Post-human Era Research Articles

Transhumanism and Theological Anthropology: A Theological Examination of Transhumanism

Summary Humans are now entering a post-human era. Through technological advancements and their applications for humans themselves, humans as homo sapiens might change into a different species. Depending on individual decisions about whether to embrace certain technologies, the co-existence of humans and post-humans is also possible. Christians and theologians must ponder this trajectory for the technology will affect all domains, including religions, in society at large. In this regard, this article introduces and examines transhumanism. Transhumanism is a movement based on the convergence of ideology and scientific technology which aims to liberate humans from their biological constraints (i. e., disease, aging, and death), thereby bringing about human well-being. This article argues that the transhumanist ideology should be critically examined while its technology can be embraced and even supported from a theological perspective because this ideology determines the direction of technological advancement and application. Regarding ideological problems, I highlight transhumanists’ disembodiment propensity, optimistic belief in the progress of human civilization, and individualism. These features are embedded in and originate from transhumanism’s succession of classical humanism and the Enlightenment. If these features are not rectified, transhumanism and its technology might repeat disastrous incidents in human history such as eugenics and exacerbate social inequality. As a theologian, I critically examine the ideological features of transhumanism, proposing an alternative understanding with regard to human beings and existence. This effort helps to remedy potential problems of transhumanism in the future, relieve anxiety relating to these problems, and prepare a dialogue between transhumanism and Christian theology. This dialogue will eventually contribute to the robust development of transhumanism and the opening of a new era of the post-human.

A Post-Humanist Study of Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others

Under this context of post-industrial era, science fiction, a literary genre derived from Gothic novels, has captured the crisis faced by the current humanity. Taking imagination as a tool and future science and technology as focus, Sci-fi has become a specific kind of literary critique for the current society. Ted Chiang, one of the most renowned and awards-winning contemporary Chinese-American writers, has shone on the field of science fiction, and Stories of your life and others, a science fiction novella collection, is one of Chiang’s most significant works. Stories of Your Life and Others explores the evolution of human nature, and recreates the eternal problems of the relationship between science and human itself/human society under the background of the multidimensional post-human space. From the perspective of post humanism theory, this paper attempt to explore the technical aesthetics, philosophical thinking and humanistic care in Chiang’s work, and to clear the path in terms of the relationship between human and technology, human and the universe, so as to picture the blueprint of future living environment of human beings, predict the common destiny of mankind in the future, provide a paradigm for the practice of science and technology in the post-human era and the discussion of post-modern science and technology ethics.

Un/interactive Fish in Posthuman Ethical Design

In the posthuman era, what counts as ethical has dispersed and re-distributed to a nonhuman-centered network that includes nonhuman species and nonliving matter. This hybrid study consists of research and project-based speculative design that aims to recalibrate human relationships with others, in this case, digital fish. The overarching question in this research is: How a human-nonhuman relationship could look like through the lens of Taoist-posthumanism and how to design such a relationship? More specifically, how to design a mutually beneficial interactive system with limited human-initiated interaction? Firstly, I draw on Posthumanism, Taoism, and Contractualism as theoretical frameworks to form the arguments regarding the human-fish relationship. Second, I analyze the theories and transcribe them into the public interactive project Not-my-fish in terms of un-interactive interaction and human experience. Third, I apply the concept of flow as design guidelines and feature four aspects of the flow in the human-fish interaction: ecological flow, sensory flow, social flow, and data flow. Fourth, I discuss how the participating parties mutually benefit from this partnership. Not-my-fish rearticulates the relationship between humans and fish as well as humans and computers and sees the human-fish relationships from posthuman and Taoist perspectives. In short, although the transition from human-centered to posthuman interactive media creates some challenges for human partners and design aspects, the project demonstrates a practical way for humans to develop a posthuman design in public interactives and serve the public good at the same time.

