Superhuman: The Future of Drugs, Bioelectronics, and Genetic Medicine

Podcast-style audio course - 28 Topics
Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
Prof. Michael Bess, Ph.D.
Vanderbilt University
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Audio Download + Subscription
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Audio Sample:

The next wave of technological change will shape not just our gizmos and gadgets, but our own bodies and minds. Join award-winning historian Michael Bess to learn what to expect from the “Superhuman Revolution.”

In the near future, developments in bioenhancement technologies will not only alter how we make a living, communicate, and interact with each other, but will offer direct and precise control over our own physical and mental states. People will be able to sculpt their own selfhood over time, reshaping their bodies, augmenting their cognition, micro-managing their emotions and moods, and reconfiguring their character and personality.  

In this captivating audio series from Michael Bess, author of Our Grandchildren, Redesigned: Life in the Bioengineered Society of the Near Future, you’ll explore the promise and peril of tinkering with human bodies and identities. 

In these 28 illuminating lectures, you’ll examine the challenges posed to human civilization by development

The next wave of technological change will shape not just our gizmos and gadgets, but our own bodies and minds. Join award-winning historian Michael Bess to learn what to expect from the “Superhuman Revolution.”

In the near future, developments in bioenhancement technologies will not only alter how we make a living, communicate, and interact with each other, but will offer direct and precise control over our own physical and mental states. People will be able to sculpt their own selfhood over time, reshaping their bodies, augmenting their cognition, micro-managing their emotions and moods, and reconfiguring their character and personality.  

In this captivating audio series from Michael Bess, author of Our Grandchildren, Redesigned: Life in the Bioengineered Society of the Near Future, you’ll explore the promise and peril of tinkering with human bodies and identities. 

In these 28 illuminating lectures, you’ll examine the challenges posed to human civilization by developments in pharmaceuticals, bioelectronics, and genetics. Using an interdisciplinary approach, you’ll tackle a series of provocative questions, including:

  • To what extent can human personhood be modified before it begins to break down? 
  • What would be the likely social and cultural consequences if practices of human redesign were to be widely adopted?
  • How much can we control the direction in which science, medicine, and technology are taking our civilization?

$29.99

Michael Bess is the Chancellor’s Professor of History at Vanderbilt University, where he has taught for three decades. Professor Bess has been awarded the Jeffrey Nordhaus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, the Ellen Gregg Ingalls Award for Excellence in Classroom Teaching, and the Vanderbilt Chair of Teaching Excellence. His books include Our Grandchildren, Redesigned: Life in the Bioengineered Society of the Near Future and Planet in Peril: Humanity’s Four Greatest Challenges and How We Can Overcome Them.


Praise for Michael Bess:

“Michael Bess is a creative historian whose work includes peering into the future to offer insight on how to improve humanity. He has received numerous writing awards and several of the most prestigious teaching awards Vanderbilt bestows on faculty. When I asked him to present the topic of Our Grandchildren Redesigned, on which this course is based, to my Vanderbilt Law School class on the future of law, my students (and I) were spellbound. His delivery is captivating and accessible, and his depth of knowledge is impressive. Taking this course will not only inform you of what our future holds, it will better equip you as a citizen to engage in discourse on what our future should be.”
–J.B. Ruhl, David Daniels Allen Distinguished Chair in Law, Vanderbilt University Law School

“Dr. Michael Bess has always been at the forefront in thinking through the most relevant and pressing issues generated by techno-cultures. Contemporary humans face unprecedented decisions and must take action. Dr. Bess clarifies the questions so the answers can be seen.”
–Diana Walsh Pasulka, Professor of Philosophy and Religion, UNC Wilmington

“Professor Michael Bess is a leading voice in the debate about human enhancement. Students will love the way his discussion ranges over both the technologies that we are increasingly applying to nature and the history of debate about making better humans.”
–Nicholas Agar, Distinguished Visiting Professor at Carnegie Mellon University (Australia)

“The discussion of how emerging technologies may alter our species has been clouded by both hype and handwringing for too long. It takes the voice of a passionate humanist and perspicacious historian to explain what is happening to humanity right now – and what historic choices confront us up ahead. Michael Bess is that voice.”
–Richard Samuel Deese, Senior Lecturer, Division of Social Sciences, Boston University

  • The Jetsons Fallacy
  • Imagining What Bioenhancement Might Feel Like
  • What is Bioenhancement?
  • Pharmaceuticals, Part 1
  • Pharmaceuticals, Part 2
  • Bioelectronics
  • How Genes Work
  • Clones, Eugenics, and the Project of Making Better People
  • The CRISPR Revolution and Epigenetics
  • The Future of Genetic Enhancement
  • What is Human Nature? And Does Bioenhacement Violate It?
  • The Idea of Dignity
  • The Human Condition and the Moral Yardstick of Human Flourishing
  • Potential Benefits of Bioenhancement
  • Who Gets Access to Enhancements? Part 1
  • Who Gets Access to Enhancements? Part 2
  • Trait Fads, Homogenization, and Clustering
  • Bioenhanced Animals
  • Living Strong to Age 160: It’s More Complicated Than it Looks
  • How Much Control is Too Much Control?
  • Turbo Charging Moral Character: Why It’s a Terrible Idea
  • Brain to Brain Communication
  • Mental Privacy
  • Living in Virtual Reality
  • Who is the Real Me? Seven Aspects of Authentic Identity
  • Radical Modifications Should be Postponed
  • Are We Persons or Products? Resisting the Commodification of Humans
  • Finding the Right Measure

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