Publisher's Synopsis
As we enter the 21st century, technology promises to shape our lives more profoundly than ever before. Advances in medical, reproductive, genetic and information technologies all serve to confuse the boundaries between humans, machines and what we call nature. The category of the "posthuman" reflects the implications of such technologies on contemporary culture, especially in their capacity to reconfigure the human body and to challenge our most fundamental understandings of human nature.;The debate about such issues is not only conducted within academic and scientific circles, but is also addressed in the realms of popular culture and the creative arts. From the myth of Prometheus, the Jewish legend of the golem, the Gothic horror of Frankenstein's monster, to contemporary postmodern science fiction, a gallery of fantastic creatures haunt Western myth, religion and literature. They serve to connect contemporary debates with enduring concerns about the potential, and the limits, of human creativity.
