Please note that tonight's meeting of the Science and Literature Reading Group has been postponed.
Melanie and Charissa
Monday, February 26, 2018
Monday, February 19, 2018
Exhibition - Marginalia in the Whipple Library
‘Marginalia’ has been imagineered by Toby Bryant and actuated and realised by James Livesey.
Across the three display cases on level one in the Haycock Theatre, the exhibition looks at various examples of marginalia from across the Whipple collection. Featuring annotations made in a working medical textbook, bibliophiles collection notes, some shameless hero worship and a watercolour of the authors son, all of the examples chosen are interesting in their own way. They also serve as a ‘what-not-to-do’ guide as to how to treat your Whipple library books.
An in-depth blog about the exhibition will be going up later this week.
If you’re in the library, please do take a look.
Across the three display cases on level one in the Haycock Theatre, the exhibition looks at various examples of marginalia from across the Whipple collection. Featuring annotations made in a working medical textbook, bibliophiles collection notes, some shameless hero worship and a watercolour of the authors son, all of the examples chosen are interesting in their own way. They also serve as a ‘what-not-to-do’ guide as to how to treat your Whipple library books.
An in-depth blog about the exhibition will be going up later this week.
If you’re in the library, please do take a look.
Monday, February 12, 2018
Thirteenth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine
Thursday, 1 March 2018
3.30pm in Seminar Room 2, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
Professor Alisha Rankin (Tufts University)
Poison trials, panaceas and proof: debates about testing and testimony in early modern European medicine
At the courts of sixteenth-century Europe, a number of princely physicians and surgeons tested promising poison antidotes on condemned criminals. These tests were contrived trials, in which a convict took a deadly poison followed by the antidote. The medics sometimes shared detailed descriptions of their poison trials in printed publications or private correspondence, much as they shared case histories of ill patients. Yet these very same physicians disputed the value of remarkably similar tests on animals conducted by charlatans and empirics in marketplace shows. Sometimes, however, these worlds overlapped directly. In 1583, an empiric named Andreas Berthold published a work in Latin praising the virtues of a marvellous new drug, a clay called 'Silesian terra sigillata'. Berthold presented the drug as a perfect Paracelsian remedy for poison and, like most antidotes, useful against many other illnesses as well. While such lofty claims might easily have been disregarded, Berthold noted that his readers did not have to 'trust me on my bare words'. He concluded his book with three testimonial letters from powerful figures – two German princes and one town mayor – about trials they had conducted on the drug in 1580 and 1581. In all three cases, physicians had given poison to test subjects (two used dogs, one a condemned criminal), followed by the antidote. In every case, the subjects who were given the Silesian terra sigillata survived the poison. These testimonial letters provided official legitimacy to an alchemical empiric, in the form of tests conducted by physicians. Meanwhile, other alchemists began to use a different form of testimony to demonstrate the marvellous effects of their antidote cure-alls: testimonial letters from patients describing their miraculous recoveries, which physicians derided as a perversion of the case history. Some of these alchemists likewise ridiculed the poison trial as a lowly and irrelevant form of proof. This talk examines the overlap between the genres of poison antidote and panacea and the debates these drugs engendered in attempts to 'prove' their efficacy.
There will be tea before the lecture, at 3pm in Seminar Room 1, and a drinks reception afterwards, at 5pm in Seminar Room 1. A dinner will follow. Please email Lauren Kassell if you would like to join us.
***************************************************
Plus, earlier in the day (11:30-1pm, Seminar Room 1, HPS), Professor Rankin will discuss a draft chapter on 'Testing the Kunstkammer: bezoar, power and fraud in the sixteenth-century global drug trade’ (abstract below). If you would like a copy of it, please email me.
In 1563, the imperial surgeon Claudius Richardus wrote a glowing account of the virtues of bezoar stone, prized for its properties as an antidote and a cure-all. After giving a long description of the drug's appearance and virtues, Richardus recounted a series of tests of the drug he had personally conducted at the behest of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I: two in which patients under his care received bezoar in the midst of a serious illness and two in which he tested the bezoar in deliberate trials using poison on condemned criminals. All four men experienced miraculous recoveries. His testimony appeared to demonstrate the incontrovertible efficacy of bezoar. Yet bezoar stone was not just a drug. It was also an exotic, highly valued item in the princely Kunstkammer, or chamber of curiosities – often embedded in gold filigree to brighten up its dull brown exterior or set into drinking cups studded with gemstones or other rarities. It commanded a regal price in the marketplaces in Goa and Cochin, and fraud was a constant concern. The prince who could demonstrate he possessed a bezoar that worked had a powerful weapon indeed. In his 1589 treatise on bezoar and other exotic antidotes, German physician Johann Wittich proclaimed a grave need for 'powerful and artful substances that have been proven adequately in a trial'. This paper examines the role of testing exotic poison antidotes in the context of the expanding global drug trade in the sixteenth century.
