Download or read book AI and Humanity written by Illah Reza Nourbakhsh and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of the implications for society of rapidly advancing artificial intelligence systems, combining a humanities perspective with technical analysis; includes exercises and discussion questions. AI and Humanity provides an analytical framing and a common language for understanding the effects of technological advances in artificial intelligence on society. Coauthored by a computer scientist and a scholar of literature and cultural studies, it is unique in combining a humanities perspective with technical analysis, using the tools of literary explication to examine the societal impact of AI systems. It explores the historical development of these technologies, moving from the apparently benign Roomba to the considerably more sinister semi-autonomous weapon system Harpy. The book is driven by an exploration of the cultural and etymological roots of a series of keywords relevant to both AI and society. Works examined range from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, given a close reading for its themes of literacy and agency, to Simon Head's critique of the effects of surveillance and automation on the Amazon labor force in Mindless. Originally developed as a textbook for an interdisciplinary humanities-science course at Carnegie Mellon, AI & Humanity offers discussion questions, exercises (including journal writing and concept mapping), and reading lists. A companion website provides updated resources and a portal to a video archive of interviews with AI scientists, sociologists, literary theorists, and others.

Download or read book Those Who Teach the Most Humanity Aren t Always Human written by Carolyn Ridder Aspenson and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-04-18 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A 200 page, lined journal. A portion of the proceeds for the sales of this journal will go to help rescue dogs.

Download or read book In the Name of Humanity written by Ilana Feldman and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2010-11-30 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collection of essays that consider how humanity--as a social, ethical, and political category--is produced through particular governing techniques and in turn gives rise to new forms of government.

Download or read book Health and Humanity written by Karen Kruse Thomas and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2016-07 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The mid-twentieth-century evolution of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Between 1935 and 1985, the nascent public health profession developed scientific evidence and practical know-how to prevent death on an unprecedented scale. Thanks to public health workers, life expectancy rose rapidly as generations grew up free from the scourges of smallpox, typhoid, and syphilis. In Health and Humanity, Karen Kruse Thomas offers a thorough account of the growth of academic public health in the United States through the prism of the oldest and largest independent school of public health in the world. Thomas follows the transformation of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health (JHSPH), now known as the Bloomberg School of Public Health, from a small, private institute devoted to doctoral training and tropical disease research into a leading global educator and innovator in fields from biostatistics to mental health to pathobiology. A provocative, wide-ranging account of how midcentury public health leveraged federal grants and anti-Communist fears to build the powerful institutional networks behind the health programs of the CDC, WHO, and USAID, the book traces how Johns Hopkins helped public health take center stage during the scientific research boom triggered by World War II. It also examines the influence of politics on JHSPH, the school’s transition to federal grant funding, the globalization of public health in response to hot and cold war influences, and the expansion of the school’s teaching program to encompass social science as well as lab science. Revealing how faculty members urged foreign policy makers to include saving lives in their strategy of “winning hearts and minds,” Thomas argues that the growth of chronic disease and the loss of Rockefeller funds moved the JHSPH toward international research funded by the federal government, creating a situation in which it was sometimes easier for the school to improve the health of populations in India and Turkey than on its own doorstep in East Baltimore. Health and Humanity is a comprehensive account of the ways that JHSPH has influenced the practice, pedagogy, and especially our very understanding of public health on both global and local scales.

Download or read book For the Love of Humanity written by Ayça Çubukçu and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2018-08-14 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On February 15, 2003, millions of people around the world demonstrated against the war that the United States, the United Kingdom, and their allies were planning to wage in Iraq. Despite this being the largest protest in the history of humankind, the war on Iraq began the next month. That year, the World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) emerged from the global antiwar movement that had mobilized against the invasion and subsequent occupation. Like the earlier tribunal on Vietnam convened by Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre, the WTI sought to document—and provide grounds for adjudicating—war crimes committed by the United States, the United Kingdom, and their allied forces during the Iraq war. For the Love of Humanity builds on two years of transnational fieldwork within the decentralized network of antiwar activists who constituted the WTI in some twenty cities around the world. Ayça Çubukçu illuminates the tribunal up close, both as an ethnographer and a sympathetic participant. In the process, she situates debates among WTI activists—a group encompassing scholars, lawyers, students, translators, writers, teachers, and more—alongside key jurists, theorists, and critics of global democracy. WTI activists confronted many dilemmas as they conducted their political arguments and actions, often facing interpretations of human rights and international law that, unlike their own, were not grounded in anti-imperialism. Çubukçu approaches this conflict by broadening her lens, incorporating insights into how Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Iraqi High Tribunal grappled with the realities of Iraq's occupation. Through critical analysis of the global debate surrounding one of the early twenty-first century's most significant world events, For the Love of Humanity addresses the challenges of forging global solidarity against imperialism and makes a case for reevaluating the relationships between law and violence, empire and human rights, and cosmopolitan authority and political autonomy.

