The distinctive feature of life today is that our lives appear to be technologically liberated from nature. We live in human-made physical, social and virtual environments. The human condition is unbundled, disrupted, and made optional, even as supposed human distinctives like speech, creation, and rationality are automated, simulated, and replicated.
The spectre of technology raises afresh the question: what is a human being, and what does it take to stay one?
In this immersive weeklong seminar, we will grapple with the essence of technology and life in a technological society. We will explore how technology is reshaping our souls and our society and what a humanistic approach to technology might look like. We will engage with the best that has been said and thought about technology, while also hearing from both technology creators and practitioners of endangered human traditions.
The seminar will balance a focus on the increasing technological mediation of human consciousness on the one hand, and the shifting material foundations of social life on the other. We shall dive into the transformation of economy, psychology, politics, gender, religion and culture: in short, the transformation of humanity.
Readings will include Martin Heidegger, René Girard, Ivan Illich, Karl Marx, Marshall McLuhan, Carl Schmitt, and more.
Logistics
Location: The Seminar will take place from June 16th - 22nd, 2024 with in person sessions at Harvard University’s CGIS Knafel building. Housing will be provided a short distance from the classrooms.
Meals: Breakfast and lunch will be provided daily at the Seminar and dinner will be provided on four separate nights.
Cost: A registration fee of $750 is requested for overhead purposes and represents a small fraction of the true cost of the program. Reading material will be made available free of charge to the accepted applicants at least a month before the seminar. Scholarships are available; please submit your request here.
Who Should Apply?
The seminar is open to advanced undergraduate, graduate students, & young professionals who are working in an area related to the seminar's topic. Sessions begin at 9:00am. The seminar will be capped at twenty participants.
How to APply?
Complete this online application. After completion of the application you will be directed to upload the following:
Writing sample of up to 2,000 words.
CV or Resume.
The application deadline for the seminar is March 15th, 2024. Applicants can expect to receive a decision by the end of April.
- Seminar Faculty -
Jon Askonas, DPhil
Jon Askonas is an assistant professor of Politics at the Catholic University of America, where he works on the connections between the republican tradition, technology, and national security. He is currently working on two books: A Muse of Fire: Why the U.S. Military Forgets What It Learns in War, on what happens to wartime innovations when the war is over and The Shot in the Dark: A History of the U.S. Army Asymmetric Warfare Group, the first comprehensive overview of a unit that helped the Army adapt to the post 9/11 era of counterinsurgency and global power competition. His writing has appeared in Russian Analytical Digest, Triple Helix, The New Atlantis, Fare Forward, War on the Rocks, and the Texas National Security Review.
Mary Harrington
Mary Harrington is a writer whose work has appeared in the Times, The Spectator, The New Statesman, The Daily Mail, and First Things, among others. She is a Contributing Editor at UnHerd.
Danilo Petranovich, Ph. D.
Dr. Danilo Petranovich is the Director of the Abigail Adams Institute. He is responsible for the Institute's strategic planning, developing its intellectual mission and academic programming, cultivating faculty and student partners, and contributor outreach in the greater New England area. Dr. Petranovich received his BA from Harvard and his PhD in Political Science from Yale. He taught courses in political theory, social thought, and the humanities at Duke and at Yale. His expertise is in nineteenth century European and American political thought.
Nathan Pinkoski, DPhil
Nathan Pinkoski Pinkoski is Assistant Professor of Humanities in the Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida. His research and teaching covers 20th century political thought, early modern political thought, and classical political thought. He has published in a variety of academic and popular journals, including Compact: A Radical American Journal, First Things, Perspectives on Political Science, and The Review of Politics. He recently translated Alasdair MacIntyre: une biographie intellectuelle (Alasdair MacIntyre: An Intellectual Biography), by Émile Perreau-Saussine (University of Notre Dame Press).
- Questions -
If you have any questions about the seminar or the application process please do not hesitate to send your queries to abigail@AAICambridge.org
This seminar is co-sponsored by the Zephyr Institute; a community of scholars, students, and professionals committed to gaining a fuller understanding of the human person and the common good.