Humanities Horizons Lecture, The Age of the Technocene: Why we need the Arts and Humanities in the 4th Industrial Revolution
Posted on: 21 April 2021
This evening, Wednesday 21 April, the Long Room Hub’s annual Humanities Horizons Lecture will take place online.
The Age of the Technocene: Why we need the Arts and Humanities in the 4th Industrial Revolution will look at how digital communication technologies and data are increasingly present in every aspect of our lives and that if we are to navigate and negotiate our way through the twenty-first century’s industrial revolution, we will need the arts and humanities to guide the way.
When: 7-8.30pm, Wednesday 21 April 2021
Where: Online Book here
The lecture will be delivered by Professor Andrew Thompson CBE (Professor of Global and Imperial History, Nuffield College, Oxford and co-chair of the Global and Imperial History Centre at the University of Oxford).
With the increase in planet-warming greenhouse gases, rising sea levels, and a growing frequency of extreme weather events, the age of the anthropocene has become a familiar refrain. We live at a time when human activity is the dominant influence on our environment. If we accept even just a few of the claims made for the so-called 4th Industrial — or data science — revolution, the age of the technocene would seem to have equal justification.
Digital communication technologies and data are increasingly present in every aspect of our lives. Professor Andrew Thompson will argue that if we are to navigate and negotiate our way through the twenty-first century’s industrial revolution, we will need the arts and humanities to guide the way. The machines that propelled the Industrial Revolution of the Victorian era were those of muscle power. Today’s industrial revolution is propelled by cognitive power. We should be asking not what these new technologies will do to us, but what we will do with them. The 4th Industrial Revolution is not just a matter of technological challenge but of fundamental questions about how we build the kind of societies and communities in which people will want to live.
The Annual Humanities Horizons Lecture was established by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Institute to provide a significant contribution to reflection on and advocacy for the Arts and Humanities.