Sex – 4th JCU Posthuman Studies Workshop

During the workshop, we will talk about everything from sex robots, to non-binary accounts of sexuality and post-gender theories. Please contact Prof. Sorgner, if you are interested in attending and/or participating in the event the event: www.sorgner.de

Will sexual identity be nothing more than a myth, a fictional narrative, in posthuman times? What does sex mean, if it exists independently of reproduction, and maybe also independent of living organisms? Is it still sex, if humans are intimate with robots? Why has sex been associated solely with living organism? If evolution has provided the strategy of mating on behalf of the reproduction of the species, whereby sexual pleasure was a side-effect, could we envisage, or detect an ongoing evolutionary and experimental transition toward an inter-species, hybrid, non-binary quality of sexual attraction independent of any reproductive goals? Is ‘body’ pure embodiment (in anything that can host it)? Is a computer with sensors, which is an embodied robot, an entity with a body?

Are instincts such as shame, love, narcissism, passion formed by cultural selection or are they engrained in organisms as such? How would women (cross-culturally encouraged to protect their bodies from sexual pleasure) re-define sex away from its ‘history’, and closer to the condition of the cyborg? Is the binary distinction between men and women at all feasible, given that the distinction is closely connected to that of sexual attraction as well as reproduction?

Keynote speaker:

Maurizio Balistreri: https://www.senzalinea.it/giornale/intervista-a-maurizio-balistreri-autore-di-sex-robot-lamore-al-tempo-delle-macchine/

Trudy Barber: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8LQFdeNiSw

Organizers:

Brunella Antomarini

Stefan Lorenz Sorgner

Where?:

John Cabot University, Via della Lungara, 233, 00165 Roma RM

When?:

Saturday the 1st of February 2020 from 10 am until 6 pm.

Sponsorship:

The event is sponsored by the Department of History and the Humanities of John Cabot University Rome: https://www.johncabot.edu/

By the way, there is a new high class book series dedicated to Posthuman Studies:

https://schwabe.ch/produkttypen/reihen/posthuman-studies/

The oldest publishing house in the world, Schwabe publishing (founded 1488), deeply rooted in the humanist tradition, embraces the intellectual engagement with one of the most significant debates of our time: Posthuman Studies: From Critical Posthumanism to Transhumanism. The series explicitly targets the international audience. All books will be peer-reviewed, copyedited, and internationally distributed. Please submit your manuscipt to Prof. Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, if you want it to be considered for this book series: www.sorgner.de

Here you find some more information about this newly launched high-class book series:

http://beyondhumanism.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Flyer_Call-for-Manuscripts_Final_low.pdf

Please also consider the following book series dedicated to the topic “Beyond Humanism”:

https://www.peterlang.com/view/serial/BEYHU

If you merely wish to publish a paper, please consider submitting it to the “Journal of Posthuman Studies” which was launched by Penn State University Press in 2017. It is the first academic journal explicitly deDicated to the posthuman:

http://www.psupress.org/Journals/jnls_JPHS.html

AI: Ontology, Ethics, Aesthetics

AI: Ontology, Ethics, Aesthetics

3rd Posthuman Studies Workshop

Organized by the History and Humanities Department of John Cabot University

Organizers: Brunella Antomarini, Francesco Lapenta, Stefan Lorenz Sorgner

SEPTEMBER 21, 10am-6PM

Boardroom

GUARINI CAMPUS

JOHN CABOT UNIVERSITY,

Via della Lungara 233

Rome, Italy

 

Towards General AI? The next challenge

 

In the humanistic tradition, it used to be upheld that only humans count as persons, and that personhood established a hierarchy, and unique moral status, of humans vs non-human species. Many believe that after Darwin this dichotomy is no longer plausible. All entities which have self-consciousness and the capacity to have cognitive abilities, agency and suffer, seem to deserve a special moral consideration. Yet, there are differences with respect to the capacity of suffering, depending on the qualities entities possess, in terms of consciousness or sentience. The decisive questions are the following ones: is sentience necessary for personhood? There are humans which cannot feel physiological pain. Should they not count as persons? Cognition might not be dependent on consciousness either, as there are indications for the possibility of non-conscious cognition. Or, viceversa, cognition can also lead to a type of cognitive suffering, which AIs with sensors (embodied AIs) could also realize.

