairs but anonymous to steering committee members until after final acceptance/rejection