IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2017 - 41

acting as an ideology across these discourses and functioning through transhuman rhetoric. For ease, we summarize the themes in Table I, and then elaborate on
each column.

Theme 1 Legitimate Science
Through the first theme, transhumanism is deployed
for its earnest dedication to engineered science as a
reputable advancer of the human condition. Indexing
the mainstream discursive conviction placed on
STEM Science, Engineering, Technology and Math
fields, transhumanism is grounded by "neurosciences, genomics, robotics, nanotechnology, computers
and artificial intelligence" [4], which seem impervious to challenge in terms of legitimacy. This theme
also largely focuses on human bodily augmentation
or bioconvergence.

Theme 2 Human Agency
The second theme characterizes transhumanism
through an overt shift in human agency. In a transhumanist vision, human subjectivity would entail the
rejection of biological determinism on every front,
including the belief that accepts mortality as a given,
to one whereby every aspect of human existence is
actively lived. In defiance of every biological limit,
"mental" capacity is "enhanc[ed]," aging is "slow[ed]" or
"revers[ed]," and emotions are "control[ed]" [4].
Abstractions such as human nature will become variables that are chosen rather than tolerated. Disease
would be overcome.

Theme 3 Superheroism
The third theme points to transhumanism as an abstract
imaginary pursuit, superheroism, which contributes to
the sensationalism surrounding transhumanism. The
language often involves imagination; the future is an
"imagined future" pointing to wonder, bordering on "danger" [4]. We argue that there is also an identity-building
component. People are asked to imagine themselves as
superheroes able to perform amazing feats. Superheroism is presented as a realizable future despite the
unlikelihood of such an outcome. Consequently, transhumanism is treated as personal, fanciful, exciting, and
ambitious.

Theme 4 Vulnerability
Finally, we point to the fourth theme, vulnerability. Posthuman ideology, for Rosi Braidotti points to fear and an
imagined panic:
"This new pan-humanity is paradoxical in two
ways: firstly, because a great deal of its inter-connections are negative and based on a shared
march 2017

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sense of vulnerability and fear of imminent
catastrophes and, secondly, because this new
global proximity does not always breed tolerance
and peaceful co-existence; on the contrary,
forms of xenophobic rejection of otherness and
increasing armed violence are key features of
our times" [9]
In one sense, we are attracted to the idea of cladding the body with technology as a protective mantle

An exoskeleton has the potential to
augment the entire body in terms of
physical strength, added muscular
capabilities, speed, or the heightened
ability to communicate across digital
connections from within the suit.

that passively and benevolently attends to us. In another sense, we are provoked by dystopian fear. Societal
response to vulnerability in a post 9/11 world goads us
to become digital in ways that seem precautionary and
lead us to cling to military-inspired technology.
In the next section, we use these themes to foreground how transhuman beliefs inform these discourses through various combinations.

Discourse Analysis Study
For the exoskeleton study, we collected texts from three
discourses: (1) Advertising from technology companies
making exoskeletons for the military industrial complex
(2) Popular science journalism from magazine articles,
and (3) Recent science fiction film. These representations were saved to a database for analysis and archiving
to form a corpus. The complete exoskeleton corpus is
not meant to be definitive, but it captures a broad range
of texts from several genres. More so, the point is not to
privilege one discourse, it is to understand the intertextual themes working across the discourses because they
work in dialogue with each other. By way of example, a
popular magazine article featuring a futuristic exoskeleton might link to a military invention video on YouTube,
and also reference Iron Man scenes to serve as a way to
explain concepts to a lay audience. Our goal is to shed
light on socio-ethical beliefs about the technology conveyed through these discourses, but we also make the

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