Submitted by Aline Batista (alinehb.ufpel@gmail.com) on 2017-06-01T19:23:00Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Dissertação Ânderson Martins Pereira.pdf: 2096376 bytes, checksum: c8d534d84766ab57170b657519498fe1 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Aline Batista (alinehb.ufpel@gmail.com) on 2017-06-01T19:34:44Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Dissertação Ânderson Martins Pereira.pdf: 2096376 bytes, checksum: c8d534d84766ab57170b657519498fe1 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-01T19:34:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Dissertação Ânderson Martins Pereira.pdf: 2096376 bytes, checksum: c8d534d84766ab57170b657519498fe1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-02-23 / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul - FAPERGS / Na contemporaneidade, o corpo tem sido largamente discutido e industrializado. As distopias contemporâneas têm tornado mais agudas as problemáticas do corpo em suas narrativas, uma vez que o gênero distopia é extremamente arraigado à sociedade que o concebe, transpondo para a história os temores dessa coletividade de forma pungente e em narrativas que em geral se projetam para o futuro da humanidade. Estabelecida a relação direta entre distopia e sociedade, este trabalho baseia-se na concepção de Eduardo Marks de Marques, na qual existem três vertentes na constituição do gênero. A fase atual ou terceira fase distópica tem sido vigente nos últimos trinta anos e tem por característica elementar a discussão de corpos erigidos a partir de um ideal capitalista de perfeição. Sob esta perspectiva, os romances Divergente (2012), Insurgente (2013) e Convergente (2014), escritos por Veronica Roth, se apropriam de elementos distópicos de obras clássicas. Entre estes elementos pode-se listar o apagamento da história, soros para contenção e identificação social e criação de uma nova sociedade dentro de outra já estabelecida. Neste viés, pretende-se estabelecer uma comparação entre os romances da trilogia Divergente, que se enfocam na transfiguração do corpo, e alguns romances distópicos clássicos que são centradas em uma crítica às políticas sociais. A partir das conexões com estes dois momentos do gênero e também a partir de algumas utopias, este trabalho pretende verificar como elementos sociais são traduzidos na narrativa de Veronica Roth, tendo em vista a troca da problemática política para a do corpo transfigurado. / In the contemporaneity, the body has been widely discussed and industrialized. The contemporary dystopias have made more acute the issues of body in their narratives, since the genre dystopia is extremely ingrained to the society that conceives it by transposing into a story the fears of this collectivity in a pungent way and in narratives that generally project themselves to the future of humankind. Having established the direct relationship between dystopia and society, this work is based on the conception of Eduardo Marks de Marques, in which there are three strands in the constitution of the genre. The present phase or third dystopian turn has been in force for the last thirty years and has, as an elementary characteristic, the discussion of bodies erected from a capitalist ideal of perfection. In this perspective, the novels Divergent (2012), Insurgent (2013) and Convergent (2014), by Veronica Roth, update dystopian elements from classic works. Among the elements there can be enlisted the history erasing, the sera for containment and social identification and the creation of a new society within another already established. In this bias, we seek to establish a comparison between the novels of the Divergent Trilogy, which focuses on the transfiguration of the body, and some classic novels that are centered on a critique of social policies. From the connections with these two moments of the genre and also from another classic utopias, this work aims to verify how social elements are translated in the narrative of Veronica Roth, in view of the exchange of the political problematic for a transfigured body.

Advances in cybernetic and nanotechnological body modifications currently allow for enhancements to human physical and mental function which exceed human species-based norms. This thesis examines body modification and human enhancement from two perspectives—Roman Catholicism and Transhumanism— in order to contribute to bioethical deliberations regarding enhancement technologies. Roman Catholicism has a longstanding tradition of bioethical discourse, informing the healthcare directives of Roman Catholic institutions. Transhumanism is more recent movement that endorses body modifications and human enhancements as a means of individual betterment and social evolution. The thesis first considers definitions of human enhancement and levels of normalcy in connection to cybernetic and nanotechnological bionic implants, and outlines a series of criteria to assess a technology’s potential bioethical acceptability: implantability, permanency, power, and public interaction. The thesis then describes Roman Catholicism’s response to non-enhancing decorative body modifications (cosmetic surgeries, common decorative modifications such as tattoos and piercings, and uncommon modifications such as scarifications and brandings) in order to establish a basis for possible Roman Catholic responses to enhancing cybernetic and nanotechnological modifications. This is followed by an analysis from a Roman Catholic perspective of the major social issues brought forward by enhancement technologies: commodification, eugenics, vulnerability, and distributive justice. Turning to Transhumanism, the thesis describes the origins and philosophy of the movement, and then discusses the bioethical principles it advances with regard to human enhancement. The thesis concludes by locating points of convergence between Transhumanism and Roman Catholicism that could be the basis of more widely accepted ethical guidelines regarding modification technologies.

