The Global Posthuman Network is starting a series of live digital forums in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
This is the first of our Posthuman Forums on the topic:
"The Philosophical and Political Implications of Covid19 and the Posthuman".
DATE and TIME
The event is scheduled for Saturday, May 30th 2020, 12pm-1.30 pm (Eastern time).
We will host the event live on Zoom.
TICKETS
Admission is Free, Registration is required.
To register:
https://posthumanforum.eventbrite.com
The Forum is currently sold out, thanks for your interest!
This is the video:
This is the first of our Posthuman Forums on the topic:
"The Philosophical and Political Implications of Covid19 and the Posthuman".
DATE and TIME
The event is scheduled for Saturday, May 30th 2020, 12pm-1.30 pm (Eastern time).
We will host the event live on Zoom.
TICKETS
Admission is Free, Registration is required.
To register:
https://posthumanforum.eventbrite.com
The Forum is currently sold out, thanks for your interest!
This is the video:
PROGRAM
Introduction
(5 minutes)
Facilitators:
Francesca Ferrando (NYU / Posthuman Global Network)
Jim McBride (NYU / NY Posthuman Research Group)
Speakers:
1. “Why it is Helpful and Dangerous to Use AI to Fight Covid”
Kevin LaGrandeur (New York Institute of Technology, US / NY Posthuman Research Group)
(5 minutes)
2. “A Democratic Usage of Digital Data”
Stefan Lorenz Sorgner (John Cabot University, Italy / Beyond Humanism Network)
(5 minutes)
3. Posthuman Technology during COVID-19”
Maggie Jiang (NYU, US / China)
(5 minutes)
Q/A
(20 minutes)
4. “Posthuman Vulnerability”
Christine Daigle (Brock University, Canada / Posthumanism Research Institute)
(5 minutes)
5. "The Virus, our Ally for Metahumanist Mutations"
Jaime del Val (Metaverso Institute)
(5 minutes)
6. "Stimulus Serenades for Social Change: Putting the "Social" back in Social Distancing"
Emily Bauman (NYU)
(5 minutes)
Q/A
(20 minutes)
7. “A History of Treating Disease through Objects” (Visual Exhibition)
Denny Daniel (Museum of Interesting Things, NYC, US)
(5 minutes)
Final Remarks and Announcements
(10 minutes)
(5 minutes)
Facilitators:
Francesca Ferrando (NYU / Posthuman Global Network)
Jim McBride (NYU / NY Posthuman Research Group)
Speakers:
1. “Why it is Helpful and Dangerous to Use AI to Fight Covid”
Kevin LaGrandeur (New York Institute of Technology, US / NY Posthuman Research Group)
(5 minutes)
2. “A Democratic Usage of Digital Data”
Stefan Lorenz Sorgner (John Cabot University, Italy / Beyond Humanism Network)
(5 minutes)
3. Posthuman Technology during COVID-19”
Maggie Jiang (NYU, US / China)
(5 minutes)
Q/A
(20 minutes)
4. “Posthuman Vulnerability”
Christine Daigle (Brock University, Canada / Posthumanism Research Institute)
(5 minutes)
5. "The Virus, our Ally for Metahumanist Mutations"
Jaime del Val (Metaverso Institute)
(5 minutes)
6. "Stimulus Serenades for Social Change: Putting the "Social" back in Social Distancing"
Emily Bauman (NYU)
(5 minutes)
Q/A
(20 minutes)
7. “A History of Treating Disease through Objects” (Visual Exhibition)
Denny Daniel (Museum of Interesting Things, NYC, US)
(5 minutes)
Final Remarks and Announcements
(10 minutes)
LOGISTICS
Registration
The event is free; registration is required.
Social Media
Each Summit will turn into an episode of our Vlog "Posthumans": http://www.posthumans.org/vlog.html
and Podcast "Posthumans": http://www.posthumans.org/podcast.html).
Possibly, the Summit will stream live on our Facebook page "NY Posthuman Research Group".
The event is free; registration is required.
Social Media
Each Summit will turn into an episode of our Vlog "Posthumans": http://www.posthumans.org/vlog.html
and Podcast "Posthumans": http://www.posthumans.org/podcast.html).
Possibly, the Summit will stream live on our Facebook page "NY Posthuman Research Group".
ABSTRACTS AND BIOS
1.
