About Me
Andy Miah, BA, MPhil, PhD, FRSA
I am Professor of Ethics & Emerging Technologies at the
University of the West of Scotland, Fellow at FACT, the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, Liverpool, and Fellow in Visions of Utopia and Dystopia for the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. From time to time I write an ethics column for The Guardian.
My research is informed by an interest in applied philosophy, technology, and culture and I write broadly about emerging technological cultures. This includes the implications of pervasive wireless connectivity and the convergence of technological systems and the modification of biological matter through nanotechnology and gene transfer. Many of these studies are increasingly transdisciplinary and being characterised as NBIC (nano-bio-info-cognitive) inquiries.
My work draws from literature in a range of areas, including law, philosophy, art, cultural studies, sociology and a range of sciences. Within my files, I try to keep abreast of around 200 academic journals. To some extent, I have endeavoured to publish in each of these areas, though I do not consider myself a specialist in all of them. Nevertheless, I have given lectures for lawyers, scientists, artists, sociologists and philosophers, among others.
I have published over 100 academic articles in refereed journals, books, e-zines, and national media press on the subjects of cyberculture, medicine, technology, and the Olympics. Recent publications include the Journal of Medical Ethics, CTHEORY, Culture Machine and Research in Philosophy, Technology. I have also written for leading newspapers, including The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, The Observer, Le Monde, the Times Higher Education Supplement.
I have refereed book proposals for Routledge, Polity, Wiley and journal articles for Cultural Politics, Theory, Culture Society, Research in Philosophy and Technology and I am an Associate Editor for ‘Studies in Ethics, Law & Technology’ (BEPress) and Editorial Board Member for ‘Genomics, Society & Policy and Health Care Analysis (Springer) . I have also refereed submissions for the AHRC and The Wellcome Trust along with some other 15 journals including the Journal of Medical Ethics, Cultural Politics, Bioethics, and Public Understanding of Science.
My major publications are ‘The Medicalization of Cyberspace (with Emma Rich, Routledge 2008) and ‘Genetically Modified Athletes’ (Routledge, 2004) and Human Futures: Art in an Age of Uncertainty (2008, Liverpool University Press).
I am frequently invited to speak about the implications of new technologies for humanity (the individual) and society (the collective). I am also involved with various projects that stud various non-sporting aspects of the Olympic movement and have been working in this area for 10 years.In relation to this, I am also co-editor of the online, academic serial ‘Culture at the Olympics’.
I am a member of various academic associations and working groups, including the Royal Institution of Great Britian, Yale University Bioethics working group, the Society of Applied Philosophy, the British Society for Ethical Theory, the International Association of Bioethics, and the Media, Communications and Cultural Studies Association, the Society for Social Studies of Science.
IF you are thinking about doing a PhD in areas of my expertise, please feel welcome to get in touch. The University has a bursary scheme and provides various other privileges for full-time PhD students.
my emergent concepts: posthumanism, biocultural capital, ambush media.
Address:
Faculty of Business and Creative Industries
University of the West of Scotland
Ayr Campus, KA8 0SR
Scotland, UK
[m] +44 7962 716 616 (direct)
[t] +44 1292 886388 (school reception)
[f] +44 1292 886371
[e] email@andymiah.net (your best bet)
mark weicherding said
Andy do u know when they are going to open the first lab? Lets get this out in the open and let people do it. If not it will be pushed underground just like drugs are now in the U.S. and backstreat abortions were years ago. This only results in more unsafe health practices and stupidity on behalf of our government and sports authorities. Athletes will do it anyways. I swam competitively for years now 45 (too old to compete) and want to see people who aren’t geneticly born to be a good sprinter/distance swimmer have the chance to compete at Olympic level if they want to. They can’t help it because they don’t have the right fiber type or for that matter have the choice in what fiber type. Some swimmers may want to be sprinters and some distance. Let them have the choice.
People will do it anyways and I would rather have them go to a safe “clean” lab and do as opposed to an “underground lab”. Lets take the criminal element out of it and make it legal.
Thanks,
Mark
Andy Miah said
Well, there are already labs doing research that could be applied to athletes. This is why the world of sport is so worried about it. I think your position has a lot of benefits. The inevitability argument is often dealt with only on one level, but the deeper level is to take into account people’s moral reactions to emerging technology and how they change. I would envisage a future where the fear attached to genetics is much less influential in this debate. We need some form of regulation, but it should be an enabling form rather than a restrictive one.
thanks for your comment Mark.
dimeo said
Pr Andy Miah
I left a message on your mail box to ask for an interview. I didn’t get any answer. Do you think it’s still possible this mid week?.
thank you for your help
Dino Dimeo (liberation in paris)
Garen said
Hello,
I’ve been reading this blog on and off few months ago, but that is not why I’m posting here today.
I’m posting because 2 weeks ago we’ve launched a new inter-disciplinary research networking site, which also aims to be a database of researchers of all kinds, and I was thinking that you would want to come over and create a user account. It has loads of useful features that combine Web2.0 technologies and with practical and serious research needs.
Normally, joining is by invitation only, but for the initial period only scholars and research students can create an account without invitation.
If you like CTHEORY you gonna love hypertope.com
You can create your user account by going to http://www.hypertope.com/user/register
and if you like it, maybe you can invite your own colleagues and maybe you can review it in your blog and help promote the idea.
well… this is it,
I hope to see you on hypertope
Garen
Hello VANOC, We’re nice, local, and invite you for a coffee and a talk « Ephemeral Feasthouse said
[...] also pinged the erudite Olympic scholar Dr. Andy Miah in the UK for his comments so hope to hear from him for the next update, along with sharing [...]
paul said
Hi
andy miah
can genetics change the world?
is it good or bad?
and can animals genes be put in humans to make a human animal? lol im really new to this !
are we play lotto with peoples lifes or in this case for the moment in time with mice?
Orlando G DaSilva said
Hello Prof. Miah
what about opportunities for foreign PHD students? I am from Brazil, in the first year of my doctoral course in Administration. Working with Organizations Studies Technology and Development. Post-human ontology seems very interesting to me.
Best Regards,
Orlando