Crafting humans : : from genesis to eugenics and beyond / / Marius Turda (ed.).

• Superior document: Reflections on (in)humanity ; v. 5
• TeilnehmendeR: Turda, Marius.
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Reflections on (in)humanity ; v. 5.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (198 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

'Crafting humans' - and its corollary human enhancement - is a contested topic, both in medical sciences and the humanities. With continuing advances in science and technology, scientists and the general public alike are aware that the basic foundations of the human condition are now at stake. This volume contributes to this growing body of work. It offers insights into some of the reflections and imaginaries that have inspired and legitimated both theoretical and practical programmes for 'crafting' humans, ranging from the religious/spiritualist and the philosophical/cultural to the secular and the scientific/scientistic; from the religious and mystical quest for human perfection to the biopolitical eugenic state of the twentieth century, and current theories of human enhancement. This volume discusses these topics in a synchronized way, as interrelated variants of the most central story in history, that of human perfectibility.

Table of Contents

Title Page; Copyright; Table of Contents; Body; Preface and Acknowledgements; Frank Ankersmit: Aftermaths and "Foremaths": History and Humans; Introduction; World-history; Man and nature; Hegel; Vanamonde; Premonitions; For a juste milieu between Spinoza and Kant; Conclusion; Moshe Idel: Crafting a Golem: the Creation of an Artificial Anthropoid; Introduction: Modernity and Premonitions; Three Pillars of European Culture; Magical Literatures; Perfect Kabbalist, Perfect Creature: A Theory by R. Isaac of Acre; Golem: From Magic Practice to Theology; The Golem: From Magic to Modern Science

An Eighteenth-Century Apotheosis of Magic in European JewryAntonis Liakos: The End of History as the Liminality of the Human Condition: From Kojève to Agamben; Roger Griffin: Bio-nomic Man (and Woman): Fantasies of Anthropological Revolution as a Reaction to Modernity's Nomic Crisis; Mount Truth and the Body Reform Movement; Eugenics and the Cult of the `New Man'; Crafting Humans as renomization; The dark side of the anthropological revolution; Merryn Ekberg: Eugenics: Past, Present, and Future; Introduction; `Old' Eugenics: Origins

`New' eugenics: genetics and assisted reproductive technologiesFuture eugenics: reproductive cloning and genetic enhancement technologies; Conclusion; Marius Turda: Crafting a Healthy Nation: European Eugenics in Historical Context; Maria Sophia Quine: Making Italians: Aryanism and Anthropology in Italy during the Risorgimento; Scienza and Patria: Towards a National Anthropology; `Arii e Italici'; The Birth of the Italian Race; "Racializing" Italians and "Biologizing" Ethnicity; Nineteenth-Century Aryanism Reconsidered; Conclusion; Alison Bashford: Julian Huxley's Transhumanism