RT Article
T1 Can We Imagine a Human Future?: Afrofuturism, Transhumanism, and Human Life in Christ
JF Political theology
VO 22
IS 4
SP 332
OP 349
A1 Lenow, Joseph E. ca. 20./21. Jh.
LA English
PB Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group
YR 2021
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1760263508
AB 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.
K1 Nnedi Okorafor
K1 Octavia Butler
K1 Greg Egan
K1 Bioethics
K1 Human Enhancement
K1 Transhumanism
K1 Afrofuturism
DO 10.1080/1462317X.2021.1890932