Joshua Earle
About
Joshua Earle (he/him) received his PhD in STS from Virginia Tech in 2021, and has taught the Engineering STS capstone course series (STS 4500 & 4600) each year since. He has also taught a course on Technology and Disability during the Summer and Fall terms of 2024.
Prof. Earle's research interests include the history of Eugenics, Genetic and Regenerative Medicine, and how technologists and the public imagine our future. His work focuses explicitly on Transhumanism and similar movements (coined the "TESCREAL bundle" by Timnit Gebru and Emile Torres), their connection to eugenic movements of the past, and the infiltration of these ideologies into some of the most powerful people, companies, and political actors in the world. His dissertation (found here: http://hdl.handle.net/10919/107009) Traces these connections, and argues that leaning into the idea of morphological freedom through the lens of people who already practice it (disabled people, body modders, trans people, etc.) is a way out of the individualist efficiency-focused, capital growth model that the movements embrace to our detriment.
Prof. Earle uses an interdisciplinary approach to his work, blending philosophy (including phenomenology, postphenomenology, and Agential Realism), historical analysis, sociology and anthropology, media studies, disability studies, and race and gender analysis.
Education
Ph.D. in Science, Technology, and Society from Virginia Tech
Graduate Certificate in Women and Gender Studies from Virginia Tech
Masters of Science in Science, Technology, and Society from Virginia Tech
Bachelors of Arts in Music from the University of Michigan
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