“Was heute noch wie ein Märchen klingt, kann morgen Wirklichkeit sein. Hier ist ein Märchen von übermorgen.“ „What today sounds like a fairytale can be reality tomorrow. This is a fairytale of the future.“ – Introduction to Raumschiff Orion, German science fiction series in the 1960s

This project makes the bold attempt of finding keywords describing the 21st century, a century that only just begun. It seems reasonable to focus on keywords that make strong implications on future developments; developments that will determine our fate for the next decades to come. Therefore, in this essay I will focus on outlining a discourse that is reflecting technological progress and imagining human lifeforms in the (maybe not so) far future. I will talk about the idea of the transhuman.

Along with many media theorists I employ a broad interpretation of the term media. Thus I use it almost congruently with technology. Also I will have to ignore the heavy intersections with the concept of the posthuman since it addresses a similar idea from a very different perspective and thus demarcating post- and transhuman from one another would extend the scope of this essay. [1]


^{[1] For the interested reader, in a shortened version it can be summarized that posthumanism is a #philosophical discourse characterized by continental-European postmodernism. In contrast to transhumanism’s quest for intensifying humanistic ideas of a free individual posthumanism is criticizing the humanist belief in the superiority of mankind. Also most posthumanists are rather techno-pessimistic and reject technology. However, both discourses are united in their search for a new conceptualization of the human. (Sorgner&Ranisch 2014)}

Begin this path: Transhuman – Elisa Budian

1. A glimpse into the future
2. New possibilities and old fears
3. Origins and implications of transhumanism
4. Religious scope
5. Body 2.0
6. In love with a machine?
7. Conclusion
8. Bibliography

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