CSPO enLIGHTeNING LUNCHES

Join the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes for quick, edifying lunchtime presentations and discussions. Each enLIGHTeNING lunch will include pizza, a 20-minute presentation, and 20-minute discussion.

Paul Privateer
CSPO and Film and Media Studies

Digitizing the Universe: The New Alphabet and the Global Battle for Human Nature

The presentation explores the revolutionary/ideological nature of digital technology, suggesting that the “digital” constitutes a new and fundamentally radical alphabet, a new system of meaning profoundly different than logosyllabic alphabets. The difference—that of “virtual incarnations, of thought becoming material—is having a profound ideological effect on global cultures. The digital alphabet has invented postmodern technologies responsible for constructing a new “reality” and its culture, that is, cyberspace and virtual reality. The presentation will explore how these two productions are at the center of global ideological battles over what is human and what constitutes legitimate human knowledge systems.