In this master project I investigate materiality, transhumanism and alternative ways of producing knowledge and new discussions in the fields of glass craft, electronics and biotechnology. I make do-it-yourself glass computers and explore the relation between body/human-machine/computer with a hacker approach.

abstract: According to my 2016 survey of ASU undergraduate students, 33% have used stimulant medications (e.g. Adderall or Ritalin) without a prescription to study. I view this practice as a step towards cognitive enhancement, which is the deliberate application of biotechnology to radically alter the human condition. From a foresight perspective, the ability to actively improve human beings, to take our evolutionary destiny into our own hands, may be a turning point on par with agriculture or the use of fossil fuels. The existential risks, however, may be greater than the benefits—and many of the most radical technologies have made little documented progress. I turn to an actual example where people are trying to make themselves marginally better at academic tasks, as a guide to how future transformative development in human enhancement may be incorporated into everyday practice. This project examines the history and context that led to the widespread use of stimulant medication on college campuses. I describe how Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), for which stimulant medication is prescribed and diverted, governs students, negotiates relationships between parents and school authorities, and manages anxieties resulting from a competitive neoliberal educational system. I extend this archeology of ADHD through the actions and ethical beliefs of college students, and the bioethical arguments for and against human enhancement. Through this work, I open a new space for an expanded role for universities as institutions capable of creating experimental communities supporting ethical cognitive enhancement. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Science and Technology Policy 2016

La technologie et le progrès technologique occupent une place centrale dans l'histoire et dans l'imaginaire américain. En même temps que la Révolution Industrielle apparaissent aux États-Unis les premières réelles expressions d'un utopisme technologique loin de se confiner à la littérature ou à la seule fiction - la nation et le monde pourront bientôt être transformés pour le meilleur par la technologie américaine. La science-fiction s'emparera bientôt de l'idée, traduisant aujourd'hui encore un rêve et des valeurs étroitement associés à l'identité et au projet national et reposant au cœur de l'imaginaire du pays. Le techno-utopisme contemporain, s'il s'appuie sur la « convergence NBIC » (Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno), tend cependant à se focaliser sur les transformations du corps humain lui-même. Le mouvement transhumaniste, qui s'attend à une transformation radicale du monde (la Singularité) grâce notamment aux nanotechnologies et aux intelligences artificielles, met ainsi l'accent sur l'impact que pourraient avoir ces technologies, ainsi que les biotechnologies (ingénierie génétique, cellules souches, clonage), sur un corps et une conscience améliorés ou « augmentés », ainsi que sur l'organisation sociale de demain. Tant est si bien qu'on ne pourrait bientôt plus parler d'humanité mais bien de posthumanité. Le cinéma de science-fiction hollywoodien, en tant que mode d'expression culturel central à la culture américaine moderne, met lui-même en scène et réfléchit ces rêves de sublimation et ces cauchemars de déshumanisation. Les films du corpus (les Tron, RoboCop, Star Trek First Contact et Insurrection, Gattaca, la trilogie Matrix, The 6th Day, The Island, The Surrogates, Terminator IV, les deux Iron Man, Avatar, notamment) proposent leurs propres versions successives des dilemmes liés aux avancées de demain mais aussi à l'interdépendance qui lie déjà les humains à leurs machines. Les acteurs en sont les machines elles-mêmes, ceux qui les contrôlent (le gouvernement fédéral, l'armée, les multinationales), les techno-utopistes et leurs ennemis Luddites, les scientifiques, les ingénieurs et les hackers, mais aussi une humanité fascinée presque malgré elle par la promesse technologique. Si cette dernière est souvent caricaturée, à Hollywood même, en un conflit opposant « technophiles » et « technophobes », les choses sont, même au cinéma, loin d'être aussi simples, en particulier depuis les années 1980. Et si la libération de l'oppression technologique passait par la technologie elle-même ? / L'auteur n'a pas fourni de résumé en anglais.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, austrian-born philosopher, wrote that “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world. All I know is what I have words for”. We tend to think so highly of our language because we think so highly about ourselves. Yet imagine be- ing able to communicate emotions without words. Words can’t express the visceral nature of our emotions. Words aren’t enough. How can we experience our emotional world, and others, in a more visceral, primitive way? This project proposes the creation of a new sense, using embodied technology, to allow human beings to have a different experience of each other’s emotions, through the study of the long distance relationship scenario. In this human augmentation scenario, design, and specially speculative design have an inherent power to create discussion, awareness and bring attention to how the new developed technologies could affect our existence. This project is meant to ask questions rather than nd a solution. It is meant for ev- eryone who is ready to think about the future of human beings and our evolution as a species. This document presents an overview of the ve (5) months project while detailing the extension of the work and exploration of the product proposed for emotional human augmentation.

