Old Email Archive

digest 2002-02-14 #001.txt

11:09 PM 2/13/02 -0800
From: "Society for Literature & Science" 
Daily SLS Email Digest

-> U. of Utah Science and Literature Symposium 4/25-27
     by Carol Wald 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 13 Feb 2002 20:29:28 -0800
From: Carol Wald 
Subject: U. of Utah Science and Literature Symposium 4/25-27

  The first annual Utah Symposium in Science and Literature, to be
held from April 25-27, will bring together in an interdisciplinary
forum some of the nation's most interesting thinkers to address the
topic, What Makes Us So Special? Humans and Their Machines, Machines
and Their Humans.  It will also bring together academics and the
interested public from all over the state and the region.

We live in an era in which computers talk back, cars navigate for us,
stem cell technology produces new body parts, and organs, limbs, and
pets need to have their batteries changed.  This fall's epic movies
featured computer-enhanced and generated characters. While our
machines grow faster, become more powerful, and seem more independent
of us, we become more dependent on them. And, as we create machines
and machine-made images that are more complex and flexible, both
stranger and more eerily familiar, our creations increasingly raise
new questions:

How does technology reflect, change or recreate humanity?

       What does it mean to live surrounded by, intimate with, and
dependent on technology most of us barely understand?
       What do our creations, these new dark mirrors, teach us about
what it means to be human?
        What, if anything, is left that makes us special?

These are some of our questions.  Other questions, and provisional
answers, will come from our three featured guests, MIT embodied
intelligence researcher Rodney Brooks, internationally renowned
novelist Richard Powers, and theologian Anne Foerst, as well as from
other nationally- and internationally-known experts in a variety of
disciplines.

And, we hope, from you.  You will hear from us again after the Games
are over.  In the meantime, please mark your calendar--and check out
our new website at www.scienceandliterature.org.

Sincerely,

Katharine Coles, Director
Utah Symposium in Science and Literature

Katharine Coles
University of Utah
255 S Central Campus Dr Rm 3500
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-0494
801-581-7868 (phone)
801-585-5167 (fax)
k.coles@english.utah.edu
- --
Carol Ann Wald
UCLA Department of English
2225 Rolfe Hall
Box 951530
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1530
wald@humnet.ucla.edu

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U. of Utah Science and Literature Symposium
4/25-27
 The first annual Utah Symposium in
Science and Literature, to be held from April 25-27, will bring
together in an interdisciplinary forum some of the nation's most
interesting thinkers to address the topic, What Makes Us So
Special? Humans and Their Machines, Machines and Their Humans. 
It will also bring together academics and the interested public from
all over the state and the region.

We live in an era in which computers talk back, cars navigate for us,
stem cell technology produces new body parts, and organs, limbs, and
pets need to have their batteries changed.  This fall's epic
movies featured computer-enhanced and generated characters. While our
machines grow faster, become more powerful, and seem more independent
of us, we become more dependent on them. And, as we create machines
and machine-made images that are more complex and flexible, both
stranger and more eerily familiar, our creations increasingly raise
new questions:


How does technology reflect, change or recreate humanity?

     
What does it mean to live surrounded by, intimate with, and dependent
on technology most of us barely understand?
      What do our
creations, these new dark mirrors, teach us about what it means to be
human?
       What, if
anything, is left that makes us special?

These are some of our questions.  Other questions, and
provisional answers, will come from our three featured guests, MIT
embodied intelligence researcher Rodney Brooks, internationally
renowned novelist Richard Powers, and theologian Anne Foerst, as well
as from other nationally- and internationally-known experts in a
variety of disciplines. 

And, we hope, from you.  You will hear from us again after the
Games are over.  In the meantime, please mark your calendar--and
check out our new website at www.scienceandliterature.org.

Sincerely,

Katharine Coles, Director
Utah Symposium in Science and Literature

Katharine Coles
University of Utah
255 S Central Campus Dr Rm 3500
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-0494
801-581-7868 (phone)
801-585-5167 (fax)
k.coles@english.utah.edu

-- 
Carol Ann Wald
UCLA Department of English
2225 Rolfe Hall
Box 951530
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1530
wald@humnet.ucla.edu




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