Living in Difficult Times November 19th, 2022 at 2:30pm EST Past Event Watch the video » Daily headlines have been startling and scary: “U.S. Life Expectancy Plunged in 2020, Especially for Black and Hispanic Americans,” reported The New York Times. “The Pandemic has Made Homelessness More Visible in Many American Cities,” noted The Economist, while The Guardian announced “The Latest UN Report is Clear: Climate Change is Here, It’s a Crisis, and It’s Caused by Fossil Fuels.” The pandemic, racist aggression, mass shootings in public schools, domestic politics turned violent, and the war in Ukraine have all contributed to this dispiriting and disorienting era in our personal and collective lives. Meanwhile, half of the population seems to feel the other half is deluded. And while many had hoped the challenge of the pandemic would unite us, three years later the cumulative cause for alarm seems to be growing. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd recently suggested “The world is too scary. Politics is too creepy,” and “horror is too real,” while David Brooks wrote of “The rising tide of global sadness.” Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter surely engenders further unease about how an unelected few can control how we live and what we may know. This Roundtable discussion will consider how those in science, politics, the arts, and everyday life can rally individually and together, to meet the existential challenges and concerns of our epoch. Participants: Jon Chun Founding Co-Director KDH Lab Kenyon College Jon Chun is former CEO of the world’s largest privacy and anonymity website, a Fortune 500 Director of Development, and a UC Berkeley Entrepreneur in Residence prior to joining the faculty at Kenyon College. There he has created the world’s first human-centered AI curriculum and has mentored hundreds of projects. As a Founding Co-Director of… read more » Katherine Elkins Professor of Humanities and Comparative Literature Director of The Integrated Program in Humane Studies Founding Co-Director KDH Lab Kenyon College View Papers / Presentations » Katherine Elkins is Professor of Humanities and faculty in Computing at Kenyon College, where she teaches in the Integrated Program in Humane Studies. She writes about the age-old conversation between philosophy and literature as well as the more recent conversation about AI, language and art. Recent books include The Shapes of Stories with Cambridge University Press, which… read more » Farzad Mahootian Faculty of Liberal Studies, New York University Farzad Mahootian is a Clinical Associate Professor of Global Liberal Studies at New York University since 2010. He has an interdisciplinary background (PhD Philosophy, Fordham; MS Chemistry, Georgetown). His research focuses on interactions between philosophy, science and society within the mythological imagination of technoscience and with guidance from process philosophy, biomimicry, artificial intelligence, and premodern… read more » Edward Tenner Writer & Speaker View Papers / Presentations » Edward Tenner is an independent writer and speaker at the intersection of science, design, and culture. A founding advisor of the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, he is now affiliated with the National Museum of American History as Distinguished Scholar and is also a visiting scholar in the Rutgers University… read more » Steven Wein Supervising Child and Adolescent Analyst, New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute Steven Wein has served at NYPSI as a Supervising Child and Adolescent Analyst since 1993, Training and Supervising Analyst since 1996, and Associate Dean for Child Analysis from 2010 to 2016. He is a member of the Center for Advanced Psychoanalytic Studies. He is a Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and of the… read more » R. John WIlliams Associate Professor, English, Film and Media, at Yale University R. John Williams is an Associate Professor of English, Film and Media, at Yale University. His academic work has focused on international histories of Buddhism, technological innovation and the perceived difference of racial and cultural otherness. His book, The Buddha in the Machine: Art, Technology, and The Meeting of East and West (Yale University Press,… read more »
Jon Chun Founding Co-Director KDH Lab Kenyon College Jon Chun is former CEO of the world’s largest privacy and anonymity website, a Fortune 500 Director of Development, and a UC Berkeley Entrepreneur in Residence prior to joining the faculty at Kenyon College. There he has created the world’s first human-centered AI curriculum and has mentored hundreds of projects. As a Founding Co-Director of… read more »
Katherine Elkins Professor of Humanities and Comparative Literature Director of The Integrated Program in Humane Studies Founding Co-Director KDH Lab Kenyon College View Papers / Presentations » Katherine Elkins is Professor of Humanities and faculty in Computing at Kenyon College, where she teaches in the Integrated Program in Humane Studies. She writes about the age-old conversation between philosophy and literature as well as the more recent conversation about AI, language and art. Recent books include The Shapes of Stories with Cambridge University Press, which… read more »
Farzad Mahootian Faculty of Liberal Studies, New York University Farzad Mahootian is a Clinical Associate Professor of Global Liberal Studies at New York University since 2010. He has an interdisciplinary background (PhD Philosophy, Fordham; MS Chemistry, Georgetown). His research focuses on interactions between philosophy, science and society within the mythological imagination of technoscience and with guidance from process philosophy, biomimicry, artificial intelligence, and premodern… read more »
Edward Tenner Writer & Speaker View Papers / Presentations » Edward Tenner is an independent writer and speaker at the intersection of science, design, and culture. A founding advisor of the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, he is now affiliated with the National Museum of American History as Distinguished Scholar and is also a visiting scholar in the Rutgers University… read more »
Steven Wein Supervising Child and Adolescent Analyst, New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute Steven Wein has served at NYPSI as a Supervising Child and Adolescent Analyst since 1993, Training and Supervising Analyst since 1996, and Associate Dean for Child Analysis from 2010 to 2016. He is a member of the Center for Advanced Psychoanalytic Studies. He is a Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and of the… read more »
R. John WIlliams Associate Professor, English, Film and Media, at Yale University R. John Williams is an Associate Professor of English, Film and Media, at Yale University. His academic work has focused on international histories of Buddhism, technological innovation and the perceived difference of racial and cultural otherness. His book, The Buddha in the Machine: Art, Technology, and The Meeting of East and West (Yale University Press,… read more »