In the last post, I ended by mentioning that the Enlightenment ushered in a new conceptualization of what it means to be human. According to Hayles’ research, liberal humanism conceptualized the human as being free, autonomous, self-regulated, and self-directed. In my mind, liberal humanism seems to be describing a person who is able to access […]

How is it that we find ourselves in the swimming pool of the cyborg—part human, part machine—inching our way toward the deep end? In her 1999 book entitled How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics, Katherine Hayles asks a similar question: “How is it possible in the late twentieth century to believe, […]

Back in 2006, I attended an attachment conference held annually in Salt Lake City. Very much like Dr. Pynoos’ talk on trauma narratives mentioned in Part 2, this attachment conference featured a speaker who captured my imagination. Dr. Abraham Sagi-Schwartz gave a presentation entitled Holocaust Child Survivors and their Offspring: Vulnerability and Resilience. Dr. Sagi-Schwartz […]

In November of 2000, I had the pleasure of attending a one-day conference on psychological trauma hosted by the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and entitled Twelfth Annual Southwest Psychiatric Symposium: Diagnosis and Treatment of PTSD. This conference featured several speakers who were experts in the area of psychological trauma. One speaker in […]

Science fiction writers who write for television, movies, or streaming services often use a “trick of the trade” to get their scripts finished on time. They will use the [INSERT SCIENCE HERE] trick. What is this? Let me describe it to you. A science fiction writer will be going along swimmingly describing the drama of a […]