Shaping tomorrow, today, requires path-breaking, creative solutions
That challenge has never been more critical than it is today, as an alarming “syndemic” of intersecting crises—the coronavirus pandemic, racial injustice and accompanying civil unrest, and cascading environmental hazards—destabilize social systems and threaten human survival across the planet.
Science and technology need the arts and humanities
Today’s crises require engagement with critical questions that underlie the distressing symptoms currently overwhelming us. How do the crises of the current syndemic interconnect? What better choices can societies make to counteract the flawed choices that have led to the syndemic? How have existing institutions and social and scientific practices failed to prevent the crises we currently face?
Beneath these urgent questions lie even more basic ones: What does it mean to be human? To be humane? How can individual liberty in a democracy be balanced with collective responsibility? How can cultural differences in values be accommodated in considering what might lie ahead?
Seize the Moment
At this critical time in human history, Seize the Moment is designed to address the challenges of the current moment through transdisciplinary collaborations in the arts, sciences, humanities, and technology in pedagogy, research, and public engagement.
Together, we believe these fields are uniquely well-positioned to engage with the compelling questions of our time and to forge thoughtful, creative pathways toward deeper understanding of and novel frameworks for addressing them.
Seize the Moment is an initiative of Leonardo, the Humanities Lab and the Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University. To learn more, visit our website at http://bit.ly/SeizetheMomentASU.
