Post-Truth: An Interdisciplinary Exploration -24/03/2018, Portsmouth (England)
Post-Truth, as a concept, seemed to exemplify 2016. The term, in fact, was appointed word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries, underscoring its pre-eminence. The phenomenon is characterized by notions of ‘fake news’, ‘alternative facts’, and ‘false information’, but is this simply academic residue from the postmodern debate trickling down to its broader expression in social media? Despite seeming to be singularly of the moment, it is by no means a new concept. Its origins can be found in George Orwell’s “Doublespeak” or, indeed, those real-world totalitarian governments which sought to efface the truth with their confidently stated and frequently repeated lies. Now, as in 1942, we may say that ‘intellectual honesty and balanced judgement have simply disappeared from the face of the earth’.
The aim of this conference is to examine the current resonance of ‘post-truth’ from an interdisciplinary perspective. The goal is to explore not only the historical and literary origins of the concept, but also the emergence of a new language - the increasing frequency of certain terms specific to the issue and the context in which they appear. The conference will also explore the concept of post-truth by factoring in the emergence of new communications technologies and the associated impact of the media -- two factors which often overlap. To borrow from Ali Smith, can we say that thought now functions “at the speed of Tweet”? Do we live lives of pure immediacy, in which facts go unverified and opinion has the same weight as truth? The concept of post-truth would seem to imply an exaggerated tension between the notions of subjective and historical truth.
Keynote: Professor Steve Fuller (University of Warwick)
FECHA/DATE/DATA: 24/03/2018
LUGAR/LOCATION/LUOGO: University of Portsmouth (Portsmouth, England)
ORGANIZADOR/ORGANIZER/ORGANIZZATORE: David Dickson
INFO: david.dickson@port.ac.uk
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