Human Enhancement and Transhumanism Unit

This Unit welcomes papers on any aspect of the relationship between religion and human enhancement through technology or on transhumanism. We seek perspectives from a variety of religious traditions and encourage relational, feminist, queer, postmodern, and postcolonial analyses. Original research is a priority. Papers may identify and critically evaluate any implicit religious beliefs, practices, and values that might underlie the development and use of human enhancement technologies or the key claims, goals, values, and assumptions of transhumanism. For example, papers might explore the relationship between enhancement and core doctrines or practices of religious traditions, asking how religion might challenge a culture of enhancement or how the growing use of enhancement technology might challenge or reshape the religions of the future. Papers may provide critical and constructive assessments of an envisioned future that places confidence in nanotechnology, cognitive science, moral bio-enhancements, genetics, robotics, and information technology to achieve enhanced human capacities or extend the human lifespan. Our Unit also welcomes proposals on: Religious transhumanisms and transhumanisms in relation to: global South perspectives, surveillance technologies, ethnographic and anthropological methods, climate change, animal liberation.

Additionally, we welcome proposals for papers or panels on the following topics:

Disability and Impairment: Politicizing and weaponizing of disability, H+ and ableism, Therapy vs. Enhancement

Reproduction and Reproductive Technologies: Control of human reproduction and esp. women’s rights, Transgenics and xenotransplantation, Reviving extinct species

The Cyborg: Contemporary reflection on the figure of the cyborg, Critique of past articulations of the cyborg

Transhumanism and ritual in communities such as biohacking subcultures; Transhumanism, exercise and dieting; Commodification of human data and persons, including bioprospecting; Revisiting the various goals and trajectories of trans- and posthumanism

Data Justice, and Healthcare (co-sponsored with the Bioethics and Religion Unit)

We are seeking papers or a proposed panel looking at the intersection of data justice and healthcare in religious communities or perspectives.