Professor Nidesh Lawtoo (Leiden) – Political Technologies research seminar

For the final event in our inaugural research seminar programme, the Political Technologies cluster is delighted to welcome Professor Nidesh Lawtoo (Leiden) to UCC. Professor Lawtoo will speak at 4pm on Friday 27th March, in The Shtepps and online. This is the Teams link to join online.

What role did imitation play in the election of Trump 2.0? And if René Girard’s mimetic theory could be used to critique (new) fascism in the past, can it also be abused to program AI technologies of oppression in the present and future? This talk aims to address such questions from the interdisciplinary perspective of mimetic studies attentive to the patho(-)logies of Homo Mimeticus 2.0.

Professor Nidesh Lawtoo is a philosopher and cultural/literary critic and Professor of Modern and Contemporary European Literature and Culture at Leiden University. He led the ERC project Homo Mimeticus, and he is the author of several books that open up the field of mimetic studies, including (New) Fascism, a diptych on Violence and the Unconscious, and an ongoing mini-series on Homo Mimeticus.