In this program, Humanity 2.0, Steve Fuller, Rachel Armstrong, China Mieville and Andy Miah ask, How will we ascribe status to human life in a ‘post-human’ world? Our high-profile panel of speakers explore the hidden agendas behind our values and attitudes toward the place of ‘the human’ in today’s societies, and debate what must now be a key issue for the 21st century."
Bio
Rachel Armstrong
Rachel Armstrong is an interdisciplinary researcher and sci-fi writer. She is a Senior Lecturer in Research & Enterprise at the University of Greenwich & Co-director of architectural research group, AVATAR. Her speciality is Synthetic Biology & Architecture.
Her pioneering collaborative work on the 'Future Venice' project proposes that it may be possible to stop the historic city from sinking into the mud on which its foundations are based, by growing an artificial limestone reef underneath it.
This could be engineered using 'protocells', a programmable, life-like chemical system that can make artificial shell-like material, as well as working symbiotically with the native wildlife in the Venetian waterways.
Steve Fuller
Steve Fuller holds the Auguste Comte Chair in Social Epistemology in the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick, UK.
He is acknowledged with founding social epistemology and has published over 17
books including Kuhn vs Popper and The Intellectual. His latest book is Humanity
2.0: What it Means to be Human Past, Present and Future (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2011).
Andy Miah
Andy Miah, BA, MPhil, PhD, is Chair of Ethics and Emerging
Technologies in the Faculty of Business & Creative Industries at the
University of the West of Scotland, Fellow of the Institute for Ethics and
Emerging Technologies, USA and Fellow at FACT, the Foundation for Art and
Creative Technology, UK.
He is author of "Genetically Modified Athletes" (2004
Routledge) and co-author with Dr Emma Rich of "˜The Medicalization of
Cyberspace" (2008, Routledge) and Editor of "Human Futures: Art in an Age of
Uncertainty" (2008, Liverpool University Press and FACT). Professor Miah's
research discusses the intersections of art, ethics, technology and culture and
he has published broadly in areas of emerging technologies, particularly
related to human enhancement and the philosophical and ethical issues
concerning technology in society.
China Mieville
China Miéville is the author of several works of fiction
and non-fiction.
His novels, which have won the Arthur C Clarke, Hugo, World
Fantasy, British Science Fiction and British Fantasy Awards, include Embassytown,
The City & the City, and Perdido Street Station. His non-fiction includes Between Equal
Rights, a study of international law. He teaches Creative Writing at
Warwick University.
