Russell Blackford is an Australian writer, philosopher, and literary critic.
Early life and education
Blackford was born in Sydney, and grew up in the city of Lake Macquarie, near Newcastle, New South Wales. After graduating with first-class honours degrees in both arts and law from the University of Newcastle and University of Melbourne respectively, Blackford was awarded a PhD in English literature, also from Newcastle, on the return to myth in modern fictional narrative. He completed a Master of Bioethics at Monash University and was awarded a second PhD, in philosophy, for a thesis entitled "The philosophy of human enhancement". His supervisor was Justin Oakley.
Career
As a fiction writer, Blackford specialises in science fiction, fantasy and horror fiction. His work includes four novels published by iBooks, three of them forming an original trilogy set in the world of the Terminator movies. His non-fiction work frequently deals with issues involving science and society, particularly philosophical bioethics, cyberculture, transhumanism, and the history and current state of the science fiction genre. His work has appeared in many magazines, journals, and reference books, and has been featured most prominently in Quadrant, a monthly journal of literature and policy. It draws on his academic qualifications in a number of fields. Since 2008, he has also been a Fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. He was a speaker at the 2010 Global Atheist Convention and a contributor to The Australian Book of Atheism.
Novels
The Tempting of the Witch King, Melbourne, Cory & Collins, 1983,
The New John Connor Chronicles:
*Dark Futures: Book One of : The New John Connor Chronicles, iBooks, August 2002, 336p,
*An Evil Hour: Book Two of Terminator 2: The New John Connor Chronicles, iBooks, May 2003, 368p,
*Times of Trouble: Book Three of Terminator 2: The New John Connor Chronicles, iBooks, September 2003, 384p,
Kong Reborn, ibooks, Inc. November 2005, 320p,
Non-fiction books
Hyperdreams: Damien Broderick's Space/Time Fiction, Originally published in 1998 as chapbook 8 in the Babel Handbooks series on Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers. Review of the writings of SF author Damien Broderick.
50 Great Myths About Atheism, Wiley-Blackwell, 2013..
Humanity Enhanced: Genetic Choice and the Challenge for Liberal Democracies, MIT Press, 2014..
The Mystery of Moral Authority, Palgrave Pivot, 2016..
Science Fiction and the Moral Imagination: Visions, Minds, Ethics, Springer, 2017..
The Tyranny of Opinion: Conformity and the Future of Liberalism, Bloomsbury, 2018.
Editor
Urban Fantasies, anthology of 13 stories, edited with David King, Ebony, 1985.
Contrary Modes, proceedings of the academic track of Aussiecon 2, edited with Jenny Blackford, Lucy Sussex and Norman Talbot, 1985.
50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists, co-editor with Udo Schuklenk, 2009.
Intelligence Unbound: The Future of Uploaded and Machine Minds, co-editor with Damien Broderick, 2014.
Philosophy's Future: The Problem of Philosophical Progress, co-editor with Damien Broderick, 2017.
Academic articles
"Judicial Power, Political Liberty and the Post-Industrial State." Australian Law Journal 71 : 267–93.
"Thinking about Cloning: A Reply to Judith Thomson." Journal of Law and Medicine 9 : 238–50.
"Stranger Than You Think: Arthur C. Clarke's Profiles of the Future." Prefiguring Cyberculture: An Intellectual History. Ed. Darren Tofts, Annemarie Jonson, and Alessio Cavellaro. Sydney: Power Publications, 2002; co-published Boston: MIT Press, 2003: 252–63.
"Should We Fear Death? Epicurean and Modern Arguments." Immortality Institute, ed. The Scientific Conquest of Death: Essays on Infinite Lifespans. Buenos Aires: LibrosEnRed, 2004: 257–69.