Download or read book Humanity s Law written by Ruti Teitel and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-07 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Humanity's Law, renowned legal scholar Ruti Teitel offers a powerful account of one of the central transformations of the post-Cold War era: the profound normative shift in the international legal order from prioritizing state security to protecting human security. As she demonstrates, courts, tribunals, and other international bodies now rely on a humanity-based framework to assess the rights and wrongs of conflict; to determine whether and how to intervene; and to impose accountability and responsibility. Cumulatively, the norms represent a new law of humanity that spans the law of war, international human rights, and international criminal justice. Teitel explains how this framework is reshaping the discourse of international politics with a new approach to the management of violent conflict. Teitel maintains that this framework is most evidently at work in the jurisprudence of the tribunals-international, regional, and domestic-that are charged with deciding disputes that often span issues of internal and international conflict and security. The book demonstrates how the humanity law framework connects the mandates and rulings of diverse tribunals and institutions, addressing the fragmentation of global legal order. Comprehensive in approach, Humanity's Law considers legal and political developments related to violent conflict in Europe, North America, South America, and Africa. This interdisciplinary work is essential reading for anyone attempting to grasp the momentous changes occurring in global affairs as the management of conflict is increasingly driven by the claims and interests of persons and peoples, and state sovereignty itself is transformed.

Download or read book Racialized Media written by Matthew W. Hughey and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2020-07-28 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How media propagates and challenges racism From Black Panther to #OscarsSoWhite, the concept of “race,” and how it is represented in media, has continued to attract attention in the public eye. In Racialized Media, Matthew W. Hughey, Emma González-Lesser, and the contributors to this important new collection of original essays provide a blueprint to this new, ever-changing media landscape. With sweeping breadth, contributors examine a number of different mediums, including film, television, books, newspapers, social media, video games, and comics. Each chapter explores the impact of contemporary media on racial politics, culture, and meaning in society. Focusing on producers, gatekeepers, and consumers of media, this book offers an inside look at our media-saturated world, and the impact it has on our understanding of race, ethnicity, and more. Through an interdisciplinary lens, Racialized Media provides a much-needed look at the role of race and ethnicity in all phases of media production, distribution, and reception.

Download or read book Humanity at Sea written by Itamar Mann and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-29 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book integrates legal, historical, and philosophical materials to illuminate the migration topic and to provide a novel theory of human rights.

Download or read book A Billion Lives written by Jan Egeland and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-03-04 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Called "the world's conscience" and one of the 100 most influential people of our time by Time magazine, Jan Egeland has been the public face of the United Nations. As Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, he was in charge of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for three and a half years. One of the bravest and most adventuresome figures on the international scene, Egeland takes us to the frontlines of war and chaos in Iraq, to scenes of ethnic cleansing in Darfur, to the ground zeroes of famine, earthquakes, and tsunamis. He challenges the first world to act. A Billion Lives is his on-the-ground account of his work in the most dangerous places in the world, where he has led relief efforts, negotiated truces with warlords, and intervened in what many had thought to be hopeless situations. As one of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's closest advisers, Jan Egeland was at the heart of crises during a difficult period in UN history, when the organization was plagued by the divisive aftermath of the Iraq war, the Oil-for-Food scandal, and terror attacks against UN workers. On the day Egeland came to New York to take up his job, the UN building in Baghdad was destroyed by a huge bomb, killing one of his predecessors, Sergio de Mello. Two months later Annan sent Egeland to Iraq to judge whether the UN could keep a presence there. Since that first mission to Baghdad, Egeland has been envoy to such places as Darfur, Eastern Congo, Lebanon, Gaza, Northern Israel, Northern Uganda, and Colombia. He coordinated the massive international relief efforts after the Indian Ocean tsunami and South Asian earthquake. As a negotiator and activist, Egeland is famous for direct language, whether he's addressing warlords, guerrilla leaders, generals, or heads of state. A Billion Lives is his passionate, adventure-filled eyewitness account of the catastrophes the world faces. And so Egeland writes that he has met the best and worst among us, has "confronted warlords, mass murderers, and tyrants, but [has] met many more peacemakers, relief workers, and human rights activists who risk their lives at humanity's first line of defense." In spite of the desperate need of so many, Egeland is convinced that, "For the vast majority of people, the world is getting better, that there is more peace, more people fed and educated, and fewer forced to become refugees than a generation ago. So there is reason for optimism," he concludes in this groundbreaking book that does not flinch but holds out reasons for hope.

