30 July 2020
Europe and the Challenges of Uncertainty in the age of Pandemic and Digitalization - Annual Lecture
Professor Robert Holton, Fellow Emeritus, Sociology, Trinity Colledge Dublin
We live in a world of extreme uncertainty. In this lecture Professor Robert Holton investigates two major contemporary sources of uncertainty and the challenges they pose for Europe and the world in general. Professor Holton focuses first on the co-vid pandemic, and then on digitalization and artificial intelligence. The dynamics and consequences of these challenges create radical uncertainty for policy-makers and citizens alike. Professor Holton refers back to a famous quotation from Jean Monnet about the need for societies to experience and recognise crisis before change becomes possible. How comparable is our own situation today with the world that emerged from two World Wars, and created the momentum behind both the EU and multilateral global institutions?
Robert Holton is a sociologist and economic historian with extensive professional experience in Australia and Europe. He is author of a dozen books and many learned journal articles, many of them on aspects of globalization, cosmopolitanism, and, more recently, artificial intelligence. He is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Trinity College, Dublin, Adjunct Research Professor at the Hawke EU Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence at the University of South Australia, and Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.
