video cuts between shots of her different roles ▶ her identity is constantly changing
common binaries are broken down: good/evil (“How can I protect something so perfect without evil?”), male/female, white/nonwhite (backup dancers in shadow ▶ gender and racial distinctions obscure), human/non-human (new creatures: “a race within the human race”, “bears no prejudice, no judgment” ▶ transhumanist ideas: more than human, human enhancement)
lyrics: “I was born this way” ▶ contradiction to posthuman message (universal and constant nature in each person) or emphasis of posthumanism (“same DNA” ▶ breakdown of binaries)?
music: autotuning, electronically manipulating the human voice ▶ a hybrid human-robotic sound ▶ distinction between human and machine distorted.
Katy Perry. 2011. E.T.
3.11 Songs
Coldplay. 2005. Talk.
Grimes. 2012. Be a Body.
Neurotech. 2014. Transhuman.
Post Human Era. 2011. Building the Machine.
Queen. 1986. Who Wants to Live Forever.
The Lisps. 2011. Singularity.
3.12 Computer Games
Deus Ex. 2000ff.
Fallout 4. 2015.
BioShock. 2007ff.
4. Scenarios
Apart from the impulses given in the section above, teachers could be inspired by the following lesson sequences:
Carrying out a blog project discussing the question “What makes us human?”, including a class blog and individual student blogs (Herbrechter 2019)
Studying representations of posthumans in visual literature, making use of picture books and graphic novels, and finally having pupils design their own posthumans (Ludwig/Shipley 2019)
Organizing debates on the pros and cons of certain transcultural technologies, e.g. cryonics
Planning an intermedial sequence on Ray Kurzweil with the help of his book on singularity, a documentary and a music video (see above)
Addressing the ethical dilemmas of cloning by reading a novel by Ishiguro and a play by Churchill (Boller/Voigts 2019)
Focusing the concept of otherness by treating a theatre play, a TV series and a novel (Hoydis 2019)
Discussing quotations, e.g.▷ It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God – but to create him. (Arthur C. Clarke)▷ It is a postmodern truth universally acknowledged that today’s parody is tomorrow’s reality. (Csicsery-Ronay)▷ L’existence précède essence. (Jean Paul Sartre)
5. Potential
All these teaching scenarios already hint at the benefits of this topic in TEFL. Trans- and posthumanism are themes of timeless topicality and existential relevance. Motifs such as the striving for immortality can be found in the Gilgamesh Epic and the historical search for the source of eternal youth. In addition, are there more important questions than “What is man?” and “What can/should/must/may he/she be?”?
These questions should also arouse intrinsic interest among our adolescent students. Technological future scenarios generally evoke excitement and creativity in our “digital native” learners.
Furthermore, there is no shortage of fascinating media and materials for a lively discussion of the usually very controversial transhumanist concepts – rather the agony of choice. By now, there are canonical literary texts, for which secondary sources are already available (e.g. Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go).
Finally, the discourse on transhumanism in the field of research methods could lead to a critical reflection on the empirical turn, which discriminates against hermeneutic-interpretive methods in favour of quantitative-statistical methods. Snaza/Weaver (2014: 2), for example, attack this “methodocentrism” – “the belief that particular, pre-formed methods can guarantee the validity of an intellectual investigation into the world by factoring out the vicissitudes of the observer’s entanglement with the world.” However, purely empirical methods do not do justice to the complexity of human relationships and learning processes – this “more-than-human world” (Ib.).
6. Challenges
Where there are benefits, there must be problems as well. “Nichts ist ohne sein Gegenteil wahr”, as Martin Walser once claimed, or “Sic et Non” (“Yes and No”), as Peter Abelard, the medieval French scholastic philosopher, stated in the 12th century.
Dealing with trans-/posthumanism in the classroom presents the teacher with two challenges which are anything but insignificant. In terms of discourse evaluation, it is often difficult to distinguish between serious argumentation and fashionable hype. What is catchy neologism, euphoric take-off into dream worlds, sectarian dogmatism, irrational speculation, fanaticism, nihilism, expression of human self-hatred, fear-of-death-driven fantasy? And where are we dealing with scientifically founded and ethically reflected developments? With some advocates of transhumanism, one believes to be able to diagnose symptoms of over-confidence. Hype or hubris?
From a didactic point of view, high demands are put on the teacher’s competence. Who possesses sufficient domain-specific knowledge in artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, simulated reality, super-intelligence, chemical brain preservation, 3D bio-printing, mind uploading, cryonics? “Dealing with the posthuman as an encounter with alterity on various levels presupposes and requires quite a lot of theoretical knowledge, textual-analytical skills and understanding” (Hoydis 2019: 175). The complexity and heterogeneity of the topic is further exacerbated by partly contradictory positions and intersections between post- and trans-, between humanism and feminism, colonialism, modernism etc.: “One runs the risk of overburdening the curriculum with just one too many ‘-isms’, ‘post-’, and ‘trans-’, each of which, of course, easily warrants instructional consideration and a class (or several) on its own” (Ib.).
7. Conclusion
Well, who is right: Is transhumanism “the most dangerous idea in the world” (Fukuyama 2009) or “the most daring, courageous, visionary and idealistic endeavor of mankind” (Bailey 2004)?
We humans are – and have always been – a work in progress of creation or evolution. “Up till now human life has generally been, as Hobbes described it, ‘nasty, brutish and short’” (Huxley 1957). Are we not called upon “to think beyond humanism, anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism” (Callus et al. 2014: 112)? Bartosch demands a critical discourse “with the future, with global survival and with living together” (2019: 13). To let the biologist, “founder” of transhumanism (and brother of the great writer Aldous) once again have his say: “The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself” (Huxley 1957) – with Julian Huxley consciously inserting the short conditional clause “if it wishes”.
Bibliography
Abrams, Jerold (2004). “Pragmatism, Artificial Intelligence, and Posthuman Bioethics.” In: Human Studies. 27 (3), 241–258.
Bartosch, Roman/Hoydis, Julia (eds.) (2019). Teaching the Posthuman. Heidelberg: Winter.
Bartosch, Roman/Hoydis, Julia (2019). “Introduction: Teaching Otherwise? Towards Posthuman(ist)