Transhumanism : evolutionary futurism and the human technologies of utopia / Andrew Pilsch.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pilsch, Andrew, 1982- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Humanism.

Philosophical anthropology.

Physical Description:

244 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, [2017]

Summary:

Transhumanism posits that humanity is on the verge of rapid evolutionary change as a result of emerging technologies and increased global consciousness. This insight is often dismissed as a naive refraining of posthumanist thought and has even been vilified as "the most dangerous idea in the world" by Francis Fukuyama. Andrew Pilsch counters such critiques, arguing that transhumanism's Utopian rhetoric actively imagines radical new futures for the species and its habitat. Pilsch situates contemporary transhumanism within the longer history of a rhetorical mode he calls "evolutionary futurism," one that unifies diverse texts, philosophies, and theories of science and technology that anticipate a radical explosion in humanity's cognitive, physical, and cultural potentialities. By conceptualizing transhumanism as a rhetoric as opposed to an obscure group of fringe figures, he explores the intersection of three major paradigms that shape contemporary Western intellectual life: cybernetics, evolutionary biology, and spiritualism. His work traces the belief in a digital, evolutionary, and collective future through a range of texts by theologians and mystics, biologists and computer scientists, political philosophers and economic thinkers, conceptual artists and Golden Age science-fiction writers. Unearthing the history of evolutionary futurism, Pilsch concludes, allows us to more clearly see the novel contributions that transhumanism offers for escaping our current geopolitical bind by inspiring radical Utopian thought. Book jacket.

Contents:

An inner transhumanism: modernism and cognitive evolution

Astounding transhumanism!: evolutionary supermen and the golden age of science fiction

Toward omega: hedonism, suffering, and the evolutionary vanguard

Transhuman aesthetics: the new, the lived, and the cute

Acceleration and evolutionary futurist utopian practice.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Pilsch, Andrew, 1982- Transhumanism.

ISBN:

9781517901011

1517901014

9781517901028

1517901022

OCLC:

973879959