Williams College to Host Farhad Manjoo and Nick Carr for Discussion of Technology

Media contact: Noelle Lemoine, communications assistant; tele: (413) 597-4277; email: [email protected]

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., October 11, 2017—On Thursday, Oct. 19, Williams College will host Farhad Manjoo, State of the Art columnist for The New York Times and Nick Carr, journalist, author and renowned critic of technology, for a moderated conversation on “The Impact of Technology—Nationally and in the Liberal Arts.” The event will take place at 7 p.m. in Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall, Bernhard Music Center. It is free and open to the public.

Manjoo and Carr will examine the ways in which technology impacts the academic world of liberal arts and the nation as a whole. James Nolan, the Washington Gladden 1859 Professor of Sociology, will moderate the discussion.

Manjoo reviews the latest devices and innovations in addition to a wide variety of tech-related topics including the emergence of new media, Silicon Valley and start-up culture, and the ways in which politics, society, and business are being shaped by the rapid emergence of new technologies. Formerly a columnist with The Wall Street Journal and Slate and a tech news writer for Wired, Manjoo has been covering technology since the last dot-com boom, closely following the rise and occasional fall of the sector’s biggest names.

Carr is a writer and speaker whose work focuses on the intersection of technology and culture. He is the author of the acclaimed book The Glass Cage: How Our Computers Are Changing Us (2014), which examines the personal and social consequences of our ever-growing dependency on computers, robots, and apps. His previous work, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (2010), was a 2011 Pulitzer Prize finalist and a New York Times bestseller. His most recent book, Utopia Is Creepy: And Other Provocations (W.W. Norton & Company, 2016) uses a collection of Carr’s seminal essays to further explore the Internet’s impact on society.

This event is sponsored by the Class of ’71 Public Affairs Forum, the Cohan Family Fund, the James MacGregor Burns Distinguished Lecture Series, the Thomas B. Healy ’50 Fund and the Lecture Committee.

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For building locations on the Williams campus, please consult the map outside the driveway entrance to the Security Office located in Hopkins Hall on Main Street (Rte. 2), next to the Thompson Memorial Chapel, or call the Office of Communications (413) 597-4277. The map can also be found on the web at www.williams.edu/map

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Published October 11, 2017