These ethical considerations create the background against which a vibrant discussion is emerging about the moral status of non-organic entities such as AIs and Robots. And what are the moral and ethical responsibilities of humans in relation to their different and possible developments. The contemporary and possible future evolutions in AI seem to challenge the organic mind/brain bases of cognition, self-consciousness, suffering and the definition of cognitive abilities such as intelligence and creativity.

One issue is whether there is some structure common to both, or whether the AI ‘creativity’ is envisaged as the next evolutionary step, an emergence which cannot be broken down into simpler elements or anything that compares to, or it is an exclusive function of the organic chemistry (flesh-metal or wet-dry opposition). After the failure of the first cybernetics to use AI as a model of the brain, and after general systems theories developing from the second order cybernetics, there might be a new attempt to consider the character of the relationship between organic cognition (probable inference) and artificial cognition (big data).

And finally whether you assume AIs or robots are supposed to reproduce human abilities, creativity and aspect, or evolving on their own; develop human like cognition, morals and ability of suffering, or redefine their biological and human definitions, a question persists about the moral agency and responsibility of humanity in the development of these technological evolutions, and their effects on the environment in which they will eventually co-exist. The moral dilemma of the possible futures questions the human choices that will lead to a more or less desirable future, and whether it’s at all possible to define it, and whether it’s at all possible to ethically guide and control them, or if in a somewhat uncontrollable and competitive Darwinian evolution, as in nature’s own amoral evolution, they will follow their own unpredictable path to redefine consciousness, creativity, intelligence and our human hegemonic moral ambition.

 

10-11.30 am: Section I – Systemic relationship brain/AI

12-1pm: Keynote speaker: – Domenico Parisi from Rome CNR

1-2.30pm Lunch Break

2.30-4pm: Section II – Privacy, Power, and Financial Potential; AI Governance; The Moral Status of Complex Algorithms; New Juridical Issues

4-4.30 pm: Coffee Break

4.30-6pm: Section III – A new ‘techne’ bentween Art and Science

If you wish to receive further information or would like to participate in the workshop, please contact Prof. Dr. Stefan Lorenz Sorgner: ssorgner@johncabot.edu

Beyond Anthropocentrism

Beyond Anthropocentrism

2nd Posthuman Studies Workshop

When?
Saturday 9 February

Where?
Aula Magna
John Cabot University
Via della Lungara 233
00165 Rome, Italy

On behalf of the Department of History and Humanities, Brunella Antomarini, Silvia Panizza and Stefan Lorenz Sorgner are honored to present a one-day workshop on the increasingly pressing question of the limits of the human, this time approached by questioning the boundaries between humans and other animals.

Human-centered thinking continues to come under scrutiny in the light of technological developments and of current environmental damages and harm to non-human animals. Therefore, this workshop addresses urgent issues of planetary importance, by redefining the concept of humanity and its special status, and the ethical concept of personhood.

Students, faculty, and external speakers will engage in debates on two key questions: the boundaries between humans and other animals, considered in their moral dimension, and the conditions for animal personhood.

The workshop will involve both JCU students and JCU professors, as well as external scholars, in three roundtable sessions.

 

Beyond Anthropocentrism
Saturday 9th of  February 2019
2nd JCU Posthuman Studies Workshop

11:45-12:00 Welcome address by the organizers

12:00 – 13:30 Should there be non-human persons? & Can ethics be non-anthropocentric?

