Events Calendar

College Commons Panel Discussion

Speaker: Sharon Swartz (Evolutionary Biology, Brown University), Akira Lippit (Cinema USC), and Michael Arbib (Computer Science and Neuroscience, USC) , Brown University & USC

Talk Title: Thinking With/As Animals

Abstract: When bees dance, when birds and whales sing and when bats echolocate, how close do these communicative methods come to what we call “language”? Furthermore, within evolutionary processes, how do manual gestures among humans become speech and how does a leg, in the case of the bat, become a wing? What essential changes to the nature of the human or the animal are signified by speech and flight? And how do we represent the relations between humans and animals in terms of choreographies of the gaze? Why and when do animals look at humans? What do they see when they do look? And how are human and animal gazes the same or different?

In a wide-ranging and dynamic panel discussion between Sharon Swartz (Evolutionary Biology, Brown University), Akira Lippit (Cinema USC), and Michael Arbib (Computer Science and Neuroscience, USC) we will engage these questions and more about the differences and similarities between animals and humans.

To secure your spot please RSVP to: tcc@college.usc.edu
Part IV of a Series of V: THE HUMAN-ANIMAL DIVIDE



Host: College Commons

Location: Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library (DML) - 240

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Kanak Agrawal