The Era of Posthumanism

ABSTRACT Many of the theories that have been discussed in recent years are distrustful of the anthropological inroads or are openly hostile to them. The problems of the environment, global politics, and the discoveries of biology and medicine create a rich foundation for such attitudes. They are also manifested in the genres of comments that emanate from the domains of rigorous theory and science into the zones of unprovable projections, forecasts, and programs. Perhaps only media philosophy still dares to talk about the need for media anthropology. Yet how is it possible to try to determine what is human in such conditions—among conglomerations of particles (Whitehead-Latour) and entanglements (Barad), in the indiscernibility of the organic and the inorganic? What language can one still use to discuss it—the language of psychoanalytic loss, of scientific impartiality, of literary fiction? Through what concepts can one lay out the path—of function, of environment, of system? This article provides a brief summary of the selection of articles included in the present special issue. The authors of these articles attempt to talk about the human by unleashing this concept in their own way from a cosmic and universal perspective.

Rediscovery of Ecology in the Posthuman Era

This study examines the cosmopolitan ecology and post-humanism projected in the recently released ecological movies. Using effective visual media, ecological movies practically show emerging environmental pollution, pandemic situation, ecological destruction, and emergence of new viruses. In this trend, an understanding of the situation is essential. In order to understand both ecology and the ecological humanities, this research will read ecological imagination projected through ecological films. This research also deals with the analysis of the recent ecological films and understanding of the ecology and environmental issues that are the background of the films. By doing so, this research will derive the research results that can find the ecological view desired in the cosmopolitan era.

REGULARITIES OF EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT OF MULTIPROFILE INSTITUTIONS OF EXTRACURRICULAR EDUCATION IN THE CONDITIONS OF AUTONOMY

In the last decade, one of the topics that has received considerable attention is the need for changes in educational management at all levels. Special attention is drawn to multidisciplinary institutions of out-of-school education, which are of great value to the individual, who acquires a variety of competencies, gets the opportunity to develop creativity, creativity. Recognition of the importance of basic laws, the possibility of summarizing on their basis of content and principles is the starting point for further transformation of extracurricular activities. In the educational management of such institutions, regularities should attract a lot of attention from various representatives of civil society, as children and young people who can study in such institutions receive additional opportunities to improve their quality of life. This study aims to consider the basic patterns on which it is possible to further build a new content and principles of the educational management of multidisciplinary out-of-school education institutions. We believe that the educational management in the era of posthumanism is based on values – knowledge, skills, competencies. This requires scientifically focused planning in order to improve the quality of extracurricular education, to anticipate changes in the process of managing creative teams, to take to a new level the position on the motivation of teachers and support their activities. Such knowledge will help to identify existing threats in time, turn them into additional opportunities and further use all possible resources to achieve high quality work of out-of-school teachers. The knowledge of the basic laws, the possibility of constructing new content and principles of educational management of multidisciplinary out-of-school educational institutions encourages administrative staff to perform work not only qualitatively, according to job responsibilities, but also creatively, taking into account innovations in management. The author highlights the main laws of educational management of multidisciplinary out-of-school education institutions, which are necessary for the development of a new system for management in autonomy: consistency of educational policy in the field of extracurricular activities in accordance with existing population demand; correlation of the requirements of modern educational management with those management practices that are available in institutions; optimal combination of traditions and innovations in the process of institution development; the dependence of the prosperity of multidisciplinary institutions of out-of-school education in the future on the development of management activities according to new modern requirements (adaptability, creativity, creativity, flexibility); coherence of work of different directions and conformity of their development to the needs of out-of-school education seekers.

AI and Posthuman Romance in Literature and Film

From Pygmalion’s Galatea in Greek mythology to Joi in Blade Runner 2049, literary and cinematic writers explored the possibility of men’s heteronormative romantic relationships with women created by art and technology. In recent decades, with artificial intelligence growing even more powerful, writers can even imagine digital, virtual, or robotic beings capable of becoming heterosexual men’s ideal romantic partners, who may even be capable of reproduction. This paper examines the representation of digital, virtual and robotic female companions depicted in literature and film: “Helen O’Loy” (1938), HER (2014), Ex-Machina (2015), and Blade Runner 2049 (2017). While this history of creative imagination mirrors the male-dominant culture of Silicon Valley and even suggests an implicit desire to return to the old misogynistic gender politics, the reception of these works points to an interesting cultural, psychological, and literary insight into the changing paradigms or “algorithms” of romantic love and gender relations in our posthuman era. Sooner or later, “digisexuality” may become one of the widely recognized sexual identities.