Sheran Munasinghe Arachchige
Ihsan Baris Gedizlioglu
Jessica Lombard
Nicolas Lombardo
Eduardo Servillo
Camilla Palermo
Jessica Lombard
Steven Umbrello

13:30 – 14:30 Lunch break

14:30 -16:00  Can ethics be non-anthropocentric?
Keynote speaker: Simone Pollo, La Sapienza

Alessandro Fazzi
Antonio Lopez
Silvia Panizza
Dario Cecchi

16:00 – 16:15
Coffee break

16:15 – 16:30
Video by Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico

16:30 – 18 Should there be non-human persons?

Alberto Micali
Brunella Antomarini
Stefan Lorenz Sorgner

Stefan Sorgner Edits New Book Series on Posthuman Studies

The oldest publishing house in the world, Schwabe publishing (founded 1488), deeply rooted in the humanist tradition, embraces the intellectual engagement with one of the most significant debates of our time: Posthuman Studies: From Critical Posthumanism to Transhumanism.

Posthuman Studies is a fully peer reviewed, multidisciplinary series devoted to high-quality analyses of and reflections on what it is to be human in an age of rapid technological, scientific, cultural and social evolution. As the boundaries between human and ‘the other’, technological, biological and environmental, are eroded and perceptions of normalcy are challenged, they have generated a range of ethical, philosophical, cultural, and artistic questions that this series seeks to address. Drawing on theory from critical posthumanism and the normative reflections of transhumanism, it encourages constructive but rigorously critical dialogue through research monographs and edited volumes. The series publishes books on issues such as the consequences of enhancement, especially bioenhancement, transhumanist, and posthumanist accounts of “the human,” and any and all ways in which they impact culture and society. The series encourages submissions from a range of disciplines such as: philosophy, sociology, literary studies, cultural studies, critical theory, media studies, bioethics, medical ethics, anthropology, religious studies, disability studies, gender studies, queer studies, critical animal studies, environmental studies, and the visual arts.The series explicitly targets the international audience. All books will be peer-reviewed, copyedited, and internationally distributed. There are no printing cost subsidies.

Send your manuscripts to: ssorgner@johncabot.edu

download flyer_call for manuscripts

THE WORK OF ART IN POST-HUMAN TIMES

THE WORK OF ART IN POST-HUMAN TIMES

 

Workshop on Aesthetics

by

Brunella Antomarini

Stefan Lorenz Sorgner

Programme:  AESTHETICS WORKSHOP 2018new1

Saturday September 8, 2018, John Cabot University in Rome

On behalf of the Department of History and the Humanities of John Cabot University Rome, JCU philosophy professors Brunella Antomarini and Stefan Lorenz Sorgner organize a one-day workshop which focuses on a new aesthetics as it is defined and made possible by emerging technologies.

Artists using biotechnological, digital, electronic or robotic tools to manipulate natural or artificial objects appear to create a new kind of art, which is neither gratuitous as “art for art’s sake” used to be, nor it is functional or instrumental to other disciplines. What makes scholars committed to reflect upon this emergent artistic field is the awareness of a significant transition to a new paradigm that does not consider the “human” (in its various types) as a fulcrum of artistic expression. Here, is where the notion of the “posthuman” becomes relevant.

The concept “posthuman” refers to a great variety of related reflections. The concept has come up within transhumanism as well as in critical posthumanism. In both discourses and traditions it has something to do with the impact of emerging technologies. However, it also has a great variety of meanings within the two traditions. It can either refer to a further developed human being as well as to a new understanding of human beings as non-dualist entities. In this way, the concept “posthuman” seems to be specific, but at the same time it refers to many different meanings with which the concept is associated.

The workshop will be an interactive and experimental event showing the in-progress character of these emergent perspectives. It will include artistic, social and philosophical contributions on “THE WORK OF ART IN POST-HUMAN TIMES”.

Keynote speaker: Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Director of Museo di Rivoli, Torino:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolyn_Christov-Bakargiev

Where?: John Cabot University, Via della Lungara, 233, 00165 Roma RM

When?: Saturday the 8th of September 2018 from 1 pm until 9 pm.

