Independent Study: Body Futurism by Toby Shorin (Essay)

A new experiment: I thought it would be fun to share audio versions of essays or writing from past or future Dialectic guests. Toby Shorin (ep. 7: The Shapes of Culture) recently published 'Body Futurism,' a piece based on a talk I heard him give in 2024 and that I loved.

You can read this piece at https://writing.tobyshorin.com/body-futurism/. It is provocative and feels increasingly prescient. Toby suggests that we must return to the body—and not just bodies in theory but quite literally your, my, our physical bodies, as the starting point for how we think about what is good for how we live and how we design and improve our societies. It was published Feb 25, 2026.

I'm calling this format Independent Study. You can think of it as curated audiobook versions of internet writing. We'll see if I do more of these, and feedback is welcome. But let me know what you think!