Join the Critical Tech Talk series to hear guest speaker Cajetan Iheka, Professor of English at Yale University, on the cost of technological innovation among communities of colour in the West and global south. This event will take place on campus in B1-271 and on Zoom.
About the talk
The affordance of technology is the improvement of human lives and societies. Advancements in technology have contributed to improved life and efficiency for human societies. But what is the cost of technological innovation and who bears the brunt? Communities of color in the West and global south societies have often suffered the consequences of technological progress. This talk turns to ecological media produced about extraction in Africa to highlight the exacting cost of innovative progress across the continent and the rerouting of low-tech infrastructure to reconstitute the fragmented social.
About the speaker
Cajetan Iheka is Professor of English at Yale University, where he specializes in African literature, ecocriticism, ecomedia, and postcolonial literature. He serves as director of the Whitney Humanities Center, chair of the Council on African Studies, and head of the Africa Initiative at Yale. Professor Iheka is the author or editor of four books, including Naturalizing Africa: Ecological Violence, Agency, and Postcolonial Resistance in African Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Naturalizing Africa won the 2019 Ecocriticism Book Award of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, and the 2020 First Book Prize of the African Literature Association. His African Ecomedia: Network Forms, Planetary Politics (Duke University Press, 2021) received six book prizes and honors, including the 2022 African Studies Association Best Book Prize, the Ecocriticism Book Award of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, and the Harold and Margaret Sprout Award of the International Studies Association.
Respondents
Dr. Paul Ugor is a professor in the Department of English Language and Literature. His research and teaching interests are in the areas of Modern African Literatures and Cultures, Anglophone Postcolonial World Literatures, Cultural Studies, Global Black Studies, and New Media Cultures in the Global South. He is the author of Nollywood: Popular Culture and Narratives of Youth Struggles in Nigeria (2016) and co-editor of several collections including, Youth and Popular Culture in Africa: Media, Music, and Politics (2021) and African Youth Cultures in the Age of Globalization: Challenges, Agency, and Resistance (2017).
Adwoa Appiah, BSc (KNUST), MSc (Oxon), EMBA (Univ of Ghana) is a PhD candidate in Sustainability Management at the University of Waterloo’s School of Environment, Enterprise, and Development (SEED). She has previously worked with leading financial institutions in Africa including the African Development Bank and Ecobank where she gained experience in environmental management and sustainability as well corporate and transaction banking. Her research interests are in sustainability management with emphasis on sustainable banking, sustainable finance and climate governance. Her current research focuses on commercial banks in Africa’s contribution to sustainability and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Moderator
Dr. Marcel O'Gorman, University Research Chair, professor of English, and founding director of the Critical Media Lab (CML), University of Waterloo. Professor O'Gorman leads collaborative design projects and teaches courses and workshops in the philosophy of technology at the CML, which is located at the Communitech Hub. The role of the CML is to disseminate a philosophy of "tech for good."