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Tuesday, April 29, 2014

DH2013 Busa Award Lecture by Willard McCarty

If you're a digital humanist, or curious about the species, listen to this lecture, carefully!


Roughly at 12:12:
The primary historical object I want to bring into focus and call on for help is the Otherness of computing, not its user friendliness, ubiquitous presence of social power...I want to grab on to the fear this Otherness provokes and reach through it to the otherness of the techno-scientific tradition from which computing comes. I want to recognize and identify this fear of Otherness, that is the uncanny, as for example, Sigmund Freud, Stanley Cavell, and Masahiro Mori have identified it, to argue that this Otherness is to be sought out and cultivated, not concealed, avoided, or overcome. That it’s sharp opposition to our somnolence of mind is true friendship.
Somewhat later: "If we’re not changed by computing, we’re imprisoned by it."

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