Can We Imagine a Human Future?: Afrofuturism, Transhumanism, and Human Life in Christ
This paper pushes theological engagements with transhumanism to attend to issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation through analysis of three works of speculative fiction – Greg Egan’s Diaspora, Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy, and Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti trilogy. Where Egan, alongside m...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group
2021
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| In: |
Political theology
Year: 2021, Volume: 22, Issue: 4, Pages: 332-349 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Afrofuturismus
/ Transhumanism
/ Bioethics
/ Christian life
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| IxTheo Classification: | CB Christian life; spirituality CF Christianity and Science NCJ Ethics of science |
| Further subjects: | B
Human Enhancement
B Afrofuturism B Nnedi Okorafor B Transhumanism B Octavia Butler B Bioethics B Greg Egan |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This paper pushes theological engagements with transhumanism to attend to issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation through analysis of three works of speculative fiction – Greg Egan’s Diaspora, Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy, and Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti trilogy. Where Egan, alongside many transhumanists, imagines a future that is mostly disembodied, Afrofuturist thinkers like Butler and Okorafor successfully integrate speculation about the future of humanity with attention to the social formation of bodies. Butler illuminates how histories of oppression are relevant for bioethical debates around purported human enhancements, while Okorafor draws attention to the social practices and bodily constraints on those practices that enable participation in concrete human communities. In light of their work, the paper suggests that theological debates with transhumanists should move away from the question of the limits of human nature, and toward questions of how bodily practices humanize us and enable fellowship with the human Christ. |
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| ISSN: | 1743-1719 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Political theology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/1462317X.2021.1890932 |