A workshop held on 18 April 2016
The problem of privacy has emerged as a major preoccupation for those thinking about the politics of the digital. However, the public discourse on privacy — on how to define and to protect it — has typically failed to articulate precisely what is at stake. Moreover, concerns about privacy have a long history which pre-dates the rise of digital culture, and which have been expressed in a range of different forms, from dystopian novels and films, legal judgments and political leaks and scandals. The problem of privacy has been repeatedly reconfigured with the arrival of new technologies of writing, reading and communication. It is with this sense of historical change in mind that this workshop will bring together researchers in sociology, history, computing and law, with campaigners and policy-makers, journalists, psychologists and literary critics in order to develop a richer perspective on the meaning of privacy and its importance in the past, present and future. A keynote address will be delivered by Christena Nippert-Eng, author of ‘Islands of Privacy’ ahead of panel discussions including Barbara Taylor, Josh Cohen, Mary Aiken and David Vincent.