When former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden exposed classified information about widespread government surveillance programs, he launched a public debate about privacy in the digital age. Is privacy a “right”? What are we willing to sacrifice for privacy? How consistent are our beliefs about privacy and how consistently do we “practice” it.
In response to these types of questions, Washington University in St. Louis experts on privacy issues, ranging from the history of privacy to privacy law, will participate in a roundtable discussion, titled “Privacy and Surveillance,” from noon to 2 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 20, in Anheuser-Busch Hall, Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom.
The Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities (IPH) in Arts & Sciences and Arts & Sciences are co-sponsoring the discussion, which is free and open to the public.
Joe Loewenstein, PhD, director of IPH and professor of English, believes the humanities are especially suited to address the complex issues surrounding privacy and surveillance.
“The humanities have a real grip on what’s vivid and, well, dangerous in life around us; privacy is very much our topic,” Loewenstein said. “This discussion is a good opportunity to remind the St. Louis community, our university colleagues, and, especially, our students that there’s a long history of meditation on privacy, that the tradition of thinking on this topic is long, volatile and complicated.”
The discussion will begin with the political and theoretical beginnings of thinking about privacy and move to contemporary questions surrounding Internet surveillance. In addition to discussing the negative aspects of privacy violation, experts will offer perspectives on the potential benefits of surveillance.
For example, faculty will describe literary studies suggesting that repressive situations often spur rather than inhibit creativity. Other topics to be discussed include feminist critiques of certain types of privacy and the ethics of scholarship.
“I think it’s important that serious intellectual communities like ours should not treat a complex concept like privacy as simple or stable. We can’t assume that when I speak of privacy, what you hear is what I mean. Above all, we need to recognize that privacy is not an unmitigated and simple good,” Lowenstein said. “One of the pleasures of being at a university is that we don’t have to deal in sound bites.”
The roundtable will feature Jean Allman, PhD, the J.H. Hexter Professor in the Humanities in Arts & Sciences and chair of the Department of History; Frank Lovett, PhD, associate professor of political science and director of the Legal Studies program, both in Arts & Sciences; Linda Nicholson, PhD, the Susan E. and William P. Stiritz Distinguished Professor of Women’s Studies in Arts & Sciences and ombuds for the Danforth Campus faculty; William J. Maxwell, PhD, associate professor of English; and Neil Richards, JD, professor of law.
Elizabeth W. Sepper, JD, associate professor of law, will serve as the respondent.
For more information, contact IPH at (314) 935-4200 or iph@artsci.wustl.edu.