1999.
RoboCop. 1987.
The Hunger Games. 2012ff.
Transformers. 2007ff.
Transcendence. 2013.
X-Men. 2000ff.
3.8 TV Series
Black Mirror. 2011ff.
Life after People. 2009/10.
Orphan Black. 2013ff.
Stargate SG-1. 1997ff.
Westworld. 2016ff.
Years and Years. 2019ff.
3.9 Documentaries
Fixed: The Science/Fiction of Human Enhancement. 2013.
How Would Immortality Change the Way We Live? 2017 (6 min.).
Ray Kurzweil: The Coming Singularity. www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uIzS1uCOcE
Transcendent Man. 2009.
This docu chronicles the life and visions of Ray Kurzweil, an American futurist, hailed by Forbes as “the ultimate thinking machine”. It also presents his daring vision of the Singularity, i.e. a point in the near future when technology will be changing so quickly that we will need to enhance ourselves with artificial intelligence to keep up.
Transhumanism. 2019.www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmS_aL-cKxU
Visions of the Future: Science and Technology. 2018.
This is a collection of 6 x 5–7-minute clips on regenerative medicine, genetic match-making, the city car, the bionic boot, etc.
3.10 Music Videos
A Capella Science. 2016. CRISPR-Cas9
This hilarious Mr. Sandman parody satirizes the Nobel Prize (2020) winning genetic engineering technique by which the genomes of living organisms can be modified:
(lyrics) … Cas9
Cheap and precise
Rewriting genomes from microbes to mice
And soon the humble human being
CRISPR-Cas9 bring me a gene …
Dorian Electra. 2015. Forever Young: A Love Song to Ray Kurzweil.
Lady Gaga. 2011. Born This Way.
Lady Gaga plays with identity in a post-/transhumanist manner (Miller 2020):
is an alien goddess, a zombie, a dancer, an evil goddess, a humanoid life form; 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.