Sponsorship: The event is co-sponsored by the Department of History and the Humanities and the Department of Communications of John Cabot University Rome: https://www.johncabot.edu/

Please contact Prof. Sorgner, if you are interested in attending the event: www.sorgner.de

Papers on this and other topics concerning the posthuman can be submitted to the first Academic journal dedicated to the posthuman, the Journal of Posthuman Studies, which is being published by Penn State University Press since 2017: http://www.psupress.org/Journals/jnls_JPHS.html

 

Call for Papers: Nietzsche and Transhumanism

Call for Papers. The Nietzsche and Transhumanism debates continues. The collection “Nietzsche and Transhumanism” which was edited by Yunus Tuncel and came out in 2017, contains all the central articles of the heated debate concerning the relationship between these two philosophical approaches:

http://www.cambridgescholars.com/nietzsche-and-transhumanism

If you wish to respond to the reflections of this debate, please send an abstract to Francesco Biazzo by mid-December: gandalf.francesco@gmail.com You will be informed whether your abstract got accepted by the end of December. If this is the case, you will have until the end of April 2018 to send him your paper. The essay collection is scheduled to be published in Spring 2019!

Video: 9th Beyond Humanism Conference, Rome, 2017

The following video demonstrates the atmosphere during a Beyond Humanism Confernce and exemplifies the diversity of Posthuman Studies. It was shot during the 9th Beyond Humanism Conference which took place at John Cabot University in Rome and during which the launch of the Journal of Posthuman Studies was celebrated. The launch address was given by Martine Rothblatt who affirmatively dealt with the Metahumanist Manifesto and the video begins with her citing a passage from the manifesto: http://metabody.eu/metahumanism/

Below you find the CfPs of the 10th Beyond Humanism Conference. We are looking forward to discussing with you the great variety of posthuman challenges there.

In addition, please consider submitting your most treasured reflections to the ground breaking Journal of Posthuman Studies: http://www.psupress.org/Journals/jnls_JPHS.html

 

​9th Beyond Humanism Conference

The 9th Beyond Humanism Conference
will take place at John Cabot University in Rome from the 20th of July until the 22nd of July 2017.

“Posthuman Studies – Humanities, Metahumanities, Posthumanities”

CFP(Call for Papers)

  • We invite English abstracts up to 500 words, to be sent in MS Word and PDF format to: posthuman.conference@gmail.com

  • Files should be named and submitted in the following manner: 
    Submission: First Name Last name. docx (or .doc) / .pdf 
    Example: “Submission: MaryAndy.docx”

  • Deadlines:
    Abstracts should be received by the 1st of April 2017. 
    Acceptance notifications will be sent out by the end of April 2017. 
    All those accepted will receive information on the venue(s), local attractions, accommodations, restaurants, and planned receptions and events for participants. 
    Presentations should be no longer than 20 minutes. Each presenter will be given 10 additional minutes for questions and discussions with the audience, for a total of 30 minutes. 
  • Organising Committee:
    Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, John Cabot University, Rome
    Sangkyu Shin, Ewha Woman’s University, Seoul
    Evi Sampanikou, University of the Aegean
    Francesca Ferrando, NYU, New York
    Jaime del Val, Reverso-Metabody, Madrid

 “Posthuman Studies – Humanities, Metahumanities, Posthumanities”

Papers can be presented which analyse what it is to be human in an age of rapid technological, scientific, cultural and social evolution. As the boundaries between human and ‘the other’, technological, biological and environmental, are eroded and perceptions of normalcy are challenged, they have generated a range of ethical, philosophical, cultural, and artistic questions. Drawing on theory from critical posthumanism and the normative reflections of transhumanism the conference will encourage constructive but rigorously critical dialogue. 
Conference papers can be on issues such as the consequences of enhancement, especially bioenhancement, transhumanist, and posthumanist accounts of “the human”, and any and all ways in which they impact culture and society. The conference organizers encourage submissions from a range of disciplines such as: philosophy, sociology, literary studies, cultural studies, critical theory, media studies, bioethics, medical ethics, anthropology, religious studies, disability studies, gender studies, queer studies, critical animal studies, environmental studies, and the visual arts.