Bioengagement - Winter 2014

Issues:
No items found.
Tags:
No items found.
Series:
No items found.
Back to Dignitas Issue

The promise and perils of advances in technology, science, and medicine have long been fertile fodder for creative works in literature and cinema. Consequently, a variety of resources exist exploring the realm of medical humanities as well as those providing in-depth analysis of a given cultural medium or particular artifact. This column seeks to offer amore expansive listing of contemporary expressions of bioethical issues in the popular media (fiction, film, and television)—with minimal commentary—to encompass a wider spectrum of popular culture. It will be of value to educators and others for conversations in the classroom, over a cup of coffee, at a book club, or around the dinner table. Readers are cautioned that these resources represent a wide spectrum of genres and content, and may not be appropriate for all audiences. For more comprehensive databases of the various cultural media, please visit our website at cbhd.org/resources/reviews. If you have a suggestion for us to include in the future, send us a note at msleasman@cbhd.org.

BioFiction

Orson Scott Card and Kathryn Kidd, Lovelock

(Tor Books, 2001).

Enhancement, Genetic Engineering,Personhood.

C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength.

Reprint Edition (Scribner, 2003).

Posthumanism/Transhumanism, RadicalLife Extension.

Ramez Naam, Crux

(Angry Robot, 2013).

Cognitive Uploading, Cyborgs, Human Enhancement, Nanotechnology, Neuroethics, Research Ethics, Transhumanism / Posthumanism.

In this sequel to Nexus, Kaden Lane, creator of the neural-linking softwareNexus, evades governments and covert organizations that are set on gaining access to the back doors in software that would allow for total neural control. As Nexus goes viral around the world, Lane desperately tries to locate his associates and thwart the rising threat of Nexus from being exploited as a tool of terrorists. Naam expertly explores a range of emerging technologies and the prospects, technical challenges, and societal implications that each may face.

Bioethics at the Box Office

Delivery Man

(2013, PG-13 for thematic elements, sexual content, some drug material, brief violence and language).

Law & Public Policy, Reproductive Ethics.

Elysium

(2013, R for strong bloody violence and language throughout).

Emerging Technologies, HealthcareAllocation, Human Enhancement, Neuroethics, Robotics.

Primetime Bioethics

Alphas

(2011-2012).

Human Enhancement. Season 2 raises issues related to Neuroethics.

Intelligence

(2014).

Emerging Technology, Human Enhancement.

XIII: The Series

(2011-2012).

Season 2 raises issues related to Neuroethics.