Download or read book Ethics and Literary Practice written by Adam Zachary Newton and published by MDPI. This book was released on 2021-09-09 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume draws together a diverse array of scholars from across the humanities to formulate and address the question of “ethics and literary practice” for a new decade. In taking up a conjunction whose terms remain productively open to question, fifteen essays survey a range of approaches and topics including genre and disciplinary rhetoric, emergence theory and literary signification, the ethics of alterity, of attention, and of aesthetics, the decolonial and the paracritical, neorealism and contingency, analogy and affect, scripture and national literature. From Seamus Heaney to Hannah Arendt, Teresa Brennan to Stanley Cavell, Ronit Matalon to Édouard Glissant, Uwe Timm to Katherena Vermette, Notes for Echo Lake to the Gospel of St. Matthew, these contributions demonstrate how broadly and fruitfully ramifying its organizing inquiry can be. Bringing such multifarious perspectives to the topic feels only more urgent as language, meaning, and expression enter the crucible of a “post-truth” era.

Download or read book Arts and Humanities in Progress written by Dario Martinelli and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-10-13 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book aims to introduce a research concept called "Numanities", as one possible attempt to overcome the current scientific, social and institutional crisis of the humanities. Such crisis involves their impact on, and role within, society; their popularity among students and scholars; and their identity as producers and promoters of knowledge. The modern western world and its economic policies have been identified as the strongest cause of such a crisis. Creating the conditions for, but in fact encouraging it. However, a self-critical assessment of the situation is called for. Our primary fault as humanists was that of stubbornly thinking that the world’s changes could never really affect us, as – we felt – our identity was sacred. In the light of these approaches, the main strengths of humanities have been identified in the ability to: promote critical thinking and analytical reasoning; provide knowledge and understanding of democracy and social justice; develop leadership, cultural and ethical values. The main problems of humanities are the lack economic relevance; the socio-institutional perception of them as “impractical” and unemployable; the fact that they do not match with technological development. Finally, the resulting crisis consists mainly in the absence (or radical reduction) of funding from institutions; a decrease in student numbers a decrease in interest; a loss of centrality in society. A Numanities (New Humanities) project should consider all these aspects, with self-critical assessment on the first line. The goal is to unify the various fields, approaches and also potentials of the humanities in the context, dynamics and problems of current societies, and in an attempt to overcome the above-described crisis. Numanities are introduced not as a theoretical paradigm, but in terms of an “umbrella-concept” that has no specific scientific content in it: that particularly means that the many existing new fields and research trends that are addressing the same problems (post-humanism, transhumanism, transformational humanities, etc.) are not competitors of Numanities, but rather possible ways to them. Therefore, more than a theoretical program, Numanities intend to pursue a mission, and that is summarized in a seven-point manifesto. In the light of these premises and reflections, the book then proceeds to identify the areas of inquiry that Numanities, in their functions and comprehensive approach, seek to cover. The following list should also be understood as a statement of purposes for this entire book series. These, in other words, will be the topics/areas we intend to represent. Once elaborated on the foundations of Numanities, the book features a second part that presents two case studies based on two relatively recent (and now updated) investigations that the author has performed in the fields of musical and animal studies respectively. The two cases (and relative areas of inquiry) were selected because they were considered particularly relevant within the discussion of Numanities, and in two different ways. In the first case-study the author discussed the most typical result (or perhaps cause?) of the technophobic attitude that was addressed in the first part of the book: the issue of “authenticity”, as applied, in the author's particular study, to popular music. In the second case-study, he analyzes two different forms of comparative analysis between human and non-human cognition: like in the former case, this study, too, is aimed at a critical commentary on (what the author considers) redundant biases in current humanistic research – anthropocentrism and speciesism.

