The conference has been canceled due to the situation with the coronavirus. We hope to be able to invite Wennerscheid back to give a talk some other time. 

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Human Futures invites everyone to come and join our series of BROWN BAG SEMINARS. On April 23, Sophie Wennerscheid will visit us and speak about Technotimacy. 

Wennerscheid is Associate Professor of Scandinavian Literature at the University of Copenhagen. At this seminar, she will discuss intimate relationships between humans and humanoid robots in literature, art, and everyday life. 

Based on her latest book publication Sex machina. Zur Zukunft des Begehrens, Wennerscheid will speak about how we can no longer think of the body as a stable and self-contained unit, but rather as a body to which parts can be added or removed and used elsewhere, and which can be connected to other human and nonhuman bodies via various human-machine interfaces. She will discuss the impact of these developments on sexual practices and forms of intimacy today. Will sexuality become artificial and ‘soulless’, a dehumanized pleasure performance, no longer in need of a human partner? Or do ‘new networks of desire’, based on our relationships with the ‘technological other’ challenge the traditional notion of the ‘natural body’ and ‘natural sex’? These are some of the questions that will be discussed through a critical reflection on the representation of human-robot relationships in literature, art, and real life.

Bring your lunch and come join us. All are welcome and there will be coffee and cookies.

No registration needed.