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Panel Discussion: How Has Artificial Intelligence Challenged the Boundaries of Humanistic Thinking and How Might the Humanities Provide New Models for Artificial Intelligence?

Can AI have emotions, can machine learning models truly learn? Can AI systems be used to improve human moral judgments? How might collaboration between humanists and technologists produce more rigorous forms of learning and verification? These and other questions are the subject of a lively exchange between panelists Wendy Chun, Sebastian Liao, Safiya Umoja Noble, and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong.

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Keynote Address: “Regressing to Eugenics? Technologies and Histories of Recognition”

In her keynote address, Wendy Chun discusses how artificial intelligence reproduces and exacerbates ideologies about identity and contributes to the increasingly fractious politics of the twenty-first century. A leading thinker on the influence of new technologies, Chun is the Canada 150 Research Chair in New Media at Simon Fraser University. She also leads the university’s Digital Democracies Institute, whose purpose is to integrate research in the humanities and data sciences to address questions of equality and social justice in order to combat the proliferation of online “echo chambers,” abusive language, discriminatory algorithms and mis/disinformation.

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Pursuing Justice and Preserving Open Debate

Recently, over 150 notable journalists, writers, and academics signed a letter in Harper’s Magazine expressing concern over increasing intolerance on campuses, in newsrooms, and throughout our society. Numerous responses to this letter have raised important questions about freedom of expression and its limits, including the very possibility of truly “open debate” in a society where historic inequities have long suppressed the voices of those on the margins.

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The Power of Myth

Ron Eisenman shares how a PBS television series encouraged him to pursue his passions and turn to the humanities to help him make sense of the world around him. His engagement with “The Power of Myth” helped to connect seemingly disparate cultural contexts by illuminating the shared elements of the stories we tell about ourselves. … Continued

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Madonna’s Mandorla

While acting as a teaching assistant for a large art appreciation course, Caroline Jones witnessed a student’s curiosity about a painting of the Madonna. Such symbols, so pervasive and recognizable in Western culture, she realized, are not as simple and self-contained as they may seem to some of us. The experience helped her to see … Continued

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On the Anxiety of Influence

In this account, William Leuchtenburg shares the story of a seemingly routine exchange with literary scholars in the late 1970s which spurred him to new insights about the ways iconic figures from the past influence those who succeed them, whether they be poets, or composers, or U.S. presidents. Eventually, he would share these insights in … Continued

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A Lifetime of Humanities Moments

Some years ago, I was asked to give a lecture to students enrolled in a small university’s humanities program describing the personal epiphany I experienced which led to my passion for the humanities. Try as I might, I could not think of an isolated, single experience but rather a series of moments that stretch back … Continued

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Learning How to Read a Poem

Janet Napolitano, President of the University of California, reflects on her life growing up in New Mexico and how a low grade on a poetry analysis assignment in college encouraged her to master the craft of writing. She notes how her writing abilities and exposure to the humanities served her well in a career in … Continued

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Growing Up with the Humanities

Mirah Horowitz describes the lessons imparted from her mother, an English professor, on reading and writing as ongoing practices of critical inquiry. Building on their shared love of Shakespeare, Horowitz’s mother taught her daughter how the act of writing can cultivate ideas, prompt questions, and nurture a deeper appreciation for literature. In this light, Horowitz … Continued