identity

Blaire Ostler is a philosopher, author, and artist whose work explores the intersection of Mormon theology, transhumanism, and human identity. A ninth-generation Latter-day Saint, she has been a notable voice in conversations about the synthesis of religious tradition with technological progress and expanding theological inquiry. Ostler holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Design from the International Academy of Design and Technology–Seattle. Her background as an abstract modern artist deeply informs her philosophical work. Her paintings, characterized by their exploration of aesthetics and form, can be found in residences and businesses throughout Seattle. This artistic sensibility extends to her writing, where she examines the boundaries of traditional categories to explore a more expansive understanding of divinity and humanity. Ostler is the author of Queer Mormon Theology: An Introduction (2021), in which she engages with Mormon doctrinal concepts such as the nature of the divine, the significance of Heavenly Mother, and the potential for technological resurrection. Her involvement with the Mormon Transhumanist Association has been significant; she served on the Board of Directors for six years and as CEO from 2016 to 2018. Her transhumanist vision emphasizes active discipleship, where humanity participates in the work of God through morphological freedom and cognitive liberty. Blaire continues to write, paint, and speak on themes of identity, truth, and beauty, exploring the relationship between the human and the divine.

Chris Bradford is a co-founder and former president of the Mormon Transhumanist Association. He has a background in helping people explore and understand their ancestral histories, having worked for a company dedicated to genealogy. He recognizes the powerful impact of understanding and shaping the stories of our past on our understanding of ourselves. His interests include the intersection of transhumanism, Mormonism, and historical narratives, particularly as they relate to themes of memory, identity, and community. Visiting from his home in Switzerland, Bradford brings an international perspective to the Mormon Transhumanist Association. His conference talks often explore the concept of “redeeming our dead,” drawing parallels between ghost stories, genealogical research, and the transhumanist aspiration to enhance and extend life.

British actress Elicia Allely Grist lived from 1827 to 1898. She joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in May 1853, approximately five months following her husband, John Grist’s conversion. Her decision to join the church came at a significant personal cost, as her parents responded by disinheriting her. Throughout their lives together, the Grist family relocated frequently across England and Ireland, residing in Birmingham, Dublin, and Liverpool. The period in which Grist lived coincided with Britain’s Industrial Revolution, an era marked by sweeping economic, social, cultural, and political transformations. Among these changes was the invention of the steam printing press, which democratized access to printed materials and made them available to the expanding working class. This flourishing print culture provided a valuable public forum where individuals like Grist could articulate their values freely and document their religious experiences.

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (1896–1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer widely regarded as one of the greatest American authors of the twentieth century. He is best known for his novels depicting the era he named “the Jazz Age,” particularly The Great Gatsby (1925), which has become a cornerstone of American literary canon and a profound meditation on ambition, reinvention, and the limits of human aspiration. Fitzgerald’s career was marked by early success and later struggle. His debut novel, This Side of Paradise (1920), made him famous at twenty-three, and he became a celebrity chronicler of the Roaring Twenties alongside his wife, Zelda. His major works—including Tender Is the Night (1934) and the unfinished The Last Tycoon —explored themes of wealth, love, disillusionment, and the American Dream. He published prolifically in magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post to support his lifestyle, though his literary reputation declined in his later years. He died of a heart attack at forty-four in Hollywood, where he had been working as a screenwriter. Fitzgerald’s literary legacy resonates with questions central to Mormon Transhumanism, though often in a tragic register. His work obsessively examines the human yearning for self-transcendence—Jay Gatsby’s attempt to remake himself, to “repeat the past,” and to achieve a kind of personal transfiguration through sheer will. Yet Fitzgerald characteristically frames these aspirations as doomed by human frailty, moral failure, and the entropic pull of time. The famous closing line of The Great Gatsby —“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”—suggests a vision fundamentally at odds with the Mormon Transhumanist confidence that humanity can, through ordained means, actually achieve the transcendence it longs for. Fitzgerald was raised Catholic and retained a complex, often ambivalent relationship with faith throughout his life. His work rarely engages with theosis or divine grace as real possibilities; instead, it tends toward an elegiac naturalism in which human striving, however beautiful, ultimately fails without access to any redemptive framework beyond the self. This positions his worldview in genuine contrast with Mormon Transhumanism’s affirmation that compassionate creation and glorification are attainable destinies rather than merely beautiful illusions. Nevertheless, his penetrating exploration of the desire for transcendence—and his honesty about what happens when that desire is pursued without grace—makes his work a powerful companion text for anyone reflecting on the relationship between aspiration and redemption.

Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957) was a Greek writer, philosopher, and one of the most celebrated authors of the 20th century. Born in Heraklion, Crete, during Ottoman rule, he studied law at the University of Athens before pursuing philosophy in Paris under Henri Bergson. His dissertation explored Nietzsche’s philosophy of right and state. Kazantzakis is best known for Zorba the Greek , inspired by his friendship with a worker named Georgios Zorbas. The novel became world-famous after the 1964 film adaptation. His other major works include The Last Temptation of Christ , Christ Recrucified , and his epic poem The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel , which he considered his greatest achievement. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times, losing to Albert Camus in 1957 by a single vote. Camus later said Kazantzakis deserved the honor “a hundred times more” than himself. His epitaph, inscribed on his tomb overlooking the mountains and sea of Crete, reads: “I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.”