Download or read book Human Rights in American Foreign Policy written by Joe Renouard and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2015-10-29 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: International human rights issues perpetually highlight the tension between political interest and idealism. Over the last fifty years, the United States has labored to find an appropriate response to each new human rights crisis, balancing national and global interests as well as political and humanitarian impulses. Human Rights in American Foreign Policy explores America's international human rights policies from the Vietnam War era to the end of the Cold War. Global in scope and ambitious in scale, this book examines American responses to a broad array of human rights violations: torture and political imprisonment in South America; apartheid in South Africa; state violence in China; civil wars in Central America; persecution of Jews in the Soviet Union; movements for democracy and civil liberties in East Asia and Eastern Europe; and revolutionary political transitions in Iran, Nicaragua, and the collapsing USSR. Joe Renouard challenges the characterization of American human rights policymaking as one of inaction, hypocrisy, and double standards. Arguing that a consistent standard is impractical, he explores how policymakers and citizens have weighed the narrow pursuit of traditional national interests with the desire to promote human rights. Human Rights in American Foreign Policy renders coherent a series of disparate foreign policy decisions during a tumultuous time in world history. Ultimately the United States emerges as neither exceptionally compassionate nor unusually wicked. Rather, it is a nation that manages by turns to be cautiously pragmatic, boldly benevolent, and coldly self-interested.

Download or read book Humanity in Crisis written by David Hollenbach, SJ and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The major humanitarian crises of recent years are well known: the Shoah, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Rwandan genocide, the massacre in Bosnia, and the tsunami in Southeast Asia, as well as the bloody conflicts in South Sudan, Syria, and Afghanistan. Millions have been killed and many millions more have been driven from their homes; the number of refugees and internally displaced persons has reached record levels. Could these crises have been prevented? Why do they continue to happen? This book seeks to understand how humanity itself is in crisis, and what we can do about it. Hollenbach draws on the values that have shaped major humanitarian initiatives over the past century and a half, such as the commitments of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, as well as the values of diverse religious traditions, including Catholicism, to examine the scope of our responsibilities and practical solutions to these global crises. He also explores the economic and political causes of these tragedies, and uncovers key moral issues for both policy-makers and for practitioners working in humanitarian agencies and faith communities.

Download or read book Critical Theory of Communication written by Christian Fuchs and published by . This book was released on 2016-10-10 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contributes to the foundations of a critical theory of communication as shaped by the forces of digital capitalism. One of the world's leading theorists of digital media Professor Christian Fuchs explores how the thought of some of the Frankfurt School's key thinkers can be deployed for critically understanding media in the age of the Internet. Five essays that form the heart of this book review aspects of the works of Georg LukAcs, Theodor W. Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Axel Honneth and Ju rgen Habermas and apply them as elements of a critical theory of communication's foundations. The approach taken starts from Georg LukAcs Ontology of Social Being, draws on the work of the Frankfurt School thinkers, and sets them into dialogue with the Cultural Materialism of Raymond Williams. Critical Theory of Communication offers a vital set of new insights on how communication operates in the age of information, digital media and social media, arguing that we need to transcend the communication theory of Habermas by establishing a dialectical and cultural-materialist critical theory of communication. "

Download or read book The Invention of Humanity written by Siep Stuurman and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-20 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For much of history, strangers were routinely classified as barbarians and inferiors, seldom as fellow human beings. The notion of a common humanity was counterintuitive and thus had to be invented. Siep Stuurman traces evolving ideas of human equality and difference across continents and civilizations from ancient times to the present. Despite humans’ deeply ingrained bias against strangers, migration and cultural blending have shaped human experience from the earliest times. As travelers crossed frontiers and came into contact with unfamiliar peoples and customs, frontier experiences generated not only hostility but also empathy and understanding. Empires sought to civilize their “barbarians,” but in all historical eras critics of empire were able to imagine how the subjected peoples made short shrift of imperial arrogance. Drawing on the views of a global mix of thinkers—Homer, Confucius, Herodotus, the medieval Muslim scholar Ibn Khaldun, the Haitian writer Antenor Firmin, the Filipino nationalist Jose Rizal, and more—The Invention of Humanity surveys the great civilizational frontiers of history, from the interaction of nomadic and sedentary societies in ancient Eurasia and Africa, to Europeans’ first encounters with the indigenous peoples of the New World, to the Enlightenment invention of universal “modern equality.” Against a backdrop of two millennia of thinking about common humanity and equality, Stuurman concludes with a discussion of present-day debates about human rights and the “clash of civilizations.”

