Taking Stock: Global Changes and Challenges in the 21st Century
Twenty-five years on from the doomsday anxieties of the new Millennium, the world is almost unrecognisable. Far from collapsing into chaos as the clocks hit 00:00 on 1 January 2000, technology has exploded into our homes, workplaces, and everywhere in between.
Positive advances in scientific discovery, global connectivity, and social justice movements have accompanied world-altering financial crises, projections of climate collapse, and the first global pandemic in over 100 years.
As we approach the quarter-way mark of the 21st century, this GirtonTalks theme will unpack the many ways the world has changed in the past 25 years—and our hopes and fears for the years ahead—by exploring issues and questions such as:
- How have new discoveries in science and technology revolutionised the world?
- What new ways of thinking and working have changed the way we live and study/research? How do new technologies enhance historic disciplines, especially in arts and humanities?
- How is the rise of new data and AI impacting our lives and what will this look like in the future?
- How have changes in social and public discourse impacted education and research?
- How have culture and the arts responded to our changing world in the 21st century? What contribution has been made by new art mediums, film technology, digital communications?
- What new scientific breakthroughs are addressing environmental concerns and what contribution is made by the arts, humanities and social sciences?
- Has the rise of social media, smartphones, and digital communications enhanced or inhibited human connections?
- What advances have been made in promoting equality, diversity and inclusion in our fields of study and what still needs to be addressed? Is the world more equal than it was 25 years ago?
- What will the next 25 years hold? What are the opportunities, challenges and threats facing the world as we enter the second quarter of the century?
- How can we respond to future challenges in our own academic research and as a college community?
HAVE YOUR SAY: what do you think are the biggest changes over the past 25 years? And what challenges and opportunities will we experience over the next few years?
Fill in this form to share your ideas.