MillerComm2018 Lecture: Michael D. Kennedy

Micahel D. Kennedy, professor of sociology and international and public affairs at Brown University, will give the talk, "Facts, Objects, and Visions in the Design of Globalizing Knowledge."

Since the 2015 publication of Globalizing Knowledge, Kennedy has engaged in a number of global conversations with radically different scopes of imagination, principles of design, and visions of consequence in the articulation of transformative knowledge cultures. In this presentation, he will juxtapose three: a) a technocratic approach to governing the future, associated with the Oxford Martin Commission and Pascal Lamy; b) the pragmatic imagination of ecosystemic design associated with the work of Ann Pendleton-Jullian and John Seely Brown; and c) an AfroFuturism made popular by the cinematic debut of Black Panther and the more transgressive works of John Jennings, Stacey Robinson and others. This comparison illuminates radically different assumptions about innovation's source. More importantly, it moves possibilities in the design of knowledge networks and their public effervescence by establishing a different sense of connection among facts, objects, and visions in the design of globalizing knowledge.

The iSchool is a cosponsor of this Center for Advanced Study/MillerComm lecture.