Kandidatarbetets syfte är att undersöka mötet mellan människa och medium genom att undersöka hur människor relaterar till och tolkar mötet med ett medium. Undersökningen tar sin utgångspunkt i flera tänkbara kunskapsfält, bland annat posthumanism, transhumanism, tolkningsvetenskap. Dessa kunskapsfält prövas sedan i en gestaltning för att avgöra om kunskapen är relevant i förhållande till vårt ärende. / Ett möte mellan det fysiska och digitala utrymmet. Belyser både den ontologiska och konstvetenskapliga tolkningen och relationen mellan människa och medium. / Detta är en reflektionsdel till en digital medieproduktion.

Considérée comme l’avenir de la pratique médicale, la nanomédecine est l’application des nanotechnologies aux soins de santé. Plus qu’un nouveau domaine d’application technologique, la nanomédecine est porteuse d’un nouveau paradigme biomédical qui promeut une conception technoscientifique de la santé. Ce nouveau paradigme regroupe sous le préfixe nano l’ensemble des grandes tendances actuelles de la recherche en santé : la médecine prédictive, la médecine personnalisée et la médecine régénératrice. Centré sur le développement d’innovations visant au contrôle technique des éléments et des processus biologiques fondamentaux, ce nouveau paradigme se développe largement grâce au soutien des gouvernements et aux promesses économiques qu’il soulève. Il se construit à la croisée du scientifique, du politique et de l’économique. Interroger la nanomédecine revient alors à examiner plus largement la forme et les conditions du sens des innovations biomédicales et à soulever de la sorte les implications de la « technoscientifisation » des soins de santé.L’objectif de cette thèse est ainsi de rendre compte de la spécificité et des enjeux sociaux, culturels et politico-économiques caractéristiques du modèle biomédical technoscientifique porté par la nanomédecine à partir de sa conceptualisation sous la forme d’un idéaltype : la nanosanté. Si la nanomédecine renvoie de manière générale aux applications techniques de la nanotechnologie au domaine biomédical, la nanosanté renvoie aux diverses dimensions sociologiques constitutives de ces technologies et à leurs effets sur la santé et la société. Notre modèle de la nanosanté s’organise autour de trois dimensions : la transversalité, l’amélioration et la globalisation. Compte tenu de sa nature synthétique, ce modèle tridimensionnel permet d’aborder de front plusieurs questionnements cruciaux soulevés par le développement de la nanomédecine. Il permet d’éclairer le rapport contemporain à la santé et ses implications sur l’identité ; de mettre en lumière la centralité des technosciences dans la conception du progrès médical et social ; de mieux saisir les nouvelles formes globales de pouvoir sur la vie et les nouvelles formes d’inégalité et d’exploitation caractéristiques d’une société qui accorde une valeur grandissante à l’adaptabilité technique de l’humain et à l’économisation de la santé et du corps ; mais aussi de mieux comprendre le sens et les répercussions de l’engagement scientifique, politique et économique dans les innovations moléculaires et cellulaires. / Nanomedicine – the application of nanotechnology to medicine – is seen as the medicine of the future. Thus, nanomedicine is not just a new biomedical field. It carries a new biomedical paradigm promoting a technoscientific conception of healthcare. This new paradigm grows from and brings together the three current tendencies of healthcare research: predictive medicine, personalized medicine and regenerative medicine. Its focus is on the technical control of the molecular mechanisms underlying the biological development of the body. The growing of this new biomedical paradigm is largely the result of government supports and economic potentials. It is both a scientific and a politico-economic construction. In that sense, analysing nanomedicine means analysing the form and the conditions of the current biomedical progress. In other words, nanomedicine helps us to grasp and understand the issues and implications of the ‘‘technoscientifization’’ of healthcare. This thesis aims to highlight the socio-cultural nature of the technoscientific model of healthcare promoted by the nanomedicine. To do so, I propose the construction of an ideal-type of this technoscientific model, which I call nanohealth. If nanomedicine refers to the different technological applications of nanotechnology to medicine, nanohealth refers to the different sociological dimensions and impacts of these applications on health and society. The nanohealth ideal-type is constructed around three dimensions: transversality, enhancement and globalization. The synthetic nature of this tridimensional ideal-type helps us to tackle the crucial issues surrounding the development of the nanomedicine. It helps us to understand the meaning and impacts of the scientific, political and economic engagement in nanomedicine; to highlight the centrality of technoscience in the cultural conception of medical and social progress; to grasp the new forms of power upon life and identity, and the new forms of inequality and exploitation, which are characteristics of a society focusing on the technical adaptability of human being and the economization of health and body.

