2021 | The Age of the Technocene

Recorded April 21, 2021. The Age of the Technocene: Why we need the
Arts and Humanities in the 4th Industrial Revolution The Trinity
Long Room Hub Annual Humanities Horizons Lecture for 2021 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. About Andrew Thompson: Andrew
Thompson is Professor of Global and Imperial History and
Professorial Fellow at Nuffield College. He is the co-chair of the
Global and Imperial History Centre at the University of Oxford.
Professor Thompson’s research interests span the effects of empire
on British private and public life during the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. He has also written on Anglo-Argentine
relations, colonial South Africa, transnational migration and
migrant remittances, and public memories and legacies of empire. He
is currently researching international humanitarianism and the aid
sector, which is the subject of his forthcoming work,
Humanitarianism on Trial: How a global system of aid and
development emerged through the end of empire (Oxford University
Press). From 2015 to 2020 Professor Thompson was Executive Chair of
the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). During his period
in office he secured a £19 million grant for Museums and Galleries,
as part of the Strategic Priorities Fund, Towards a National
Collection: Opening UK Heritage to the World. He was responsible
for securing the £10 million Policy and Evidence Centre for Modern
Slavery and Human Rights and a further £80 million Creative
Industries programme, funded by the Industrial Strategy. Until
April 2021, he remains the UKRI International Lead for the £1.5
billion Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) and the Newton Fund.
Professor Thompson was awarded a CBE in the 2021 New Years’ Honours
List for his services to Research. Learn more at:
https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/