Louis Chude-Sokei, author of Floating in a Most Peculiar Way, discusses the Black diaspora, sound, accent, masculinity, Afrofuturism, dub music, and AI with Scott Black. Links: 

Louis Chude-Sokei is George and Joyce Wein Chair in African-American and Black Diaspora Studies, and Director of the African-American and Black Diaspora Studies Program, at Boston University. Scott Black is Director of the Tanner Humanities Center. 

Episode edited by Ethan Rauschkolb. Named after our seminar room, The Virtual Jewel Box hosts conversations at the Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah. Views expressed on The Virtual Jewel Box do not represent the official views of the Center or University.

Why learn to write in the age of artificial intelligence? Elizabeth Callaway, Assistant Professor of English at the University of Utah, talks with Scott Black about writing pedagogy with and about AI. Links: 

Episode edited by Ethan Rauschkolb. Named after our seminar room, The Virtual Jewel Box hosts conversations at the Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah. Views expressed on The Virtual Jewel Box do not represent the official views of the Center or University.

In 1882, Oscar Wilde visited Utah during his famous lecture tour of the United States. Local historian Randell Hoffman discusses the scandals of Wilde's visit, and the Victorian-era conventions that Wilde challenged. Robert Carson examines Wilde's lectures on the importance of beauty and his provocations about taste and artificiality.  

Links:

Episode edited by Ethan Rauschkolb. Named after our seminar room, The Virtual Jewel Box hosts conversations at the Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah. Views expressed on The Virtual Jewel Box do not represent the official views of the Center or University.

What if advances in technology were already changing the causal logic of human reproduction which is now taken for granted? Could pregnancy shift from an event which some opt out of through prevention or termination, to an intentional, elective choice? How should such a system work, and what would be its likely consequences?

These questions comprise the “opt-in conjecture” by University of Utah Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Margaret Pabst Battin, whose book, Sex and the Planet: What Opt-In Reproduction Could Do for the Globe was published by MIT Press.

In discussion with James Tabery (Professor of Philosophy), of the Center for Health Ethics, Arts & Humanities at the University of Utah.

Introduced by Scott Black, Director of the Tanner Humanities Center.

Episode edited by Ethan Rauschkolb. Named after our seminar room, The Virtual Jewel Box hosts conversations at the Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah. Views expressed on The Virtual Jewel Box do not represent the official views of the Center or University.

Nathan Wainstein (Assistant Professor of English at the University of Utah) discusses his new book, Grant Us Eyes: The Art of Paradox in Bloodborne. Joining him is Michael W. Clune (Samuel B. and Virginia C. Knight Professor of Humanities at Case Western Reserve University). 

See also: Video Games: The Artistic Medium of the Future. 

Introduced by Robert Carson, Associate Director of the Tanner Humanities Center.

Episode edited by Ethan Rauschkolb. Named after our seminar room, The Virtual Jewel Box hosts conversations at the Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah. Views expressed on The Virtual Jewel Box do not represent the official views of the Center or University.

Alice Dailey recounts the life and death of her mother, who was “a gifted teacher, a passionate reader, and a pathological liar.”

Dailey is Professor of English and Director of Faculty Affairs at Villanova University. She discusses her scholarly memoir, Mother of Stories: An Elegy, with Lindsey Drager (Assistant Professor of English, University of Utah). 

Episode edited by Matty Glasgow and Ethan Rauschkolb. Named after our seminar room, The Virtual Jewel Box hosts conversations at the Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah. Views expressed on The Virtual Jewel Box do not represent the official views of the Center or University.

Scott Black, Director / Robert Carson, Associate Director / Beth James, Administrative Director.

Episode edited by Ethan Rauschkolb. Named after our seminar room, The Virtual Jewel Box hosts conversations at the Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah. Views expressed on The Virtual Jewel Box do not represent the official views of the Center or University.