Paper short abstract:

Examines the discursive construction of technoscientific futures of agelessness in seven North American popular science and technology magazines surrounding the discovery and invention of new forms of age intervention. The discursive assemblages of new forms of ethical self-government are outlined.

Paper long abstract:

In light of an aging North American population alongside an expanding industry of body modification, control and maintenance, recent scholarship has critically examined the implications of current advancements in anti-aging technology and bio-gerontology in terms of transformations of the aging body and new formations of ethical subjecthood. What underlies these explorations is the significance of both hopeful and alarmist futures in mobilizing new forms of ethical conduct, unified in their common telos of age intervention. As part of a larger project, this paper examines the role of these futures in assembling, animating and embodying new technologies of the ageless self. Of particular relevance to the present study are the types of ethical subjects that are discursively constructed within these hopeful futures, and the unsuccessful subjects that are mobilized as beacons pointing us to the alternative dire futures of unrealized potential. In the present paper, I examine the discursive construction of technoscientific futures of agelessness in seven North American popular science and technology magazines, published between 2010 and 2015. These include: Wired, MIT Technology Review, Popular Science, Scientific American, New Scientist, Science News, and Discover. The discursive 'promissory work' of these futures, I argue, functions to map out, construct, idealize, mobilize, advance, and animate new assemblages of ethical self-government and, as a result, new relations to the self.