Given my training in the history, philosophy and social studies of science and my interests in heredity, the interface between human and machine, the blurring of the distinction between life and technology, I am very concerned about the future of hu
...MoreGiven my training in the history, philosophy and social studies of science and my interests in heredity, the interface between human and machine, the blurring of the distinction between life and technology, I am very concerned about the future of humans and of the humanities. Both in my research and in the classroom I grapple with fundamental questions associated with the goal of mastering nature versus the reality, whether humans control technology or not, and what it will mean to be human if genetic engineering, nanotechnology and informatics provide the opportunities for change that both detractors and supporters predict. For that reason my abstract submission is geared toward theory and is focused on framing approaches to larger questions. I teach at a medium-sized institution where I get to use the classroom as a locus for discussing the issues that my research has raised for me and beyond that to the larger questions that I get to pursue in a course on The West and the World and broad courses like Life and Technology and Sex, Race, and Science. I am interested in questions relating to sex, race and a kind of humanism that can engage the potential to be posthuman.
Less
New Directions in the Humanities