Advances in cybernetic and nanotechnological body modifications currently allow for enhancements to human physical and mental function which exceed human species-based norms. This thesis examines body modification and human enhancement from two perspectives—Roman Catholicism and Transhumanism— in order to contribute to bioethical deliberations regarding enhancement technologies. Roman Catholicism has a longstanding tradition of bioethical discourse, informing the healthcare directives of Roman Catholic institutions. Transhumanism is more recent movement that endorses body modifications and human enhancements as a means of individual betterment and social evolution. The thesis first considers definitions of human enhancement and levels of normalcy in connection to cybernetic and nanotechnological bionic implants, and outlines a series of criteria to assess a technology’s potential bioethical acceptability: implantability, permanency, power, and public interaction. The thesis then describes Roman Catholicism’s response to non-enhancing decorative body modifications (cosmetic surgeries, common decorative modifications such as tattoos and piercings, and uncommon modifications such as scarifications and brandings) in order to establish a basis for possible Roman Catholic responses to enhancing cybernetic and nanotechnological modifications. This is followed by an analysis from a Roman Catholic perspective of the major social issues brought forward by enhancement technologies: commodification, eugenics, vulnerability, and distributive justice. Turning to Transhumanism, the thesis describes the origins and philosophy of the movement, and then discusses the bioethical principles it advances with regard to human enhancement. The thesis concludes by locating points of convergence between Transhumanism and Roman Catholicism that could be the basis of more widely accepted ethical guidelines regarding modification technologies.

Are we cyborgs or humans? This question is at the heart of this investigation, and the implications of it are all around us. In Christian theology, humans are seen as uniquely made in the image of God (imago dei). This has been taken to mean various things, but broadly, it suggests an understanding of humans as somehow discrete from, and elevated above, other creatures in how they resemble God. Cyborgs mark a provocative attempt to challenge such notions, especially in the work of Donna Haraway, whose influential ‘Cyborg Manifesto’ (1991) elaborated a way of understanding cyborgs as figures for the way we live our lives not as discrete or elevated, but as deeply hybridised and involved in complex ways with technologies, as well as with other beings. Significantly, Haraway uses the cyborg to critique notions of the human rooted in theological anthropology and anthropogeny: the cyborg was not created in Eden. This assertion is the starting point of my investigation of cyborgs and humans in theological anthropology. Analysis of this position is broken down into three key concepts throughout the investigation that form the three main parts of the structure: (1) What is the significance of Eden, specifically as a point of origin? What ideas do we inherit from Genesis mythologies, and how do they influence our multitudinous understandings of not only humans, but also cyborgs, that range from the Terminator, to astronauts, to hospital patients? What does it mean to say that the cyborg cannot recognise Eden or even dream of the possibility of return?(2) If the cyborg was not created in Eden, then is it still to be considered as creaturely? How does this figure tessellate into, or challenge, notions of human nature and sin in the absence of an origin or teleology in a Garden? What commentaries of the human as created in God’s image can we compare this to, and how do all of these readings bear on how we see ourselves and technologies? (3) More constructively, given that the cyborg amalgamates the organic and the mechanic, and discusses hybridity, how might this be appropriated by theological anthropology? What does it mean to say that we are hybrids? From these questions, I reflect on tensions between the cyborg and the human, and make suggestions for a theological appropriation of the cyborg figure that takes heed of the emphasis on hybridity by applying it to notions of Eden and imago dei. The overarching aim is to decentre and destabilise the human, and to refigure it within its broader networks that are inclusive of other creatures, technologies, and God.