These topics will be introduced during the sessions, upon which the students will ciritically present and discuss the assigned readings, leading to a better understanding of the issues at hand and the arguments used by different stakeholders. bioart of Art Orienté Objet, May the Horse Live in Me, 2011 Sonja Bäumel, Expanded Self, 2012 Jae Rhim Lee, The Infinity Burial Project). the court case on the use of HeLa cells in medical research, the court case on gene patents of the breast cancer gene BRCA).Īnimal Ecologies and Anthropocene (cf. Gene patenting and ownership rights to human tissue and cells (cf.
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art project Jalila Essaïdi, Bulletproof skin, TV series Black mirror, film Gattaca, embryo selection). TV Show: Black Mirror, “The Entire History of You”). Donna Haraway, A cyborg manifesto, the film Blade runner, the Japanese anime film Ghost in the shell, Ex Machina, ). Since artists and film directors often reflect on these topics in critical ways, the course will approach the different issues with a focus on case studies of art works (with a particular interest in the field of Bio-art and science fiction), movies and TV shows, in order to examine the cultural and artistic reflection on these developments. For each of the topics, reading material will be provided in the form of articles and book chapters, to be discussed together. To this end a series of seminar meetings will deal with topics such as those listed below (the list will be amended and expanded upon). When do methods of tempering with our DNA and bodies or enhancing ourselves with technology start to make us artificial? Are we artificially creating new subspecies and genders? Are our fears, of genetic manipulation and the rise of the cyborg endangering our core human nature, justified? In this course we will, together, address such questions and come to a new understanding of various aspects of the human identity. It brings together aspects from biology, technology, science, culture and art to complicate the deceivingly simple category of the ‘natural human’. This course sets out to discuss novel ways in which we view ourselves as humans. New developments in biotechnology, science and cultural studies rapidly changing our ideas of what it means to be human, leading to interesting debates within the Humanities. The notion of an essential human identity is, furthermore, deeply rooted in a dichotomous understanding of gender identities.
Traditional ideas about human identity have been essentialistic, assuming clear distinctions between the human species and other animal species on the one hand – based on our self-awareness – and between the human species and man-made machines on the other – based on an essentialistic dichotomy between the natural and the artificial. The idea of an autonomous, individual identity is often seen as a Western invention, stemming from the Enlightenment period. The number of participants is limited to 25. This course is only available for students in the BA International Studies.