Background
I studied Sociology and Psychology at the Technical University in Dresden and graduated with a diploma in Sociology (Dipl.-Soz.) in 2015. During my studies I took special interest in the field of Philosophical Anthropology and Social Construction of Reality. The inclusion in funded research projects such as “Im Schatten des Szientismus” (2014) at the IGPP in Freiburg and the “Arnold-Gehlen-Gesamtausgabe” (2014-2015) at the Department of Sociology in Dresden were therefore providing me with the opportunity to focus on the question of humans and their access to world, while gaining practical experience in research. By widening the scope during the end of my studies I started to explore the cosmological perspective of mankind and got caught up in the area of life on other planets, the social perception of man in space and the technological utopias of a human species yet to come.
The GRK is…
a great opportunity to combine a variety of different scientific perspectives while working on the question of human life and its constitution through the narratives of social and natural sciences. In doing so, this framework is creating a very needed and fruitful dialogue between disciplines, which are far too often fighting for strict (financial, theoretical and personal) independence but unfortunately losing the 'big picture' on the way. Stimulating an interdisciplinary discourse at eye level might therefore be the first step towards a flexible and adaptive culture of future research.
My Goal is…
to identify the utopian and dystopian phantasies of mankind in the process of shaping future society. At the present time, the rationality of economy and technology as a structural replacement of social and religious meaning has created the need for inner-worldly bliss and transcendence. But this strive for a secular 'heaven on earth', to reach the once lost paradise, also withholds the risks of turning out to be the dead end of history, ecosystem and man itself.
My Project…
is situated in the field of Trans- and Posthumanism. I am interested in the emerging narrative of technological transcendence and how Cryonics, Brain-Emulation, Genome Editing, Artificial Intelligence, Singularity etc. are transforming our perspective towards the human existence. The Anthropocene makes the question about the human condition ever more pressing. But how is the discourse about the dissolution of fundamental human boundaries being formed and what is the social background of those radical redefinitions of homo sapiens? By analyzing the scientific future studies, a hint on the general forthcoming developments can be given and a glimpse at these future conceptions of humanity might be caught.
Contact: justus.poetzsch@uni-mainz.de