몸 인식의 확장에 따른 패션화된 몸에 나타난 미적 특성 연구

The purpose of this study is to examine of in contemporary fashion through the characteristics of post-structuralism and pragmatic body aesthetics. The research method examines philosophical and aesthetic perceptions of the body, focusing on post-structuralist philosophers Maurice Merleau Ponty, Michelle Foucault, and Jean Baudrillard and the pragmatic philosopher Richard Schustermann. This study analyzes the data from domestic and foreign monographs and previous studies. After based on an aesthetic characteristic derived from an optimized art work related to body aesthetics, the aesthetic characteristics of the body that are popular in modern fashion were analyzed. The research results are as follows: First, body aesthetics derived from body discourse are divided into “experienced body,” “controlled body,” “derived body,” and “practiced body.” Second, the aesthetic characteristics derived from related to the aesthetics of the body were the deconstruction of the body and the otherness of the body. Third, contemporary fashion were “abstract of geometric space,” “resistance reality,” and “fetishistic playfulness.” Additionally, the otherness of the body appeared as “human pluralism.” Finally, the phenomenon of the “soma,” in which the body and mind are integrated as a new mechanism of the fashioned body in contemporary fashion, as discussed above, will expand the aesthetic extension of fashion with a positive perception of the alienated body in the post-human era.

Sites of violence and their communities: Critical memory studies in the post-human era (Kraków, 24–25 September 2019)

This discussion gathers voices of an international group of researchers and practitioners from various disciplines and institutions who focus on diverse aspects of sites of past violence in their work: archaeology, history, ethics, literature and art, curatorial practices, oral history, education and commemoration. The debate, which took place during the conference “Sites of Violence and Their Communities: Critical Memory Studies in the Post-Human Era” in Kraków in September 2019, itself centres on six main topics: the question of archives of uncommemorated killing sites; research methodology; the position of the researchers themselves; the problem of complicity during conflict and the right to be a witness to past crimes; the place of the Righteous Among the Nations within Polish collective memory and the international debate on the Holocaust; and, finally, new ways of commemoration and education about mass violence. Participants: Katarzyna Bojarska, Michał Chojak, Ewa Domańska, Zuzanna Dziuban, Karolina Grzywnowicz, Aleksandra Janus, Karina Jarzyńska, Maria Kobielska, Rob van der Laarse, Bryce Lease, Erica Lehrer, Jacek Leociak, Tomasz Łysak, Tomasz Majkowski, Christina Morina, Matilda Mroz, Adam Musiał, Agnieszka Nieradko, Łukasz Posłuszny, Roma Sendyka, Caroline Sturdy Colls, Katarzyna Suszkiewicz, Aleksandra Szczepan, Krijn Thijs, Jonathan Webber, Anna Zagrodzka, Tomasz Żukowski

Sites of violence and their communities: critical memory studies in the post-human era

“Sites of Violence and their Communities” presents the results of a research project that brought together scholars and practitioners of memory work in an attempt to critically reinterpret the links between sites, their (human, and non-human) users, and memory. These interdisciplinary discussions focused on overlooked, repressed or ignored sites of violence that may benefit from new approaches to memory studies, approaches that go beyond the traditional focus on communication, symbolism, representation and communality. Clandestine or contested sites, in particular, pose challenging questions about memory practices and policies: about the status of unacknowledged victims and those who witnessed their deaths; about those who have inherited the position of “bystander”; about the ontology of human remains; and about the ontologies of the sites themselves, with the natural and communal environments implicated in their perdurance. Claude Lanzmann – one of the first to undertake rigorous research on abandoned, uncommemorated or clandestine sites of violence – responded to Pierre Nora’s seminal conception with his work and with the critical notion of “non-lieux de mémoire.” Methodologies emerging from more traditional as well as recently introduced perspectives (like forensic, ecological, and material ones) allowed team members to engage with such “non-sites of memory” from new angles. The goal was to consider the needs and interests of post-conflict societies; to identify and critically read unofficial transmissions of memory; and to re-locate memory in new contexts – in the grassroots of social, political and institutional processes where the human, post-human and natural merge with unanticipated mnemonic dynamics.

