Buddhism and the Future: Transhumanism and Posthumanism
Call for Papers
Submission Deadline 31 May 2022
Canadian Journal of Buddhist Studies (Vol 18, 2023)
Guest Editors: Martin Adam (UVIC) and Michael Berman (Brock U)
The guest editors for CJBS invite all interested scholars to submit papers on any aspect of Buddhism in relation to transhumanism and posthumanism. Given the pervasive influence and adoption of the transhumanist paradigm in the sciences and posthumanist thinking in areas like social justice in recent years, we hope to critically engage these contemporary schools of thought from Buddhist perspectives. Defining these areas of thought is notoriously difficult as various authors and organizations lay claim to these terms. Rosi Braidotti defines posthumanism thusly: “posthuman theory is a generative tool to help us re-think the basic unit of reference for the human in the bio-genetic age known as ‘anthropocene’, the historical moment when the Human has become a geological force capable of affecting all life on this planet.”[1] Max More and Natasha Vita-More state that “Transhumanism is a class of philosophies that seeks the continued evolution of human life beyond its current human form as a result of science and technology guided by life-promoting principles and values.”[2] These schools of thought are deeply rooted in the Western tradition of philosophy, the former in its radical attempts to overcome the endemic limitations and problems of the tradition, while the latter for all its futurist emphases retains its conservative roots in continuing the trends of modernity and the European Enlightenment. Both espouse moral and ethical aspirations, which provide a clear space for dialogue with Buddhism’s soteriological goals of the alleviation of suffering. There are certainly many other areas for comparison such as:
- Anthropocene
- evolution, science, technology
- human nature, personal identity, non-self (anātman)
- consciousness (vijñāna)
- animality
- gender
- theories of liberation (mokṣa)
- dependent origination (pratītya-samutpāda)
- mindfulness (sati)
- reflexive self-awareness (svasaṃvedanā)
- and so on.
The editors welcome papers that engage Buddhism with either or both posthumanism and/or transhumanism.
Submission guidelines
- Articles must not be concurrently submitted for publication elsewhere and are normally 7,500-10,000 words in length.
- Articles must be formatted in footnotes-and-bibliography style in accordance with the 17th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. The “Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide” is available for standard documention examples.
- All text (including transliteration) should be in Gentium Plus true type font. Pali and Sanskrit text should be in Nirmala UI, Chinese characters in PMingLiU, and Tibetan text in Microsoft Himalaya.
- A 100-word abstract must be included on the opening page immediately below the title.
- A brief biographical note and contact email address should be included for the “Contributor(s)” section.
- Please submit articles in both MS Word and PDF format, to the guest editors, Martin Adam (UVIC) and Michael Berman (Brock U) at mtadam@uvic.ca and mberman@brocku.ca for preliminary review to determine conformity to length limitations and for content appropriate for peer review.
- Contributors are welcome to contact the guest editors beforehand to discuss proposals or for guidance regarding topics which are suitable for publication in the special issue. Research articles will be subject to double-blind peer review by appropriate members of the Editorial Board or external evaluators selected at the guest editors’ discretion.
- Please use the journal’s article template for the 18th edition before submitting the paper: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1idSbCTNqH7lZGg32W9bPRepDgvq99F5K?usp=sharing
- The submission deadline is June 30, 2022
[1] Rosi Braidotti, The Posthuman (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2013), 8.
[2] Max More and Natasha Vita-More, The Transhumanist Reader (Somerset: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 1.
