Simon Ledder
Member of the research training group 'Bioethics'
E-Mail: simon.ledder@izew.uni-tuebingen.de
PhD Project
The functional body. Bioethical and cultural aspects of ‘disability’ and ‘human Enhancement’ in the media
This PhD project dealt with the discursive construction of “disability” “human enhancement” and “normalcy”. Firstly, the role of the discourses for concepts of corporeality has been discussed from perspectives from media studies and ethics. Subsequently the medial characteristics of digital games have been explicated with their connection to the discourse. Then selected digital games have been analyzed via a qualitative approach to show how they produced specific concepts of “disability” and “human enhancement”. This approach follows a poststructuralist approach that does not consider “disability” an individual, problematic characteristic but a social construction which is developed in various discourses. The discursive statements in the digital games have then been located inside the broader social discourses. It could be shown that the debate about “Human Enhancement” construed a new term of the “normal body” and what that meant for people labeled “disabled”.
Biography
2003-2010: Studies of social sciences with focus on sociology and media studies at the Universities of Göttingen (Germany) and Sevilla (Spain). Diploma about ideologemes in digital games.
2011-2013: PhD project at the Research Training Group Bioethics, IZEW Tübingen.
Since 2013: Assistant lecturer at the Department of Sociology, University of Tübingen.
Since 2014: Research assistant at the research project “Privacy-Arena”, IZEW Tübingen.