East Meets West: The place of Asia in the technological imagination

Welcome to the final episode of the "Technically Human" season!

We’re ending the season with an episode of the 22 lessons on ethics and technology series, with a conversation featuring Dr. John Williams about the global imagination of tech.

Dr. John Williams is a professor of English Literature at Yale University. His work is focused on international histories of technological/media innovation and the perceived difference of racial and cultural otherness. His book, The Buddha in the Machine: Art, Technology, and The Meeting of East and West (Yale University Press, 2014), examines the role of technological discourse in representations of Asian/American aesthetics in late-nineteenth and twentieth-century film and literature.  The book won the 2015 Harry Levin Prize from the American Comparative Literature Association. In the conversation, we explore the diverse international histories of technological innovation and how otherness and differences have been constructed across contexts and time.

The “22 Lessons in Ethical Technology” series is co-sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Cal Poly Strategic Research Initiative Grant Award. The show is written, hosted, and produced by me, Deb Donig, with production support from Matthew Harsh and Elise St. John. Thanks to Jake Garner and Emma Zumbro for production coordination. Our head of research for this series is Sakina Nuruddin. Our editor is Carrie Caulfield Arick. Art by Desi Aleman.