The Robot at 100: Culture, society, politics, and the future
Saturday 18 June 2022 - In Person On Campus
A conference to mark the centenary of the first staging in English of Karel Capek’s seminal play R.U.R.
9:00-10:00 a.m. Welcome and opening
With Deputy Vice Chancellor Prof. Simeon Keates
10.00-10.15 a.m. Tea break
10.15-11.30 a.m. Panel 1: Robots, selves and politics
- Malini Roy, ‘The Diet of Worms, Germany, 1521: Derobotisation across National Cultures in a Projected Novel’
- Meltem Dağcı, ‘Artificial İntelligence and Justice in R.U.R's Robots’
- Dr Paul Quinn, ‘“Pulled along by string”: Television, robots, and British industrial decline'
11.30 - 11.45 a.m. Tea break
11:45 a.m.-12:45 p.m. Panel 2: Robots and sex
- Dylan Phelan, ‘The Posthuman Eve: Metropolis’ Maria as the prototype for posthuman sexualisation’
- Dr Rebecca Jones, Fabular Femininity: Gynoids as Modern Mythmaking in Live-Action Science Fiction Films
12:45-1:45 p.m. Lunch
+ R.U.R. Czech THEaiTRE project: video recording of the ‘AI: When a Robot Writes a Play’.
1:45-2.15 p.m. Presentation on AI play (with 5/10 minute break at end of presentation/any questions)
2:15-3.45 p.m. Panel 3: Robots and Work
- Alison Baker, 'Robots and intimate labour: Pádraig Kenny’s Tin'
- Lisa Meinecke, '“I, Robot; You, Unemployed”: Robotics and SF in Media Discourse'
- Robin R. Murphy, 'R.U.R.: Robot Science Fiction Then, Science Fact Now'
3:45-4:00 p.m. Tea break
4:00-5:30 p.m. Panel 4: Robots and the Human
- John Plotz, ‘Lem’s Robots: Mechanical Satire’
- Dr Ginger Lee Thomason, Food for Thought: The Epicurean Desires of Robotic Characters
- Benjamin Guyer, ‘Learning to be Human: Models of Education in David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas (2004)'
