Tembusu College

Work in Progress Seminar

6PM, Thursday

Venue: Common Lounge, Lobby

28th March 2013

Topic:

Managing a managed life; imaginative ethics in our technological age

Speaker: Dr. Adam Groves

Register at: dev-tembusu-nus.pantheonsite.io

Abstract:

What does it mean to be ‘liberated’ by technology? Giro payments, online shopping,

Endless selections of media and computerized games suggest that we are set free.

However, when the movie ends we have yet another to watch, another game to conquer or friend to chat with on increasingly flatter 3D screens. Work should become easier, yet we are working even more. Technology brings an opening in life, but does it not also bring a peculiar chaos?

Unlike the stereotypical idea of a poet, my research examines the every day poetic reality in our technologically ordered lives. What is the connection between poetic awareness and a high tech world? Ironically, poetic sense is part of an ordering of technological chaos.

I will address conceptualizations of the poet and the poetic, to understand the everydayness of poetic sensibility. For example, what is meant by “poetic justice” and “poetic license” ? Then I will discuss ideas of order and chaos as part of the ethical and social order of our technological age.