TITLE
Why it is Helpful and Dangerous to Use AI to Fight Covid
ABSTRACT
As of April, 2020, there are a surprising number of AI-based innovations for helping resolve COVID. Some very useful ones help diagnose and research solutions for the virus; others, especially those that record and track people who have the virus to aid in quarantines, are perilous to our privacy and could aid authoritarian governing. I will discuss some of these innovations and give recommendations for their safe use.
BIO
Dr. Kevin LaGrandeur is Professor at the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), and a Fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technology. He also is a co-founder of the NY Posthuman Research Group. Dr. LaGrandeur has published over 50 articles and several media productions, which have appeared in both professional venues and the popular press. His recent books are Artificial Slaves and Surviving the Machine Age.
2.
TITLE
A Democratic Usage of Digital Data
ABSTRACT
In my short talk, I reflect upon the complex web of relationships between health, privacy, and digital data, whereby I criticize the value of privacy which is widely taken for granted, but which is not well justified.
BIO
Stefan Lorenz Sorgner is a philosophy professor at John Cabot University in Rome and is director and co-founder of the Beyond Humanism Network, Fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET), Research Fellow at the Ewha Institute for the Humanities at Ewha Womans University in Seoul and Visiting Fellow at the Ethics Centre of the Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena. More info: www.sorgner.de
3.
TITLE
Posthuman technology during COVID-19
BIO
Maggie Jiang is a Chinese international student currently studying at NYU. She is both Hong Kong and Shenzhen (mainland China) based.
ABSTRACT
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, high-end technology had been widely applied. Pandemic drones, tracking tools, QR codes… all served to help people survive this crisis. However, while enjoying the benefits brought by these technologies, human beings are unwillingly put under surveillance and basic human rights are compromised.
4.
TITLE
Posthuman Vulnerability
ABSTRACT
I discuss the concept of transjectivity which captures the notions of transsubjective and transobjective (or material) entanglements in relation to the impact COVID-19 has had on our individual and collective ways of being. The sudden disruptive shifts to the ways in which we experience our multiple entanglements has caused disorientation. It only uncovers a fundamental fact: as transjective beings, we are fundamentally vulnerable.
BIO
Christine Daigle is professor of philosophy and Director of the Posthumanism Research Institute at Brock University. Her current research explores the concept of posthuman vulnerability and its ethical potential from a posthumanist material feminist point of view. She also works on environmental posthumanities and issues related to the Anthropocene.
5.
TITLE
The Virus, our Ally for Metahumanist Mutations
ABTRACT
As the planet accelerates, via the pandemic, the preexisting tendency towards an algorithmic governmentality is urgent to overcome humanistic nostalgias of "saving humanity"; and transhumanistic dystopias of control. Through critical posthumanism and metahumanism I propose a triple move: red lines against surveillance, the planet's health as problem number one in global agendas, and a deep mutation toward less reductive ways of perceiving and moving.
BIO
Jaime del Val is a metahumanist polymath who develops transdisciplinary projects across all arts, philosophy, technology, and activism and has curated Metabody Forum events in over 30 countries. Jaime is polyglot, neurodiverse and mestiza, microsexual and trans-species; is neither man, nor woman, nor human, and is not in Facebook.
6.
TITLE
Stimulus Serenades for Social Change: Putting the "Social" back in Social Distancing
ABSTRACT
This lecture presents a species of posthuman-itarianism, a form of social justice that blossoms amid the perverse rationalities attending collective crises. The first stimulus serenade involved the author's contribution of her stimulus check to jazz musicians in New Orleans to perform for covid patients and front line staff. I discuss how this project creates posthuman forms of solidarity in this socially distant time.
BIO
Emily Bauman is a Clinical Associate Professor of Liberal Studies at NYU. She has published articles on humanitarian narrative, intelligent design, political iconography, and postcolonial studies and is currently at work on a book on religion and media.
7.
TITLE
A History of Treating Disease through Objects (Visual Exhibition)
ABSTRACT
The History of treating disease or the lack of treating disease has evolved over the ages. Denny Daniel will discuss some of the methods that worked and many that did not work so well while showing the actual historic items from the Museum collection.
BIO
Denny Daniel, an NYU grad, is founder of The Museum of Interesting Things and brings his traveling interactive demonstration of inventions to schools, libraries, and events. Heralded in the NY Times, appeared on the History & Science Channel, NY1 News & PBS & over 20 publications and spoke at 4 TEDx talks.
