Cryonic Suspension as Eschatological Technology in the Secular Age

Farman, Abou

doi:10.1002/9781119222422.ch22

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…The thread of life that exists through cell culture across generational, species and organism lines is made possible by freezing, through which life is suspended within an ambiguous cryopolitical space between being 'alive' and being allowed to die. In this sense, it becomes possible to do away with the inherent finitude of life and achieve a sort of immortality -a secular eschatology that abandons the unpredictable notion of a higher power (Farman, 2018), recasting humans as ultimate masters of their own destiny as a way to counter the growing anxiety of apocalypse and extinction.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Whilst the tusk hunters use thawing permafrost to their advantage, there is a sense of anxiety for the scientists as long as the mammoth remains unmolecular, which can only be rectified by the predictability of the cryobank. Preserving specimens in the cryobank -particularly specimens that are already centuries old -suggests a temporal lengthening, a sort of plasticity that can be stretched out indefinitely whilst staying very much the same (Farman, 2018). That global temperatures are rising, and the Arctic is melting is much easier to come to terms with if there's a safeguard of human-controlled freezer systems.…”

Section: Unearthing Extinction: Permafrost and Mammoths Outsidementioning

confidence: 99%

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Ice and Ivory: the cryopolitics of mammoth de-extinction

Wrigley¹

2021

Journal of Political Ecology

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Woolly mammoth tusk hunting has become a black-market industry in the Siberian region of Yakutia, where thawing permafrost due to climate change is revealing the bodies of thousands of mammoths. They are often in a state of incredible preservation, and their accompanying tusks can be sold to China where they are carved into ornaments as a marker of status. Alongside tusk hunting, another potential industry has emerged: de-extinction. Many of the mammoths found on the tundra have potentially viable DNA that might be used to resurrect a mammoth through genetic technology. Mammoth de-extinction is a cryopolitical process – a focus on the preservation and production of life at a genetic level through cold storage. 'Cryobanks' have emerged as a way to safeguard endangered and extinct species' genetic material, and forms part of a turn towards pre-empting conservation crises during what some scholars are calling the 'sixth great extinction.' The mammoth's body is broken down into pieces – tusks form luxury commodity chains, whilst flesh and blood is parceled into frozen genes and cells. The mammoth in the freezer is indicative of a reorganization of cold life in a warming world, with the specific cryopolitics found in the cryobank an attempt at extending human control over planetary processes that are now seemingly out of control. Drawing on fieldwork undertaken at the Mammoth Museum in Yakutsk, Siberia, and at the Natural History Museum's cryobank in London, I follow the mammoth from permafrost, to freezer, to back outside, and consider how her de-extinction is a response to a particular sort of future crisis –that of our own extinction.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Unearthing Extinction: Permafrost and Mammoths Outsidementioning

confidence: 99%

Ice and Ivory: the cryopolitics of mammoth de-extinction

Wrigley¹

2021

Journal of Political Ecology

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“…Isu kematian dan kekekalan ternyata masih terus mendapatkan perhatian dari para filsuf kontemporer dalam lanskap pemikiran filsafat kontemporer selama dua dekade terakhir (Andrade, n.d.;Bradley, Feldman, Johansson, 2012;Buben, 2022;Cholbi, 2016;Cholbi dan Timmerman, 2021;Farman, 2018;Knepper, Bregman, dan Gottschalk, 2019;Luper, 2009;Menzies & Whittle, 2022;Minerva, 2018;Palladino, 2016;Rojcewicz, 2021;Rothblatt, 2015;Scarre, 2007;Schumacher, 2010;Sisto, 2020;Stokes, 2021;von Verschuer, 2019) [ii].…”

Section: Pengantarunclassified

Dekonstruksi Imortalitas dalam kerangka Kritik terhadap Modernitas dan Pascamodernitas: Telaah Zygmunt Bauman