These events are organised by the Casebooks Project and funded by the Wellcome Trust.
Professor Alisha Rankin (Tufts University)
Poison trials, panaceas and proof: debates about testing and testimony in early modern European medicine
At the courts of sixteenth-century Europe, a number of princely physicians and surgeons tested promising poison antidotes on condemned criminals. These tests were contrived trials, in which a convict took a deadly poison followed by the antidote. The medics sometimes shared detailed descriptions of their poison trials in printed publications or private correspondence, much as they shared case histories of ill patients. Yet these very same physicians disputed the value of remarkably similar tests on animals conducted by charlatans and empirics in marketplace shows. Sometimes, however, these worlds overlapped directly. In 1583, an empiric named Andreas Berthold published a work in Latin praising the virtues of a marvellous new drug, a clay called 'Silesian terra sigillata'. Berthold presented the drug as a perfect Paracelsian remedy for poison and, like most antidotes, useful against many other illnesses as well. While such lofty claims might easily have been disregarded, Berthold noted that his readers did not have to 'trust me on my bare words'. He concluded his book with three testimonial letters from powerful figures – two German princes and one town mayor – about trials they had conducted on the drug in 1580 and 1581. In all three cases, physicians had given poison to test subjects (two used dogs, one a condemned criminal), followed by the antidote. In every case, the subjects who were given the Silesian terra sigillata survived the poison. These testimonial letters provided official legitimacy to an alchemical empiric, in the form of tests conducted by physicians. Meanwhile, other alchemists began to use a different form of testimony to demonstrate the marvellous effects of their antidote cure-alls: testimonial letters from patients describing their miraculous recoveries, which physicians derided as a perversion of the case history. Some of these alchemists likewise ridiculed the poison trial as a lowly and irrelevant form of proof. This talk examines the overlap between the genres of poison antidote and panacea and the debates these drugs engendered in attempts to 'prove' their efficacy.
There will be tea before the lecture, at 3pm in Seminar Room 1, and a drinks reception afterwards, at 5pm in Seminar Room 1. A dinner will follow. Please email Lauren Kassell if you would like to join us.
***************************************************
Plus, earlier in the day (11:30-1pm, Seminar Room 1, HPS), Professor Rankin will discuss a draft chapter on 'Testing the Kunstkammer: bezoar, power and fraud in the sixteenth-century global drug trade’ (abstract below). If you would like a copy of it, please email me.
In 1563, the imperial surgeon Claudius Richardus wrote a glowing account of the virtues of bezoar stone, prized for its properties as an antidote and a cure-all. After giving a long description of the drug's appearance and virtues, Richardus recounted a series of tests of the drug he had personally conducted at the behest of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I: two in which patients under his care received bezoar in the midst of a serious illness and two in which he tested the bezoar in deliberate trials using poison on condemned criminals. All four men experienced miraculous recoveries. His testimony appeared to demonstrate the incontrovertible efficacy of bezoar. Yet bezoar stone was not just a drug. It was also an exotic, highly valued item in the princely Kunstkammer, or chamber of curiosities – often embedded in gold filigree to brighten up its dull brown exterior or set into drinking cups studded with gemstones or other rarities. It commanded a regal price in the marketplaces in Goa and Cochin, and fraud was a constant concern. The prince who could demonstrate he possessed a bezoar that worked had a powerful weapon indeed. In his 1589 treatise on bezoar and other exotic antidotes, German physician Johann Wittich proclaimed a grave need for 'powerful and artful substances that have been proven adequately in a trial'. This paper examines the role of testing exotic poison antidotes in the context of the expanding global drug trade in the sixteenth century.
These events are organised by the Casebooks Project and funded by the Wellcome Trust.
