Prophets of the Posthuman provides a fresh and original reading of fictional narratives that raise the question of what it means to be human in the face of rapidly developing bioenhancement technologies. Christina Bieber Lake argues that works by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walker Percy, Flannery O'Connor, Toni Morrison, George Saunders, Marilynne Robinson, Raymond Carver, James Tiptree, Jr., and Margaret Atwood must be reevaluated in light of their contributions to larger ethical questions. Drawing on a wide range of sources in philosophical and theological ethics, Lake claims that these writers share a commitment to maintaining a category of personhood more meaningful than that allowed by utilitarian ethics. Prophets of the Posthuman insists that because technology can never ask whether we should do something that we have the power to do, literature must step into that role. Each of the chapters of this interdisciplinary study sets up a typical ethical scenario regarding human enhancement technology and then illustrates how a work of fiction uniquely speaks to that scenario, exposing a realm of human motivations that might otherwise be overlooked or simplified. Through the vision of the writers she discusses, Lake uncovers a deep critique of the ascendancy of personal autonomy as America’s most cherished value. This ascendancy, coupled with technology’s glamorous promises of happiness, helps to shape a utilitarian view of persons that makes responsible ethical behavior toward one another almost impossible. Prophets of the Posthuman charts the essential role that literature must play in the continuing conversation of what it means to be human in a posthuman world.
This book gathers diverse critical treatments from fifteen scholars of the posthuman and posthumanism together in a single volume.
See Braidotti, 'Posthuman Feminism'. Stefan Herbrechter, Posthumanism (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), p. 76. Atwood, Oryx and Crake, p. 188. See Christina Bieber Lake, Prophets of the Posthuman (Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press ...
Nancy Baker has devoted her career to arguing that any account of human cognition that attempts to reduce first-person consciousness—which she calls eliminative materialism— will fail. First-person consciousness is an ontological ...
Some of these works engage in the premises and perils of transhumanism, while others explore the qualities of the (post)human in a variety of dystopian futures marked by the planetary influence of human action.
Examining the transhumanist movement, biblical ethicist Jacob Shatzer grapples with the potential for technology to transform the way we think about what it means to be human.
The Bioshock series looms large in the industry and culture of video games for its ambitious incorporation of high-minded philosophical questions and retro-futuristic aesthetics into the ultraviolent first-person shooter genre.
Prophets of the Posthuman: American Fiction, Biotechnology, and the Ethics of Personhood. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 2013. Borsook, Paulina. Cyberselfish: A Critical Romp Through the Terribly Libertarian Culture of High-Tech.
They used to call me Prophet. Remember me. I am interested in this moment because it is rather complicated in terms of its psychology and in terms of its figuring the entry into the posthuman. For what is this moment of acquiring ...
148 Lake, Prophets of the Posthuman, 9. 149 Graham, 'Bioethics After Posthumanism', 179. 150 E.g. see Gerald McKenny, 'Biotechnology and the Normative Significance of Human Nature: A Contribution from Theological Anthropology', ...
Moreover, the posthuman myth is a salvific myth, for humans must be saved from their finitude and mortality. ... As quoted in Christina Bieber Lake, Prophets of the Posthuman: American Fiction, Biotechnology, and the Ethics of ...