Education / Lecture Platform


Week Six — July 29–August 4, 2012

Digital Identity

The digital age promises us unlimited access to information, a freer exchange of ideas and constant connection to anyone from anywhere. How can we balance technology’s positive and negative effects on our lives? Has the Internet truly created a more informed and engaged citizenry? What does it mean for those without access and those on the other side of the digital generation gap? During this week we’ll examine the psychological, physiological and cultural consequences of living digitally and how our online presence shapes our concept of self, our demands for privacy and the way we relate to one another.


Confirmed Lecturers

Monday 7/30
Tuesday 7/31
Wednesday 8/1
Thursday 8/2
Friday 8/3

Sherry Turkle

Vivian Schiller

Braden Allenby

Dahlia Lithwick

Andrew Zolli

Monday, July 30

Sherry Turkle

director, MIT Initiative on Technology and Self

Sherry Turkle is Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT and the founder and current director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self. Her most recent book is Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other.

Turkle is the author of Psychoanalytic Politics: Jacques Lacan and Freud’s French Revolution, The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet and Simulation and Its Discontents. She is the editor of Evocative Objects: Things We Think With, Falling for Science: Objects in Mind and The Inner History of Devices. An expert on mobile technology, social networking and sociable robotics, Turkle writes on the “subjective side” of people’s relationships with technology, especially computers.

Turkle has been named “Woman of the Year” by Ms. Magazine and among the “40 under 40” who are changing the nation by Esquire. She is a featured radio and television commentator on the social and psychological effects of technology, including appearances on “Nightline,” “Frontline,” “20/20” and “The Colbert Report.” Turkle, a licensed clinical psychologist, received a joint doctorate in sociology and personality psychology from Harvard University.

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Tuesday, July 31

Vivian Schiller

chief digital officer, NBC News

As chief digital officer at NBC News, Vivian Schiller leads the digital strategy for both NBC News and MSNBC. Her responsibilities include strategic oversight of the network’s digital extensions on the web and in mobile, interaction with the joint venture that oversees the msnbc.com digital network and providing direction to the network’s new emerging properties such as EducationNation.com and theGrio.com.

Previously, Schiller was president and CEO of NPR, leading all of NPR’s worldwide media operations, including the organization's partnerships with a network of more than 900 public radio stations. Prior to joining NPR, Schiller served at The New York Times Company as senior vice president and general manager of NYTimes.com. In that role, she led the day-to-day operations of the largest newspaper website on the Internet, overseeing product, technology, marketing, classifieds, strategic planning and business development.

Schiller has also served as senior vice president and general manager of the Discovery Times Channel, a joint venture of The New York Times and Discovery Communications, and CNN Productions, where she led CNN’s long-form programming efforts. Each produced critically acclaimed and award-winning programming under her leadership. Schiller earned her master’s degree in Russian from Middlebury College and her bachelor’s degree in Russian and Soviet studies from Cornell University.

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Wednesday, August 1

Braden Allenby

Lincoln Professor of Engineering and Ethics, Arizona State University

Braden Allenby is Lincoln Professor of Engineering and Ethics, and professor of civil, environmental and sustainable engineering, and of law, at Arizona State University. Previously, he was the Environment, Health and Safety vice president for AT&T. At Arizona State, he is the founding director of the Center for Earth Systems Engineering and Management, and the founding chair of the Consortium for Emerging Technologies, Military Operations, and National Security.

Allenby’s areas of expertise include emerging technologies, industrial ecology, sustainable engineering and earth systems engineering and management. His latest books are The Techno-Human Condition, Industrial Ecology and Sustainable Engineering and The Theory and Practice of Sustainable Engineering. Currently an AAAS Fellow, a Batten Fellow in Residence at the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business Administration and a fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, Manufactures & Commerce, Allenby previously was the U.S. Naval Academy Stockdale Fellow, a Templeton Fellow, and the J. Herbert Hollowman Fellow at the National Academy of Engineering.

Allenby received his bachelor’s degree from Yale University, his law degree and master’s degree in economics from the University of Virginia, and his master’s and doctoral degrees in environmental sciences from Rutgers University. He has previously lectured at Chautauqua as part of the Lincoln Applied Ethics Series.

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Thursday, August 2

Dahlia Lithwick

senior editor, Slate

Dahlia Lithwick is a senior editor at Slate and, in that capacity, writes the “Supreme Court Dispatches” and “Jurisprudence” columns. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s, The Washington Post and Commentary, among other places. She also serves as a lecturer on the faculty of the University of Virginia School of Law.

Lithwick received the Online News Association’s award for online commentary in 2001 and again in 2005, for a series she co-authored on torture, and was the first online journalist invited to serve on the Steering Committee for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. She is the co-author of Me v. Everybody: Absurd Contracts for an Absurd World, a legal humor book, and I Will Sing Life: Voices from the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, a book about seven children from Paul Newman's camp with life-threatening illnesses.

Before joining Slate, Lithwick worked for a family law firm in Reno, Nev., and clerked for Procter Hug, chief justice of the ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She earned her undergraduate degree from Yale College and her law degree from Stanford University Law School.

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Friday, August 3

Andrew Zolli

executive director and curator, PopTech

Andrew Zolli is the executive director and curator of PopTech, an elite annual gathering of thought leaders that explores the social impact of technology and the shape of things to come, and the founder of futures research think tank Z + Partners. He is an expert in global foresight and innovation, studying the complex trends at the intersection of technology, sustainability and globalsociety that are shaping our future.

Zolli serves as a National Geographic Society fellow, leading development of a global initiative to envision new scenarios for a sustainable world in 2030 and beyond. Formerly the futurist-in-residence at Popular Science, American Demographics and American Public Media’s “Marketplace,” he is the author of the forthcoming book Resilience: The Science of Why Things Bounce Back. His work has been featured on PBS, NPR and the History Channel, and in The New York Times, Wired, Businessweek, I.D. and Fast Company.

In addition to his work with large multinational organizations, Zolli advises a number of cutting-edge, not-for-profit, public policy and venture-backed start-ups. He was named in 2005 to Fast Company’s “Fast 50,” the magazine’s annual compilation of emerging business leaders, and as one of Red Herring’s “Top 20 Under 35.” Zolli attended Vassar College, Brown University and the University of Houston.