Friday, February 09, 2018
HPS Departmental Seminar - 'Barnum, Bache and Poe: the forging of science in the Antebellum US'
John Tresch (University of Pennsylvania)
Two opposed tendencies characterised US public culture around 1840: first,
a sharp increase of printed matter in which the sites, audiences, styles
and speakers for matters of public concern exploded in number and
diversity; second, an elite movement to unify knowledge through centralised
institutions. In the domain of science, Barnum's 'American Museum' typified
the first, while the US Coast Survey, directed by patrician polymath and
West Point graduate Alexander Dallas Bache, exemplified the second. The
life and writings of Edgar Allan Poe - who trained at West Point, and wrote
constantly about the sciences, even as he struggled to survive as an
editor, poet and storyteller - pushed in both directions at once. Poe
'forged' American science and letters in two senses: by crafting believable
fakes which fed the uncertainty about authority over knowledge, and by
lending aid to projects to restrict the flow of information and establish a
unified intellectual infrastructure. His work thus offers uniquely astute,
if dramatically conflicted commentary on the relations of science and
public in a key phase of national consciousness and industrialisation.
John Tresch, associate professor of history and sociology of science at the
University of Pennsylvania, has been named Chair in History of Art, Science
and Folk Practice at the Warburg Institute.
The new professorship will be critical in restoring, developing and
elaborating the theoretical, cultural historical and anthropological
implications of the work of Aby Warburg, the founder of the institute, and
will inspire the kinds of cross-disciplinary work that will help revitalise
the possibilities of research in the humanities.
Professor Tresch is an historian of science and technology whose work
focuses on changing methods, instruments, and institutions in the sciences,
arts, and media. His book The Romantic Machine examined intersections
between romanticism, science, and utopian politics in France before the
revolution of 1848; it won the History of Science Society's Pfizer Award
for Outstanding Book in 2013. Supported by a fellowship from the National
Endowment for the Humanities, he is currently finishing his next book, The
Reason for the Darkness of the Night: Edgar Allan Poe and the Forging of
American Science, which examines Poe's life and work in the light of
antebellum America's obsession with science and technology. His other
ongoing projects develop the concept of 'cosmograms' as a tool for
comparing forms of natural order, and explore connections between
contemporary neuroscience and traditional monastic practices.
He has held fellowships from Columbia's Society of Fellows in the
Humanities, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, the Max
Planck Institute for History of Science in Berlin, the Huntington Library,
the Cullman Center at the New York Public Library, and the Institute for
Advanced Study in Princeton, and has been visiting researcher at King's
College London and at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. He
is editor-in-chief of the History of Anthropology Newsletter.
Professor Tresch holds a BA in anthropology from the University of Chicago,
a DEA from the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and the École
Normale Supérieure in Paris, and a PhD in History and Philosophy of Science
from the University of Cambridge.
Tuesday, February 06, 2018
26th February - Communication
For the final meeting discussing the aether, we will take to the airwaves, reading three pieces which in different ways consider the consequences of communicating across (and even beyond) the globe:
- Rudyard Kipling, ‘Wireless’ (1902).
- Philip R. Coursey, ‘Interplanetary Wireless?’, Wireless World (1920).
- Eric Roach, ‘Beyond’ (1950).
Monday, January 29, 2018
5th February - Connection
We focus on two readings which consider the ways in which ethereal connections were made and discussed in the early twentieth century:
All welcome!
The Peterhouse Theory Group
Our first meeting of Lent term will be 30 January at 17.30 in The Parlour (G Staircase).
Wine and other beverages will be served.
- Sam Kennerley (History): "Collingwood and the Archaeological Approach to History"
- Josh Nall (History and Philosophy of Science): "Escape to Mars? Victorian and modern narratives of a dying planet"
Wine and other beverages will be served.
Thursday, January 25, 2018
2018 Sandars Lectures - 'Chemical Attractions'
By Dr Peter Wothers, Director of Studies in Chemistry at Cambridge.
Held on the 6th, 7th and 8th of March in St Catherine’s College.
Lecture 1; 6th March.
The first lecture looks at how a young teenager first became addicted to collecting antique books on chemistry over 30 years ago. We will look at some of the very first ‘rare’ books purchased, and exactly what the attraction of them was. We will explore some of the other great chemical libraries formed in the past, and their different ‘flavours’ and strengths. We will also discuss how book collecting has changed over the past 30 years, during the age of the internet – a resource not available to the great collectors of the past. Some of the treasures stumbled across during the time collecting will be exhibited and discussed, including a possibly unique broadsheet summarizing one of the first text books of modern chemistry from the beginning of the 17th century.
