- Tanner Humanities Center - The University of Utah

“Hildegard of Bingen: Medieval Lessons for Modern Medicine” with Victoria Sweet, MD, 2020 Medical Humanities Lecturer

2021 Spring Tanner Talk with Safiya Noble

Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the Department of Information Studies where she serves as the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2i2). She also holds appointments in African American Studies and Gender Studies. She is a Research Associate at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford and has been appointed as a Commissioner on the Oxford Commission on AI & Good Governance (OxCAIGG). She is a board member of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, serving those vulnerable to online harassment. and serves on the NYU Center Critical Race and Digital Studies advisory board. She is the author of a best-selling book on racist and sexist algorithmic bias in commercial search engines, entitled Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (NYU Press), which has been widely-reviewed in scholarly and popular publications.

When: Thursday, March 4, 2021
Time: 12:00pm

Location: Zoom (virtual)

Work In Progress Talk with Taylor Johnson

"Decolonizing Publicity: Indigenous Resistance and Public Participation in Environmental Decision-Making in the Bears Ears National Monument Controversy”

Taylor Johnson, from the Department of Communication, is a Graduate Research Fellow.

When: Thursday, March 11, 2021
Time: 12:00pm

Location: Zoom (virtual)

Work In Progress Talk with Andrew Franta

"Romanticism and the History of the Future"

Andrew Franta, from the Department of English, is a Virgil D. Aldrich Faculty Research Fellow.

When: Thursday, March 18, 2021
Time: 12:00pm

Location: Zoom (virtual)

AI & Techology Book Club with Jeremy Rosen

Book club presentation and discussion of novel, "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" by Ted Chiang, with Professor Jeremy Rosen.

What's the best way to create artificial intelligence? In 1950, Alan Turing wrote, “Many people think that a very abstract activity, like the playing of chess, would be best. It can also be maintained that it is best to provide the machine with the best sense organs that money can buy, and then teach it to understand and speak English. This process could follow the normal teaching of a child. Things would be pointed out and named, etc. Again I do not know what the right answer is, but I think both approaches should be tried.” In this novella, Ted Chiang offers a detailed imagining of how the second approach might work within the contemporary landscape of startup companies, massively-multiplayer online gaming, and open-source software.

When: Thursday, March 18, 2021
Time: 7:00pm

Location: Zoom (virtual)

Work In Progress Talk with Hannah Jung

“The Transformation of Secrets: Family, Religion, and the Resilience of Mormon Polygamy"

Hannah Jung, from the Department of History, Brandeis University, is the Latter-day Saints Studies Research Fellow.

When: Thursday, April 1, 2021
Time: 12:00pm

Location: Zoom (virtual)

AI & Techology Book Club with Andrew Shepahrd

Book club presentation and discussion of the novel, "The City We Became," by N. K. Jemisin.

After the avatar of New York falls into a supernatural coma and vanishes, a group of five new avatars representing the five boroughs come together to fight their common Enemy.

When: Thursday, April 1, 2021
Time: 7:00pm

Location: Zoom (virtual)

Lectures and Conversations

Teacher Workshops

National Theatre Live

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Technology & AI Virtual Book Club - I , Robot

With Andrew Shephard

English faculty members Andrew Shephard and Jeremy Rosen who will run a bi-semester virtual book club on artificial intelligence, starting with I, Robot by Isaac Isamov and discussion led by Prof. Shephard.

When: October 29, 2020
Time: 7:00pm MDT
Location: Virtual

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS AND REGISTRATION

Technology & AI Virtual Book Club - I , Robot

With Andrew Shephard

English faculty members Andrew Shephard and Jeremy Rosen who will run a bi-semester virtual book club on artificial intelligence, starting with I, Robot by Isaac Isamov and discussion led by Prof. Shephard.

When: October 29, 2020
Time: 7:00pm MDT
Location: Virtual

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS AND REGISTRATION

Technology & AI Virtual Book Club - I , Robot

With Andrew Shephard

English faculty members Andrew Shephard and Jeremy Rosen who will run a bi-semester virtual book club on artificial intelligence, starting with I, Robot by Isaac Isamov and discussion led by Prof. Shephard.

When: October 29, 2020
Time: 7:00pm MDT
Location: Virtual

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS AND REGISTRATION

RESEARCH

Fellowships

Work-in-Progress Presentations

Tanner Topics

Mission

The Tanner Humanities Center advances humanities exploration and engagement through academic research, educational enrichment, and public outreach. The activities reflect a vision of the humanities as not only relevant, stimulating, and cutting-edge, but also essential for developing critical thinking, tolerance, and respect on campus and in the community.

MORE ABOUT US

HUMANITIES IN THE MILITARY: A CONVERSATION WITH STACY BARE

A friend of the Tanner Humanities Center, Stacy Bare is a local writer, entrepreneur, well-being advocate, and veteran of the United States Army. He received a Bronze Star for his service in Iraq from 2006-07. Working at the intersection of outdoor recreation and health Bare co-founded the Great Outdoors Lab in 2014 and launched Adventure Not War in 2015. http://www.adventurenotwar.com/contact His work with veterans has earned him a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year Award.
CATCHING UP WITH FORMER FELLOW AND "SIGNATURE WOUNDS" AUTHOR, DAVID KIERAN

Professor David Kieran, author of, "Signature Wounds: The Cultural Politics of Mental Health During the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars," served as one of the Center's visiting fellows in 2015-2016.
SUPPORT THE TANNER HUMANITIES CENTER 2020

We at Tanner Humanities aim to learn to solve complex problems with creativity, make sense of cultural trends and changes, build our capacity for empathy and hope, cultivate connections to one another and our global community, and practice effective communication.