Putranto¹

2022

Dekonstruksi

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Rasa takut akan kematian dan damba akan kekekalan sudah lama dibahas agama dan filsafat. Sayangnya, masih teramat sedikit ilmu sosial lintas-disiplin dan multi perspektif yang mengaji isu mortalitas dan imortalitas sekaligus dalam bentuk buku tunggal (monograf). Merefleksikan pandangan Zygmunt Bauman dalam Mortality, Immortality, and Other Life Strategies (1992), penulis menawarkan rekonstruksi pemikiran Bauman tentang konsep modernitas dalam hubungannya dengan isu mortalitas dan konsep pascamodernitas dalam hubungannya dengan isu imortalitas. Sebagaimana modernitas mendekonstruksi isu besar mortalitas menjadi sejumlah problem yang bisa ditangani, demikian juga pascamodernitas mendekonstruksi isu imortalitas menjadi enam model berbasis problem, seperti problem identitas yang cair sebagai proyek konstitusi-diri (identitas pengembara), ketenaran dalam fesyen dan selebriti, ide repetisi dan representasi, permainan dan tontonan, rantai kenikmatan sesaat yang ultim, sebagai strategi stratifikasi sosial, dan sebagai penegasan identitas sekaligus otoritas dalam komunitas. Strategi dekonstruksi kekekalan mengemansipasi subjek pelaku, baik dalam dimensi individualitas maupun kolektivitasnya, dari keterbelengguan terhadap ruang-waktu (sejarah, wacana, ideologi, dan lain-lain), memampukan orang untuk meraih sesuatu yang pada prinsipnya mustahil untuk dijangkau di sini dan sekarang, tapi sekaligus menyimpan potensi ketidakadilan (misalnya lewat strategi stratifikasi dan eksklusi, juga privilese akses elit terhadap kekekalan), menonjolkan primasi entitas yang ontis di atas yang etis, serta melahirkan gugus korban baru. Dalam konteks yang lebih kekinian, cara-cara baru untuk mendekonstruksi imortalitas telah mengalami pergeseran dari dunia hiburan ke ranah teknologi, tapi ide imortalitas tetap dipreteli aura kesuciannya dan secara terus-menerus dibuat menjadi profan dan dikomodifikasi. Imortalitas dijadikan satu dari sejumlah objek hasrat yang tersedia di pasar dan dapat dibeli dengan uang. Betapapun hasrat menjadi kekal terus didamba dan diupayakan untuk terwujud di sini dan sekarang, entah dengan bantuan serum anti-aging, dengan mengunggah jejak-jejak identitas dan kesadaran dalam mesin pintar yang digerakkan kecerdasan buatan terpersonalisasi, record and digitize, ataupun dengan teknologi cryonics, tantangan dan tentangan terus datang silih berganti.

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“…Weber's disenchantment narrative enjoys great popularity among historians and anthropologists of death (e.g. Engelke, 2019;Farman, 2018;Fischer, 1996;Laqueur, 2015). Disenchantment of death is usually said to have begun with the Enlightenment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cemetery Enchanted, Encore: Natural Burial in France and Beyond

Tschebann

2022

Bioarchaeology and Social Theory

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Over the past three decades, a silent revolution in funerary practices and cemetery design known as the ‘natural burial movement’ has swept over various national contexts and created a transnational narrative that is embedded in local funerary cultures. Seeking out environmentally-friendly burial alternatives, new cemetery and commemoration concepts take into account the urban lack of space and changing family structures and combine these with a desire for autonomy from economically and ecologically costly burial practices. A salient feature of these new burial sites are their naturalistic design and enchanting appeal. Presenting ethnographic research at France’s first natural cemetery« Cimetière naturel de Souché », which opened in 2014, this chapter examines and reflects on the changes in material as well as immaterial funeral settings within a contemporary European context. The research reveals insights into a heterogenous set of values concerning human body disposal, nature and culture, gift giving and reciprocity, and purity and respect. The main objectives of the cemetery officials originally were geared towards the creation of a place as close to nature’s makeup as possible, a reduction of the ecological footprint of burials, and cost decrease. The most significant aspects for the bereaved and other visitors are, however, an appeal beyond economic and ecologic objectives. Spiritualities, therapeutic death contemplation, and continuous kin care point to an enduring enchantment: meditations veiled in a green hue.

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Cryonic Suspension as Eschatological Technology in the Secular Age

Cited by 3 publications

References 34 publications

Ice and Ivory: the cryopolitics of mammoth de-extinction

Ice and Ivory: the cryopolitics of mammoth de-extinction

Dekonstruksi Imortalitas dalam kerangka Kritik terhadap Modernitas dan Pascamodernitas: Telaah Zygmunt Bauman

Cemetery Enchanted, Encore: Natural Burial in France and Beyond

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