Lecture 2; 7th March
This second lecture looks at some of the key chemical texts from the 18th century, when modern chemistry really began. We look at how an understanding of the air and the different gases it contains prompted a revolution in chemistry with the introduction of a new nomenclature which is still used today. We look at some of the key texts by authors such as Cavendish, Priestley, Scheele and Lavoisier and how the modern theory and language developed. We will also see how a chance acquisition of an additional item thrown in with a main lot in an auction led to the identification and purchase of an important piece of scientific apparatus. The lecture will include a couple of explosive chemical demonstrations!
Lecture 3; 8th March
In this third and final lecture, we look at some of the earliest books written by women chemists, prior to Madame Curie. Particularly important is Elizabeth Fulhame’s book from 1794: An essay on combustion, with a view to a new art of dying and painting. Also examined are the immensely influential and utterly delightful editions of Jane Marcet’s Conversations on Chemistry published between 1806 and 1853. This book takes the form of informal dialogues, or conversations, between the teacher, Mrs Bryan, and her two young students, Caroline and Emily. We will also look at other books written for younger audiences and some of the dangerous experiments they encouraged their readers to try out.
Further information here.
Held on the 6th, 7th and 8th of March in St Catherine’s College.
Lecture 1; 6th March.
The first lecture looks at how a young teenager first became addicted to collecting antique books on chemistry over 30 years ago. We will look at some of the very first ‘rare’ books purchased, and exactly what the attraction of them was. We will explore some of the other great chemical libraries formed in the past, and their different ‘flavours’ and strengths. We will also discuss how book collecting has changed over the past 30 years, during the age of the internet – a resource not available to the great collectors of the past. Some of the treasures stumbled across during the time collecting will be exhibited and discussed, including a possibly unique broadsheet summarizing one of the first text books of modern chemistry from the beginning of the 17th century.
Lecture 2; 7th March
This second lecture looks at some of the key chemical texts from the 18th century, when modern chemistry really began. We look at how an understanding of the air and the different gases it contains prompted a revolution in chemistry with the introduction of a new nomenclature which is still used today. We look at some of the key texts by authors such as Cavendish, Priestley, Scheele and Lavoisier and how the modern theory and language developed. We will also see how a chance acquisition of an additional item thrown in with a main lot in an auction led to the identification and purchase of an important piece of scientific apparatus. The lecture will include a couple of explosive chemical demonstrations!
Lecture 3; 8th March
In this third and final lecture, we look at some of the earliest books written by women chemists, prior to Madame Curie. Particularly important is Elizabeth Fulhame’s book from 1794: An essay on combustion, with a view to a new art of dying and painting. Also examined are the immensely influential and utterly delightful editions of Jane Marcet’s Conversations on Chemistry published between 1806 and 1853. This book takes the form of informal dialogues, or conversations, between the teacher, Mrs Bryan, and her two young students, Caroline and Emily. We will also look at other books written for younger audiences and some of the dangerous experiments they encouraged their readers to try out.
Further information here.
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
Landscapes Below Speaker Series
Milstein Seminar Rooms, University Library
Thursday 25 January, 17.30-18.30
THE WONDERS OF THE PEAK: EIGHTEENTH CENTURY GEO-TOURISM IN DERBYSHIRE
Anna Rhodes, Collections Officer at Buxton Museum & Art Gallery
In 1636 Thomas Hobbes published his topographical and satirical poem The Wonders of the Peak. This popular verse described visiting some of Derbyshire's geological wonders, including limestone caverns and natural wells. Hobbes' poem publicised this landscape and by the eighteenth century, these sites were teeming with visitors. Descriptions and engravings of the sites were published in magazines and they attracted artists including Joseph Farrington, Philip James De Loutherbourg and William Gilpin. This talk explores how these geological 'wonders' were represented on both paper and canvas in the eighteenth-century. It draws on many unpublished travel journals, examining how the visitors engaged with the geological landscape. These often sensationalised descriptions, written by both men and women contain tales of perilous adventure, eerie visions into other worlds and the stirrings of modern geology.
Further information, and a link to book tickets, here.
Future events:
All details and booking information can be found here.
