Autonomy Singularity Creativity, the three year project by the National Humanities Center to bring scientists and humanities scholars together to discuss the various ways that science is altering our understanding of the human experience, is coming to an end. Over the course of these three years, we have generated an enormous amount of new scholarship, sparked new discussions, and recorded most of it all on video. We recorded the presentations by scholars at each of the three ASC conferences and have shared them online via Google Video and Vimeo.
Inspired by the success of the ASC project, the Teagle Foundation generously sponsored a summer seminar in an effort to expand reach of ASC, linking it directly to classroom teaching. The 2008 Jessie Ball DuPont/Teagle Summer Seminar, “Human Nature: Ethical Implications of Biological, Cultural, and Technological Transformation,” brought liberal arts college professors together for three weeks of discussions on the changing definitions of human nature.
The Teagle Foundation’s support makes possible three new websites.
1. On the Human will contain a collection of guiding papers, links to current research, and original essays contributed by scholars who teach interdisciplinary courses on the subject of human nature.
2. OpenSeminar On the Human will be a free undergraduate course that introduces various ways of thinking about the subject.
3. On the Human Forum will be a space where readers engage leading experts in conversation about current controversies.
All three sites will be designed to support classroom instructors who are developing materials related to teaching courses on human nature.
Immensely popular, the videos of the ASC conferences will be integrated into the On the Human website.
Over the next few weeks, you will find all sections of the website brought online and get a taste for how we, here at the National Humanities Center, plan to keep the discussion going.
Thanks for checking in,
Phillip Barron