Download or read book The Journey of Humanity written by Oded Galor and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-03-22 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A landmark, radically uplifting account of our species’ progress, from one of the world's preeminent thinkers. “Unparalleled in its scope and ambition…All readers will learn something, and many will find the book fascinating.’—The Washington Post “Breathtaking. A new Sapiens!” —L'Express “Completely brilliant and utterly original ... a book for our epoch.”—Jon Snow, former presenter, Channel 4 News (UK) “A wildly ambitious attempt to do for economics what Newton, Darwin or Einstein did for their fields: develop a theory that explains almost everything.” —The New Statesman “An inspiring, readable, jargon-free and almost impossibly erudite masterwork.” —The New Statesman “[A] sweeping overview of cultural, technological and educational forces... Its breadth and ambition are reminiscent of Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel and Harari’s Sapiens.”—Financial Times “Astounding in scope and insight...provides the keys to the betterment of our species.”—Nouriel Roubini, author of Crisis Economics “A masterful sweep through the human odyssey.... If you liked Sapiens, you'll love this.” —Lewis Dartnell, author of Origins “Oded Galor's attempt to unify economic theory is impressive and insightful.” —Will Hutton, The Guardian “A great historical fresco.” —Le Monde “It's a page-turner, a suspense-filled thriller full of surprises, mind-bending puzzles and profound insights!”—Glenn C. Loury, author of The Anatomy of Racial Inequality “Brilliantly weaves the threads of global economic history. A tour de force!”—Dani Rodrik, author of Straight Talk on Trade In a captivating journey from the dawn of human existence to the present, world-renowned economist and thinker Oded Galor offers an intriguing solution to two of humanity’s great mysteries. Why are humans the only species to have escaped—only very recently—the subsistence trap, allowing us to enjoy a standard of living that vastly exceeds all others? And why have we progressed so unequally around the world, resulting in the great disparities between nations that exist today? Galor’s gripping narrative explains how technology, population size, and adaptation led to a stunning “phase change” in the human story a mere two hundred years ago. But by tracing that same journey back in time and peeling away the layers of influence—colonialism, political institutions, societal structure, culture—he arrives also at an explanation of inequality’s ultimate causes: those ancestral populations that enjoyed fruitful geographical characteristics and rich diversity were set on the path to prosperity, while those that lacked it were disadvantaged in ways still echo today. As we face ecological crisis across the globe, The Journey of Humanity is a book of urgent truths and enduring relevance, with lessons that are both hopeful and profound: gender equality, investment in education, and balancing diversity with social cohesion are the keys not only to our species’ thriving but to its survival.

Download or read book Urban Humanities written by Dana Cuff and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Original, action-oriented humanist practices for interpreting and intervening in the city: a new methodology at the intersection of the humanities, design, and urban studies. Urban humanities is an emerging field at the intersection of the humanities, urban planning, and design. It offers a new approach not only for understanding cities in a global context but for intervening in them, interpreting their histories, engaging with them in the present, and speculating about their futures. This book introduces both the theory and practice of urban humanities, tracing the evolution of the concept, presenting methods and practices with a wide range of research applications, describing changes in teaching and curricula, and offering case studies of urban humanities practices in the field. Urban humanities views the city through a lens of spatial justice, and its inquiries are centered on the microsettings of everyday life. The book's case studies report on real-world projects in mega-cities in the Pacific Rim—Tokyo, Shanghai, Mexico City, and Los Angeles—with several projects described in detail, including playful spaces for children in car-oriented Mexico City, a commons in a Tokyo neighborhood, and a rolling story-telling box to promote “literary justice” in Los Angeles.