The Forum for the Academy and the Public

Join us for the kick-off event of The Future of the Future: The Ethics and Implications of AI, a public conference on February 21-22

February 7, 2020 | 5:00-6:00 PM |Humanities Instructional Building 135

Professor Ruha Benjamin will speak on artificial intelligence and its implications for democracy, race, and empowerment.  Her work investigates the social dimensions of science, medicine, and technology with a focus on the relationship between innovation and inequity, health and justice, knowledge and power. Dr. Ruha Benjamin is Associate Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and founder of the JUST DATA Lab. She is the author of People’s Science: Bodies and Rights on the Stem Cell Frontier (2013) and Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code (2019) https://www.ruhabenjamin.com/

Sponsored by UCI’s Forum for the Academy and the Public

As you may know, this week we pulled together a stellar line-up of scholars and experts from UCI Law, History, and Political Science for a pop-up event on the Brett Kavanaugh controversy. Though we had just one day to publicize it, the event turned out to be standing-room-only and our incredible panel shared their expertise and opinions in a lively exchange of ideas. The audience was filled with active participants–students, faculty, university administrators, staff and community members–who all played a role in the discussion.

While it’s impossible to provide any resolution to an ongoing issue such as the Kavanaugh case, we heard feedback from attendees that they felt the event helped them process what was going on and to think more cogently about the issues at hand. This is the power of pop-up events like this one–they enable interdisciplinary and inter-school discussions, they don’t shy away from tough topics, and they provide a space for people from all backgrounds to think together through some of the most complex and pressing issues of our time.

Annabel Adams, the School of Humanities’ Director of Marketing and Communications, was there to live-Tweet the event. Should you have missed the event, please visit the school’s Twitter page here for key sound bites.

Amy Wilentz and Jeff Wasserstrom
Directors, UCI Forum for the Academy and the Public

The conference is over but you can still hear from our invited speakers by watching the panel discussions on our YouTube playlist and reading “Provocations” published in the Los Angeles Review of Books.

American Identity and the Ideal of Democracy in the 21st Century

The program schedule and registration information can be found the conference website here.

The United States is facing a peculiar time in which it’s unusually difficult to take stock of ourselves. If we had to say what underpins America today, if we were forced to choose our core beliefs or values as a nation, it’s not clear that we could readily do so.

Do we still believe, for example, in liberty, life, and the pursuit of happiness? That all men are created equal? Do we still believe in the right to religious freedom? In free speech and freedom of the press? How about our electoral system? Due process? Do we still believe in democracy and representative government? Do we still care, or even give lip-service to caring, about the poor, the marginalized, the vulnerable at home and around the world? Do we still hesitate to use weapons of mass destruction?

These are all questions with which the Trump presidency, the rise of the extreme right and recent gerrymandering lawsuits have forced us to reckon. Do we instead believe, with the president, that might and money should rule the country and the world? Do we believe that political parties have the right to shape the electorate to keep themselves in power? Do we believe that some Americans are more American than others?

Our keynote speaker and our panels, which comprise thinkers and visionaries from all over the world along with a diverse group of American experts, will focus on the many complicated ways to address and to answer the most important question of all: Who Do We Think We Are?

This event takes place on February 9-10, 2018. It is free and open to the public. Preregistration recommended

“Who Do We Think We Are?” is presented by UCI’s Forum for the Academy and the Public and organized by Professor Amy Wilentz. Co-sponsored by the School of Humanities, School of Law, Literary Journalism Program, Illuminations, Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellows Program, and the Los Angeles Review of Books.