Aging and death have always been central to our shared human identity and experience, yet recent advances in artificial intelligence and biotechnology seem to challenge the inevitability of both—whether by epigenetic interventions, digitally preserving consciousness, or the creation of digital doppelgängers. Still, the ethical and existential questions these developments raise are not new. Literature and film have long explored the meaning, significance, and desirability of our shared mortality, sometimes imagining the defeat of death itself.

While there exists a robust philosophical literature surrounding life extension, there is still a need to more fully examine the ways in which literature and film can contribute to longstanding questions, as well as raise and help answer new ones relating to the desirability of life extension.

This special issue invites scholars of literature and film, as well as anyone interested in drawing on these mediums, to discuss timely topics relating to life extension, including boredom and alienation, identity and memory, aging and altruism, narrative and selfhood, and the ways cultural memory binds us across generations.

In reflecting on these matters, the special issue will explore the desirability of aging, mortality, and significantly extended lifespans, as well as examine the broader question of the place of literature within contemporary ethical debates.

Contributors may want to take up one or several of the following questions:

• Can literature help us imagine emotional endurance — sustaining love, compassion, or engagement over centuries — in ways that abstract theory cannot?

• How do literary and cinematic experiments with unreliable memory, time loops, or non-linear narratives illuminate the challenges of extended selfhood?

• How do literature and film explore the relationship between physical decline, empathy, and moral insight — and what happens if that decline is removed?

• What distinctive insights can literature and film offer into the experience of extended life that philosophy, ethics, or science cannot capture?

• How do stories allow us to experience rather than merely reason about life extension, mortality, and aging?

• How might collaborative, interdisciplinary approaches — combining literary analysis with philosophy, science, or history — produce new perspectives on life extension?

• What methodological challenges arise when using literature or film as a lens to examine ethical, existential, or social questions about mortality?

• Can social memory or artistic creations themselves serve as forms of life extension?

The idea for this special issue originates from a conference at the University of Oxford, supported by TORCH Medical Humanities, Uehiro Oxford Institute, and the Stanford Boundaries of Humanities Project.

Contributions to this special issue are welcome from anyone interested in the topic independently of conference participation. We would also like to specifically encourage scholars from different disciplines, or with opposing perspectives, to co-author pieces together.

Blinded manuscripts of up to 10,000 words should be submitted via SNAPP, the new submissions system (please click “Submit your manuscript”): Submit here. Papers will undergo a double-blind peer review process by two reviewers.

Prior to submitting, please consult the submission guidelines: Submission Guidelines

For additional information, see below:

• Editorial procedures (Peer Review Policy, Process and Guidance)

• How reviewers are selected (Peer Reviewer Selection)

• This journal offers the option to publish Open Access. You are able to publish open access through Open Choice.

• Please explore the OA options available through your institution by referring to the list of OA Transformative Agreements.

Please contact Andrew Moeller with any additional questions: andrew.moeller@history.ox.ac.uk

This special issue, an initiative of the Southeast Asian Bioethics Network (https://seabioethics.com/), invites submissions of original research articles about migration health ethics. The term ‘migrant’ is an umbrella term for a person who moves away from their usual place of residence, whether within a country or across an international border, temporarily or permanently, and for a variety of reasons. Types of migration include, but are not limited to, labor migration, forced migration, and environmental migration. Articles can be from any part of the world and should examine ethical, legal, or social questions that are of ethical relevance to the topic of migration health. The articles can be empirical or normative and should be 2,000-5,000 words in length.