What Does it Mean to be Human in the Digital Age? Museums get involved in Torch lecture series

The Humanities and the Digital Age series will explore the relationship between Humanities and the digital world and will consider digital’s at once disruptive and creative potential as well as imagining future ground for exploration.

In this opening event Torch bring together a panel of experts from across the Humanities and the cultural sector to examine how the digital age has shaped, and will continue to shape, the human experience and the Humanities.

Diane Lees, Director-General of Imperial War Museums, will explore how technology allows museums to channel research into public engagement and unleash new and exciting ways of working.

Chris Fletcher, Keeper of Special Collections at the Bodleian Library, will explore the continuing interest in the analogue form of the word, the vibrant cultures of the digital in libraries, and the importance of rising to the challenges of digital preservation.

And Tom Chatfield (author and broadcaster) will examine how technology connects us to each other as never before, how machines are taking on more and more of the tasks and attributes we used to think of as uniquely human, how we can build better relationships with and through machines, and what it means to aim beyond efficiency at lives worth living.

The discussion will be chaired by Dame Lynne Brindley, Master, Pembroke College, University of Oxford. There will be plenty of time for audience questions and discussion, which will be followed by a drinks reception from 7pm-7.30pm.

Emma Smith, Fellow and Tutor in English, University of Oxford, will discuss the humanities, the digital archive and forgetting.

The event takes place from 5.30pm-7pm tonight at the Mathematical Institute, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, Oxford. Tickets are free and can be registered for here.

For those unable to attend in person, the event will be live-streamed, from 5.30pm.