Thursday 25 January, 17.30-18.30
THE WONDERS OF THE PEAK: EIGHTEENTH CENTURY GEO-TOURISM IN DERBYSHIRE
Anna Rhodes, Collections Officer at Buxton Museum & Art Gallery
In 1636 Thomas Hobbes published his topographical and satirical poem The Wonders of the Peak. This popular verse described visiting some of Derbyshire's geological wonders, including limestone caverns and natural wells. Hobbes' poem publicised this landscape and by the eighteenth century, these sites were teeming with visitors. Descriptions and engravings of the sites were published in magazines and they attracted artists including Joseph Farrington, Philip James De Loutherbourg and William Gilpin. This talk explores how these geological 'wonders' were represented on both paper and canvas in the eighteenth-century. It draws on many unpublished travel journals, examining how the visitors engaged with the geological landscape. These often sensationalised descriptions, written by both men and women contain tales of perilous adventure, eerie visions into other worlds and the stirrings of modern geology.
Further information, and a link to book tickets, here.
Future events:
- 'The Role of Women in the History of Geology' - Tuesday 20 February
- 'George Cumberland, fossil collecting and landscape painting in early 19th century Bristol' - Thursday 22 March
All details and booking information can be found here.
Thursday, January 18, 2018
Cambridge Interdisciplinary Performance Network: Narratives and Artificial Intelligence
23 January 2018, 5-7pm
CRASSH, Alison Richards Building, SG1
Chair: Satinder Gill (CIPN)
The AI Narratives project at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence examines how we talk and think about AI, and considers the impact this could have on how it is regarded, developed, and regulated, highlighting the role of humanities research in technological development.
1. Stephen Cave: Hopes and Fears for AI: Four Dichotomies
Rarely has a technology arrived more pre-loaded with associations than the intelligent machine. We categorise those associations into four dichotomies of hopes and fears:
- Ease / Obsolescence
- Dominance / Subjugation
- Gratification / Alienation
- Immortality / Inhumanity
Stephen Cave is Executive Director of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, Senior Research Associate in the Faculty of Philosophy, and Fellow of Hughes Hall, at the University of Cambridge. Stephen earned a PhD in philosophy from Cambridge, then joined the British Foreign Office, where he spent a decade as a policy advisor and diplomat. His research interests currently focus on the nature, portrayal and governance of AI.
2. Sarah Dillon: Displaying Gender
This paper will take a brief interdisciplinary and intersectorial look at the displaying and enacting of gender in artificial intelligence technology and the narratives surrounding.
Films: Ex Machina, Conceiving Ada.
Novels: M. John Harrison's Empty Space.
Sarah Dillon is University Lecturer in Literature and Film in the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge. She is author of The Palimpsest: Literature, Criticism, Theory (2007) and Deconstruction, Feminism, Film (2018). Sarah is a Senior Research Fellow at CFI, where she is co-Project Lead on the AI Narratives project, with the Royal Society. Sarah is a public advocate for the importance of the Arts and Humanities and broadcasts regularly on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4.
3. Kanta Dihal: Personhood
Personhood has been attributed to objects from cars to computers to the Berlin Wall; the latter has even been married. At the same time, some humans have been denied personhood. This talk will explore the issue of personhood in the age of artificial intelligence, with the two robot figures of Sophia and Pepper as key protagonists... or objects of investigation.
TV series and films: Humans (UK)/Real Humans (Sweden); Ex Machina;
Kanta Dihal is the Postdoctoral Research Assistant on the AI Narratives project, and the Research Project Coordinator of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence. In her research she explores the public understanding of AI as constructed by fictional and nonfictional narratives. She has recently submitted her DPhil thesis in science communication at the University of Oxford, titled 'The Stories of Quantum Physics.
4. Beth Singler: AI and Film
Dr Beth Singler will talk about the series of four short documentaries she is making on AI and robotics at the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, with help from the CFI, Arm, and Little Dragon Films. She will show the first half of Pain in the Machine, the first in the series and the winner of the 2017 AHRC Best Research Film of the Year award. She will discuss how the dissemination of accounts of artificial intelligence can rely on dominant narratives and she will reflect on science, fiction, her films, and their role in public engagement.
