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This PhD project investigates when, how, and why robot technology is perceived, (re)presented and treated as animate or inanimate. To this end, a range of contexts along the “life cycle” of robots is investigated – from the inspiration by science fiction and socio-technical futures, to research and development, as well as demonstrations, science communication and marketing, to political and media discourse. The project finds that, in all of these contexts, attributions of animacy and inanimacy to robots are constantly alternated. These attributions of (in)animacy always have a context-specific motivation and constructive quality, and are always the subject of a critical discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the book "Gattungstheorie" by Paul Keckeis and Werner Michler. The book is a collection of fundamental genre-theoretical texts and contains contributions from various authors such as Szondi, Bachtin, Culler, Genette, Chartin, Lacoue-Labarthe, Nancy, Weber, Derrida, Jameson, Zumthor, Miller, Greenblatt, McKeon, Moretti, Deleuze, Guattari, Bourdieu, Williams, Johnson, and Braidotti. The book covers various aspects of genre research, including the significance of Friedrich Schlegel, the conception of speech genres, structuralist considerations of literary competence, the introduction to the architext, the relevance of German Romanticism, genre-theoretical differentiation techniques, the classification of genres, the understanding of genres as social action, the connection between intention, genre, and historical situation, the history of the novel, science fiction and comics as "socially less esteemed genres," gender research, and the theory of television genres. The book provides an indispensable foundation for genre-theoretical lectures and seminars. [Extracted from the article]

Sexuality plays an increasingly important role in virtual worlds. The actual status quo and futurological perspectives pose anthropological and ethical questions. Sexology is faced with highly interdisciplinary challenges. In this context, the present article discusses topics such as sex robots and virtual sex partners, machines with emotion-analogous sexual arousals, sex-sensitive interfaces connecting the human brain and artificial intelligence systems, modulation of sexual behavior through neural-hormonal stimulation, and sex-implants. While much still sounds like science fiction, developments are galloping and involve manifold ethical and anthropological issues of intimacy, tenderness, responsibility, and love. Sexology is not only concerned with the feasibility of allegedly human-analogous sex devices and modes of their application; it is also called upon to explore and scrutinize their effects and consequences. This relates to the question of alternatives to or replacement of human sex, which is a result of bio-cultural evolution and also includes (at least the idea of) reproduction. From a medical and anthropological perspective, we must also take possible pathological sequelae and the change of the genuine human sex phenomenon into consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seit einiger Zeit taucht immer häufiger der Begriff der personalisierten Medizin auf bei Kongressen, in Fachzeitschriften und auch in den öffentlichen Medien. Gemeint ist dabei meist eine aufgrund von Genom-Analysen massgeschneiderte Therapie. Prof. Dr. med. Johann Steurer vom Horten-Zentrum für praxisorientierte Forschung und Wissenstransfer, Universität Zürich, hat für die PRAXIS mit dem Systembiologen Prof. Ernst Hafen vom Institut fürmolekulare Systembiologie, ETH Zürich, und mit dem niedergelassenen Allgemeinmediziner Dr. med. Andreas Roose, Zürich, über Chancen und Risiken von Genom-Analysen diskutiert und auch darüber, wie ein Hausarzt mit demWunsch des Patienten nach einer Genombestimmung umgehen soll. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information on Antikenrezeption in der Science-Fiction-Literatur, a conference that was held at the Universität zu Köln in Cologne, Germany on September 5, 2015 is presented. Topics discussed include ancient literary culture, book "Otherland," by Tad Williams and dependence of archeology. The symposium featured several historians including Simon Lentzsch, Christian Urs Wohlthat and David Engels.