TITLE
Why it is Helpful and Dangerous to Use AI to Fight Covid
ABSTRACT
As of April, 2020, there are a surprising number of AI-based innovations for helping resolve COVID. Some very useful ones help diagnose and research solutions for the virus; others, especially those that record and track people who have the virus to aid in quarantines, are perilous to our privacy and could aid authoritarian governing. I will discuss some of these innovations and give recommendations for their safe use.
BIO
Dr. Kevin LaGrandeur is Professor at the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), and a Fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technology. He also is a co-founder of the NY Posthuman Research Group. Dr. LaGrandeur has published over 50 articles and several media productions, which have appeared in both professional venues and the popular press. His recent books are Artificial Slaves and Surviving the Machine Age.
2.
TITLE
A Democratic Usage of Digital Data
ABSTRACT
In my short talk, I reflect upon the complex web of relationships between health, privacy, and digital data, whereby I criticize the value of privacy which is widely taken for granted, but which is not well justified.
BIO
Stefan Lorenz Sorgner is a philosophy professor at John Cabot University in Rome and is director and co-founder of the Beyond Humanism Network, Fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET), Research Fellow at the Ewha Institute for the Humanities at Ewha Womans University in Seoul and Visiting Fellow at the Ethics Centre of the Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena. More info: www.sorgner.de
3.
TITLE
Posthuman technology during COVID-19
BIO
Maggie Jiang is a Chinese international student currently studying at NYU. She is both Hong Kong and Shenzhen (mainland China) based.
ABSTRACT
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, high-end technology had been widely applied. Pandemic drones, tracking tools, QR codes… all served to help people survive this crisis. However, while enjoying the benefits brought by these technologies, human beings are unwillingly put under surveillance and basic human rights are compromised.
4.
TITLE
Posthuman Vulnerability
ABSTRACT
I discuss the concept of transjectivity which captures the notions of transsubjective and transobjective (or material) entanglements in relation to the impact COVID-19 has had on our individual and collective ways of being. The sudden disruptive shifts to the ways in which we experience our multiple entanglements has caused disorientation. It only uncovers a fundamental fact: as transjective beings, we are fundamentally vulnerable.
BIO
Christine Daigle is professor of philosophy and Director of the Posthumanism Research Institute at Brock University. Her current research explores the concept of posthuman vulnerability and its ethical potential from a posthumanist material feminist point of view. She also works on environmental posthumanities and issues related to the Anthropocene.
5.
TITLE
The Virus, our Ally for Metahumanist Mutations
ABTRACT
As the planet accelerates, via the pandemic, the preexisting tendency towards an algorithmic governmentality is urgent to overcome humanistic nostalgias of "saving humanity"; and transhumanistic dystopias of control. Through critical posthumanism and metahumanism I propose a triple move: red lines against surveillance, the planet's health as problem number one in global agendas, and a deep mutation toward less reductive ways of perceiving and moving.
BIO
Jaime del Val is a metahumanist polymath who develops transdisciplinary projects across all arts, philosophy, technology, and activism and has curated Metabody Forum events in over 30 countries. Jaime is polyglot, neurodiverse and mestiza, microsexual and trans-species; is neither man, nor woman, nor human, and is not in Facebook.
6.
TITLE
Stimulus Serenades for Social Change: Putting the "Social" back in Social Distancing
ABSTRACT
This lecture presents a species of posthuman-itarianism, a form of social justice that blossoms amid the perverse rationalities attending collective crises. The first stimulus serenade involved the author's contribution of her stimulus check to jazz musicians in New Orleans to perform for covid patients and front line staff. I discuss how this project creates posthuman forms of solidarity in this socially distant time.
BIO
Emily Bauman is a Clinical Associate Professor of Liberal Studies at NYU. She has published articles on humanitarian narrative, intelligent design, political iconography, and postcolonial studies and is currently at work on a book on religion and media.
7.
TITLE
A History of Treating Disease through Objects (Visual Exhibition)
ABSTRACT
The History of treating disease or the lack of treating disease has evolved over the ages. Denny Daniel will discuss some of the methods that worked and many that did not work so well while showing the actual historic items from the Museum collection.
BIO
Denny Daniel, an NYU grad, is founder of The Museum of Interesting Things and brings his traveling interactive demonstration of inventions to schools, libraries, and events. Heralded in the NY Times, appeared on the History & Science Channel, NY1 News & PBS & over 20 publications and spoke at 4 TEDx talks.
Disability Accommodation Statement
The Global Posthuman Network provides reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities. Requests for accommodations for events and services should be submitted at least two weeks before the date of the accommodation need. Please email NYposthuman[at]gmail.com for assistance.
