Full Description
Mediating Black religious studies, spirituality studies, and liberation theology, Philip Butler explores what might happen if Black people in the United States merged technology and spirituality in their fight towards materializing liberating realities.
The discussions shaping what it means for humans to exist with technology and as part of technology are already underway: transhumanism suggests that any use of technology to augment intellectual, psychological, or physical capability makes one transhuman. In an attempt to encourage Black people in the United States to become technological progenitors as a spiritual act, Butler asks whether anyone has ever been 'just' human? Butler then explores the implications of this question and its link to viewing the body as technology.
Re-imagining incarnation as a relationship between vitality, biochemistry, and genetics, the book also takes a critical scientific approach to understanding the biological embodiment of Black spiritual practices. It shows how current and emerging technologies might align with the generative biological states of Black spiritualities in order to concretely disrupt and dismantle oppressive societal structures.
Contents
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Introduction and Overview
1. Thinking of Black Transhumanism: Non-Humanity, Moving Away From Transhumanism's Roots
2. Foundations of a Black Transhumanism: Blackness as the Biotechnologically Mediated Experience of Black Vitality
3. The Neurophysiology of Spiritual Experience
4. Black Transhuman Liberation Theology
5. Black Transhumanism as Revolt Spirituality
Glossary of Terms
Notes
References
Index