Sites of violence and their communities: critical memory studies in the post-human era

Sites of violence and their communities: critical memory studies in the post-human era

Integrating hyperreal literature with CALL in English language curriculum for engineering studies in India: an empirical study of the impact on students’ learning

PurposeScholarship on language teacher knowledge and critical digital literacy. Using a grounded theory approach, semi-structured online presentations of students, classroom observations and their responses to multimedia tools such as movies and literature were analysed. As part of the study, 150 students pursuing undergraduate degree in engineering were assigned two assignments involving science fiction movies and hyperreal literature as part of an experiential strategy. A survey was conducted before and after the study to evaluate the change in students’ perception towards the use of technology and multimedia in language classrooms as well as their awareness of technological dependency in the postmodern world. The findings show that student cognition of AI and technological dependency is a complex and emergent system, and that, despite current literacy education scholarship stressing digital literacy as a social and critical praxis, technology is treated in a mostly functional, rather than a critical manner in a standard university language classroom. The results of this study suggest that the disadvantages of a realistic approach to teaching digital composition can be avoided by creating other forms of educational materials that adhere to critical digital literacies sense, such as posthuman literary works and science fiction film.Design/methodology/approachThis study is primarily qualitative and empirical, focussing on the analysis of student responses to classroom assignments and semi-structured online presentations and responses to multimedia tools such as movies and online literature. A pilot study was performed among the engineering students of Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, India, to better understand engineering students’ perceptions and attitudes towards teaching English as a second language using emerging technology, with the aim of improving language abilities, writing skills, imagination and overall personality. One hundred and fifty (150) students were assigned two assignments as part of an experiential strategy. Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, Microsoft Teams was used as the platform for assessment and observation. As part of their learning challenge, students were required to watch the movies “Her”, “Interstellar” and “Bandersnatch” and write a technical report outlining some of the major observations on technology and AI. Secondly, as part of their learning challenge, students were required to read Oliver Sacks’ “The Machine Stops” and comment on his perspectives on technological dependency. This was supplemented by assessment tests and assignments focussing on the digital nature of the global education system. Another survey was conducted at the end of the study to evaluate the change in students’ perception towards the use of technology and multimedia in language classrooms as well as their awareness of technological dependency in the postmodern world. Owing to the posthuman and hyperreal nature of the movies and texts, students were introduced to the theories of Marshall McLuhan and Jean Baudrillard to better understand the chosen works.FindingsIn the posthuman era, where digital technologies are at their peak, English language teachers select appropriate teaching resource materials based on the needs of the students and do their utmost to combine them with technology to make their teaching more engaging and efficient. Thanks to the current craze for Digital Humanities, not just English language teaching but also literature classroom teaching has experienced several paradigm shifts. This has raised the need for English teachers and professionals on the job market. Given this context, and in particular, to raise knowledge among engineering students of their critical position in the literary job sector, two tasks were assigned to students in the Language Classroom. These tasks included integrating technology into language studies and literature, instilling imagination, honing literary skills and facilitating the development of a comprehensive approach to life and potential endeavours.Originality/valueAs evident from the study and literature review, the introduction of emerging technology in Language Classrooms has grown in popularity, but it has yet to be incorporated into Language Classrooms that focus on the comprehensive development of students, especially in India. Furthermore, proof of interactions between digital learning and teaching practices and anticipated results, effects and impacts was gathered to make the Language Classroom more social, inspiring and engaging, but little more. As a result, we see a lot of potential for research in this field, particularly concerning the most recent language studies advancements about Digital Humanities.

Why a Consilience Liberal Arts Course is Necessary in the Posthuman Era －Centering on Intellectual Consilience and Practical Consilience

This study examines the meaning of liberal arts education focused on the concept of consilience and concretizes consilience liberal arts into intellectual consilience and practical consilience, in order to consider why the sort of liberal arts that applies consilience thinking is necessary in the post-human era. Consilience refers to a harmony between disciplines that occurs in the process of convergence, a method that achieves convergence between disciplines, and a tool that connects life and disciplines. Convergence as a result and consilience as a process also make a difference in the types of talent a person possesses. Convergence-type talent refers to a resultant human who can precisely design linkages with other fields based on expertise in one field, whereas consilience-type talent refers to a generative human who finds issues around them, focuses on those issues, and derives solutions by combining studies and data in various ways. Here, consilience-type talents create questions by observing certain phenomena, combine seemingly unrelated things in their own way, and develop a new framework to answer the questions. Their thinking flow is defined as ‘consilience thinking’. Therefore, consilience liberal arts education focuses on the acquisition of consilience thinking and allows students to reduce their prejudices and fears about other departments or other disciplines, lower the barriers to entry into other departments or other disciplines, and further deepen and broaden convergence thinking in their majors. However, in order to have such an effect in the post-human era, it is necessary for consilience liberal arts to divide into two parts: ‘intellectual consilience’ and ‘practical consilience’. The purpose of intellectual consilience is to make students realize that they can acquire consilience knowledge related to our lives and solve problems around us through consilience knowledge, whereas practical consilience allows students to experience consilience thinking while creating results centered on actual activities by exploring the problems around them and analyzing the data needed to solve the problems.

