Bright Side Festival: Philosophers' Café - Artificial Relations

Philosophers Dr. Tinu Ruparell, Dr. Wendi Adamek, Dr. Chris Daniels, and Dr. Mark Migotti in conversation on our relationship to A.I. The evening will include a Celtic musical interlude featuring Eric MacDonald (fiddle), Dave Morrissey (guitar/banjo) & Chris Daniels (Bodhran).

Complete festival line-up: https://theatre1308.com/all-events

About the Speakers & Artists

Dr. Tinu Ruparell is an Associate Professor of Comparative Philosophy of Religion at the University of Calgary. Focussed on theories of trans-boundary interpretation, he is interested in the philosophical questions arising from understanding others from very different backgrounds, disciplines, and worldviews. He teaches and researches in science and religion, inter-religious/inter-cultural dialogue, comparative philosophy, and the health humanities.

Dr. Wendi L. Adamek is a Professor in the Department of Classics and Religion at the University of Calgary and holder of the Numata Chair in Buddhist Studies. Her research interests include medieval Chinese Buddhism and living systems theory. Her most recent book Practicescapes and the Buddhists of Baoshan (University of Hamburg Press) centers on a 6th-7th-century community in north-central China. Born in Hawai’i, she earned her degrees at Stanford University and has held research fellowships at Kyoto University (BDK, Fulbright), Peking University (NEH, Fulbright), the Stanford Humanities Center, the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton), and the Calgary Institute for the Humanities.

Dr. Chris Daniels has a joint degree in Philosophy and Religious Studies and a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of Calgary. He specializes in Philosophy of Religion and Religious Diversity, with a special interest in Process-Relational metaphysics and epistemology (relational worldviews and ways-of-knowing), particularly the cosmology of Alfred North Whitehead. His doctoral dissertation was All My Relations: A Process-Indigenous Study in Comparative Ontology.

Dr. Mark Migotti is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Calgary, where he also serves as the Department Head. His research interests include 19th Century German Philosophy, with a special emphasis on Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, as well as Ancient Philosophy, American Pragmatists, Charles S. Peirce, Philosophy of History, and Ethics.

Dave Morrissey and Eric MacDonald play music rooted in the seasonal rhythms and social life of Ireland's rural past, but they are not trapped in nostalgia. They live and make music in a world that the originators of the tradition would barely recognize, building on their own experiences of life and music—punk, heavy metal, the 1970s Irish folk revival, old 78rpm records from the 1920s, traditional music composed in the 21st century—to create art in and of this moment. That is what musicians of all kinds, including traditional musicians of generations past, have always done. Chris Daniels, who will be joining Dave and Eric on the Bodhran has over 40 years experience in Calgary’s music community including playing in Celtic music groups such as ClanTerra, Third Reel, and Seancara.