סמינר מחקר 27 במאי: Kathrine Hayles - Three Species Challenges: Toward a General Ecology of Cognitive Assemblages

Kathrine Hayles 

Three Species Challenges: Toward a General Ecology of Cognitive Assemblages

Recently the STEM (science, technology, engineering & mathematics) disciplines have begun organizing around “Grand Challenges,” characterized by planetary dimensions such as Global Energy, Global Health, Global Climate, and Global Thirst and Hunger. Each of these Grand Challenges involve significant cultural issues as well, so the STEM disciplines alone are unlikely to be adequate without input from the humanities and qualitative social sciences. This situation offers an opportunity for the humanities to turn from an emphasis on critique—useful as that has been in many cases—to active collaboration in the search for solutions. Building on the idea of cognitive assemblages (collections of human, nonhuman and technical cognizers through which information, interpretations, and meanings flow), this talk proposes three “species challenges” as a move toward creating a framework adequate to address our current planetary conditions.