Human Enhancement and Transhumanism Unit
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.
“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 | Dates | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Jacob Boss, Indiana University, Bloomington | jaboss@iu.edu | - | View |
| Victoria Lorrimar | vicki@lorrimar.id.au | - | View |