Writer's Conference

​CALHOUN COMMUNITY COLLEGE ANNOUNCES 16TH ANNUAL WRITER’S CONFERENCE

Dr. Sherry Turkle, noted author and MIT Professor, to be featured writer for
October 24th event

Has the art of conversation become lost?  Find out how one-on-one conversation has changed in the digital age at Calhoun Community College's 16th Annual Writer's Conference, Monday, October 24th. The conference will be held in two sessions - 9:30am at Calhoun's Health Sciences Building, Decatur Campus, and at 7:00pm at the Alabama Center for the Arts, Second Avenue Theatre in downtown Decatur. Both sessions are free and open to the public.

Featured author is Dr. Sherry Turkle, known as the Margaret Mead of digital culture. Turkle, who has spent the last 30 years studying the psychology of people's relationships with technology, will speak on her latest book, Reclaiming Conversation:  The Power of Talk in a Digital Age.

Professor, author, consultant and researcher, Turkle is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology in the Program in Science, Technology and Society at MIT, as well as the founder and current director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, a center of research and reflection on the evolving connections between people and artifacts.

Professor Turkle has investigated the intersection of digital technology and human relationships from the early days of personal computers to our current world of robotics, artificial intelligence, social networking and mobile connectivity.  Her New York Times best-seller, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in the Digital Age (Penguin Press, October 2015), focuses on the importance of conversation in digital cultures, including business and the professions.  Her previous book, "Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other" (Basic Books, 2011), was a featured talk at TED2012, describing technology's influence on relationships between friends, lovers, parents and children, and new instabilities in how we understand privacy and community, intimacy and solitude.

Turkle has been profiled in such publications as The New York Times, Scientific American, and WIRED. She is a featured media commentator on the effects of technology for CNN, NBC, ABC and NPR, including appearances on such programs as Nightline, 20/20 and The Colbert Report, and has been named a Harvard Centennial Medalist and a Ms. Magazine Woman of the Year. In 2014 she was named to American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Professor Turkle received a joint doctorate in sociology and personality psychology from Harvard University, and is a licensed clinical psychologist.

This year’s Writers Conference will also include a ticketed "Meet and Greet" with the author, scheduled for 5:00 pm at the Alabama Center for the Arts, Phase I facility.  Tickets for the Meet and Greet are $50 each, with all proceeds from this event going to fund Calhoun’s Wendy Williams Scholarship for English majors.  Click here for tickets or more info.