Pain in the Machine
Beth Singler is the Research Associate on the "Human Identity in an age of Nearly-Human Machines" project at the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, where she is exploring the social and religious implications of advances in Artificial Intelligence and robotics. As an associate research fellow at the CFI she is collaborating on the Narratives of AI project, which is running in partnership with the Royal Society. Beth is an experienced social and digital anthropologist.
Chair: Satinder Gill
Satinder is a Research Affiliate with the Music Faculty, based with the Centre for Music and Science. She is author of Tacit Engagement: Beyond Interaction (2015), editor of a forthcoming book on The Relational Interface: Where Art, Science, and Technology Meet (2018), and member of the Editorial Board of the AI & Society Journal since its establishment in 1987.
To join the CIPN mailing list, subscribe here; to post events relating to the concept of performance to the CIPN mailing list, email here.
CRASSH, Alison Richards Building, SG1
Chair: Satinder Gill (CIPN)
The AI Narratives project at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence examines how we talk and think about AI, and considers the impact this could have on how it is regarded, developed, and regulated, highlighting the role of humanities research in technological development.
1. Stephen Cave: Hopes and Fears for AI: Four Dichotomies
Rarely has a technology arrived more pre-loaded with associations than the intelligent machine. We categorise those associations into four dichotomies of hopes and fears:
- Ease / Obsolescence
- Dominance / Subjugation
- Gratification / Alienation
- Immortality / Inhumanity
Stephen Cave is Executive Director of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, Senior Research Associate in the Faculty of Philosophy, and Fellow of Hughes Hall, at the University of Cambridge. Stephen earned a PhD in philosophy from Cambridge, then joined the British Foreign Office, where he spent a decade as a policy advisor and diplomat. His research interests currently focus on the nature, portrayal and governance of AI.
2. Sarah Dillon: Displaying Gender
This paper will take a brief interdisciplinary and intersectorial look at the displaying and enacting of gender in artificial intelligence technology and the narratives surrounding.
Films: Ex Machina, Conceiving Ada.
Novels: M. John Harrison's Empty Space.
Sarah Dillon is University Lecturer in Literature and Film in the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge. She is author of The Palimpsest: Literature, Criticism, Theory (2007) and Deconstruction, Feminism, Film (2018). Sarah is a Senior Research Fellow at CFI, where she is co-Project Lead on the AI Narratives project, with the Royal Society. Sarah is a public advocate for the importance of the Arts and Humanities and broadcasts regularly on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4.
3. Kanta Dihal: Personhood
Personhood has been attributed to objects from cars to computers to the Berlin Wall; the latter has even been married. At the same time, some humans have been denied personhood. This talk will explore the issue of personhood in the age of artificial intelligence, with the two robot figures of Sophia and Pepper as key protagonists... or objects of investigation.
TV series and films: Humans (UK)/Real Humans (Sweden); Ex Machina;
Kanta Dihal is the Postdoctoral Research Assistant on the AI Narratives project, and the Research Project Coordinator of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence. In her research she explores the public understanding of AI as constructed by fictional and nonfictional narratives. She has recently submitted her DPhil thesis in science communication at the University of Oxford, titled 'The Stories of Quantum Physics.
4. Beth Singler: AI and Film
Dr Beth Singler will talk about the series of four short documentaries she is making on AI and robotics at the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, with help from the CFI, Arm, and Little Dragon Films. She will show the first half of Pain in the Machine, the first in the series and the winner of the 2017 AHRC Best Research Film of the Year award. She will discuss how the dissemination of accounts of artificial intelligence can rely on dominant narratives and she will reflect on science, fiction, her films, and their role in public engagement.
Pain in the Machine
Beth Singler is the Research Associate on the "Human Identity in an age of Nearly-Human Machines" project at the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, where she is exploring the social and religious implications of advances in Artificial Intelligence and robotics. As an associate research fellow at the CFI she is collaborating on the Narratives of AI project, which is running in partnership with the Royal Society. Beth is an experienced social and digital anthropologist.
Chair: Satinder Gill
Satinder is a Research Affiliate with the Music Faculty, based with the Centre for Music and Science. She is author of Tacit Engagement: Beyond Interaction (2015), editor of a forthcoming book on The Relational Interface: Where Art, Science, and Technology Meet (2018), and member of the Editorial Board of the AI & Society Journal since its establishment in 1987.
To join the CIPN mailing list, subscribe here; to post events relating to the concept of performance to the CIPN mailing list, email here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)