Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Thursday 31 May
12:45 PM - 1:15 PM
“Only Connect” said E M Forster. Could Mr Forster have envisaged a world in which one person connected with another, thousands of miles away, through free video and voice calls, instant messages and file sharing, via a computer and broadband internet connection? Humans are now so freely connected through computers as to cause consternation to governments like those of Russia and China.
Skype is on a mission to ‘enable the world’s conversations,’ says its President, Josh Silverman. ‘Allowing the world to communicate for free empowers and links people and communities everywhere,’ he believes. The etymology of the word ‘conversation’ is ‘act of living with’, or ‘to live with, keep company with’.
But does virtual communication improve or impair that capacity for good human connection? How are conversations and thus relationships and identities changing in the digital age, as so many of us now have online presences? Visiting from the UK for the Emerging Writers’ Festival, Anita Sethi ponders these questions and more.
Featuring
Anita Sethi
Anita Sethi is an award-winning British writer, journalist and broadcaster who has written for national and international newspapers and magazines.
Her writing has appeared in publications such as the Guardian, Observer, Independent, Independent on Sunday, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Times, The National, New Statesman, Granta, Times Literary Supplement and BBC Travel. In broadcasting she has appeared as a guest critic and commentator, panellist and co-presenter on several channels including BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 5 Live, the World Service, Al Jazeera and MSNBC. She is currently literary blogger-in-residence at the Southbank Centre.
Anita is the recipient of a Penguin/decibel Prize, Arts Council writing award, Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship and Dialogue Festival blogging award. She has been published in anthologies and books including From There to Here (Penguin), Roads Ahead (Tindal Street Press), The Book Club Bible (Michael O’Mara Books); The Critical Muslim (Hurst & Co, forthcoming July 2012), and is currently working on a novel, short story collection, and travel narrative.