Frankenstein Redux

Frankenstein Redux

A study of developing learner-centered, based on multidisplinary instructional model for character building education in the era of Post-Humanism

목적 본 연구의 목적은 대학생들의 학습자중심 다학문 기반 인성교육 모델을 개발하는 것에 있다. 방법 이를 위하여 선행연구 및 전문가그룹 의견 분석을 통하여 학습자 중심 다학문 기반 인성교육 수업 설계 방안 수립을 위한 핵심 지표 선정, 모델 수립의 논리적 근거를 정초한 후 ‘인성’을 지능의 관점으로 받아들이는 최근 동향을 수용, 다양한 지능 탐색을 통하여 인성 지능 프레임을 범주화하였다. 결과 이를 통하여 도출된 인성 5영역(정의적, 관계적, 사회적, 윤리적, 실천적 인성)이 교수⋅학습 장면에 가담하는 제 맥락- 다학문, 교수⋅학습 방법(‘질문중심’의 구성적 학습자 중심 수업, 플립러닝, 자기주도학습), 그 안에 무수히 잠복하고 있는 지능 및 역량-과 통합(만나거나 결과적으로 가능), 작동되는 인성개발을 위한 학습자중심 다학문 기반 인성교육 모델을 구축하였다. 결론 이로써 주체적 의지와 자발성을 출발(학습자의 질문)로 윤리적 실천, 감성적 사회실천을 견인할 인간완성을 향한 진보적 교수⋅학습 방법을 제안하는 인성교육의 시안적 모델을 기대할 수 있겠다.

포스트휴먼 시대 한국어 학습자의 다중문식성 교육

This study addresses the development of a new educational direction for Korean language education in the post-human era, namely, the development of multiliteracies education. As the world is now enveloped in COVID-19, all fields are seeking new breakthroughs, and education in particular is the first to adapt to the post-epidemic era. This prepares new types of human resources for the post-human era, and actively responds to new concepts such as environmental mutations and the AI era at a later stage. Based on the above, this study takes Korean language education as an example of a humanities subject, and discusses how it can find its own new point of development and adapt to its surroundings in a way that provides a new concept of education. The study of multiliteracies in Korean language education has evolved in recent years, largely due to the development of science, technology and multimedia. This external environment has necessitated changes in traditional language education and has urged educators to reconsider educational goals such as the overall literacy of students. The New London Group, the first to propose multiliteracies, redefined the concept in 2013 and added elements of social activism and ethics in the virtual society to it. These two concepts are, of course, at the forefront of the future development of multiliteracies education in Korean language education, which is to prepare students to think about harmonious relationships with non-humans and nature based on a human-centred approach, and to articulate new ethical and moral concepts within the social framework of the virtual space. In line with this educational objective, researchers should take into account the diversity of today’s Korean language learners, the diverse requirements of the learners’ learning purposes, and the specialised and complex dimensions of teaching content. Furthermore, in terms of changing ethical and moral concepts within the virtual space, researchers should focus on developing learners’ ability to identify social issues through the media and how to deal with these social issues in concrete behavioural terms. (Seoul National University)

Formation of earth ethics in the context of technological culture of the late modern era

