News Releases
Privacy in digital age opens Conversations Project
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
The Valparaiso University Conversations Project will begin its fourth year of programming with an Oct. 2 discussion exploring how privacy is disappearing as digital communications become more pervasive.
“Living Out Loud (LOL): The Eroding Division of Public and Private Lives,” will begin at 7 p.m. in the Christopher Center Community Room and is free and open to the public. The program will explore the significance of living in a digital age in which communication media such as blogs and social networking sites are proliferating, and consumer data from credit card purchases is increasingly archived.
Rev. James Wetzstein, associate University pastor, will moderate a discussion with Dr. Jennifer Hora, assistant professor of political science, Dr. Aaron Preston, professor of philosophy and Dr. Jeremy Telman, associate professor of law. Rev. Wetzstein, a pastor in Gary for 12 years, will briefly describe some of the ways technology has changed how people communicate with one another and what having a public life now means. Following that introduction Dr. Hora, whose research focuses on relations between the executive and legislative branches of government, will discuss the public’s perception of political figures; Dr. Preston, who regularly teaches courses in moral philosophy and the history of philosophy, will evaluate the concept for privacy from the perspective of ethics; and Dr. Telman will address the expansion of the U.S. government's surveillance powers since 9/11 and the effect of that expansion on citzens' reasonable expectations of privacy.
Audience members will be encouraged to share their views on both the benefits and challenges of living in a world where what may have been considered ‘private’ in the past is now accessible to others.
The goals of the Conversations Project are to promote mutual education, understanding and political reconciliation through dialog, and to forge connection between the University and Northwest Indiana community. The program is supported by The Project on Civic Reflection at Valparaiso University.
For more information about the Conversations Project, contact Jeremy Telman, associate professor of law, at (219) 465-7811 or visit the Conversations Project Web site.
Other Conversations Project discussions being held this year are “Honoring Our Veterans: Theory and Practice,” Nov. 7; “Primary School: Lessons from the Presidential Selection Process,” Jan. 30; and “Forty Years Gone: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Many Guises of Prejudice,” April 3.
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