Object of research: technological culture as a matrix of interaction of the components of the system "man – society – nature/Earth".
 Investigated problem: the substantiation of the meaning of the Ethics of the Earth in the context of technological culture, transforms the moral and value system of the late Modern era and provokes the emergence of the era of Posthumanism.
 The main scientific results: the definition of the technological culture of the late Modern era made it possible to determine the existing contradictions in the moral dimension of the existence of man and the Earth. It should be noted that in the context of the technological transformation of the Earth, the existing ethics as a monoparadigm of the Enlightenment does not correspond to the challenges of the beginning of the XXI century. It is emphasized that the ethical dimension of the introduction of technologies into the existence of the Earth is an indispensable component of modern scientific discourse. It is not only about the ethical dimension of technology, but also the importance of the formation of the Ethics of the Earth. This allows to conclude that a person determines its moral position relative to the Earth in the context of the technological transformation of the Earth's existence.
 The scope of practical use of the research results: the research results can be used in teaching such normative courses as "Philosophy", "Philosophical Anthropology", "Culturology" for students and undergraduates, graduate students of humanitarian and technical faculties.
 Innovative technological product: Ethics of the Earth destroys the concept of the Earth as an object that is external to humans. The anthropological dimension of the Earth testifies to the fact that a person should be clearly aware of the responsibility for its activities, since the existence of the Earth is a condition for the existence of a person.
 The scope of using the innovative technological product: the substantiation of the Earth Ethics corresponds to the polyparadigmatic optics of the modern post-non-classical scientific discourse, where a person is one of the constituent parts of the nature / Earth system. The post-non-classical paradigm eliminates the New European anthropocentrism, striking the consequences of which the person of the late Modern era feels. We are talking about environmental and anthropological crises that occur in the space of the Earth in the coordinates of technological culture.

LEARNING FROM NONHUMAN ANIMALS: TOWARDS AN ETHICS OF POSTHUMANITIES

Throughout the debated discourse of humanism, humans were considered as the only species endowed with reason and moral values. The result was an andro/anthropocentric humanism that divided everything into hierarchies and confined everything within boundaries. European model of higher education has undoubtedly been an enforcement of humanist ideas and ideologies which established certain humans as exceptional and superior to other ‘non-privileged’ humans and nonhuman animals. In this era of posthumanism all the imposed and imbibed boundaries between the human and nonhuman are being questioned, challenged and eliminated to create an open network of cross-species encounters. In this context this article through the theories of Posthuman philosophy and Critical Animal Studies proposes a shift towards posthuman ethics of inclusion and understanding in the field of classical humanities in India. This can be achieved by employing postontological methods to create and understand nonhuman representations. Theories and studies by posthuman scholars like Donna Haraway, Rosi Braidotti, Cary Wolfe, Graham Harman form the basis of this paper. This article is an acknowledgement as well as an advocation of the shift happening across disciplines from humanities to posthumanities, which however is yet to make a movement in education in India.

포스트휴먼 시대에서의 인간성과 기술의 관계 변화와 기독교 사회윤리적 책임에 관한 논의 - 포스트휴머니즘 사상들의 비판과 헤프너의 “하나님의 형상론”을 중심으로

포스트휴먼 시대에서의 인간성과 기술의 관계 변화와 기독교 사회윤리적 책임에 관한 논의 - 포스트휴머니즘 사상들의 비판과 헤프너의 “하나님의 형상론”을 중심으로

SF 영화와 드라마에 나타난 기술적 타자로서의 인공지능 캐릭터 연구

The practical use of artificial intelligence has been accelerated by the advancement of technology, which also allowed artificial intelligence to emerge in the real world and interact with humans. Media has been producing fictitious characters based on the AI as protagonist or antagonist. Through analyzing the process of forming an identity of AI characters in fictional movies and dramas, it will be possible to infer the answer to the socio-cultural problem of artificial intelligence.<BR> In this study, the process of forming identity of AI characters as ‘Technical Others’ was analyzed based on Frantz Fanon’s colonial theory. First of all, AI characters created by human perceive their physical differences as deficiencies through comparison with human. Second, they desire making mutual relationship with humans and becoming members of human society. In this process, they try to prove their human-like features through mutual-recognition. Finally, as the result of their desire, they experience ego-regression or the state of unconsciousness. This blank is filled with the identity as ‘the others’, and as a result, the AI characters solidify their formed identity as a ‘technical others’ in the hierarchical relationship of humanistic ideology.<BR> AI characters are non-human beings that break the boundaries of the binomial confrontation like subject-other, fiction-reality, furthermore, humanism-posthumanism. So through analyzing former AI characters, it is expected that the identity of AI characters can be defined socioculturally and offer alternative directions of preparing for the era of posthumanism.