ThoughtGallery.org > The Fragmented Past, with Annalee Newitz, Karen Kupperman, and Kate Downey

The Fragmented Past, with Annalee Newitz, Karen Kupperman, and Kate Downey

What does it mean to lose a city? Can we know who made hand-prints in ancient caves? What’s hiding just out of sight right in our own places?

It’s easy to think we know the past, that it’s a simple story about what happened before we got here. It’s also easy to think the past is a mystery, fundamentally unknowable because of the impossibility of going back to check. The truth is rather wonderfully and frustratingly in between, and studying the past is a constant struggle to understand what we can and can’t know.

Join us August 14th for three talks on how to piece together the fragmented past, from Ars Technica tech culture editor Annalee Newitz, NYU professor Karen Kupperman, and Museum Hack tour guide Kate Downey.

Annalee Newitz is the Tech Culture Editor at Ars Technica. Her work focuses on cultural impact of science and technology. She founded the science and science fiction blog io9.com, and is the author of Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction. She has a Ph.D. in English and American Studies from UC Berkeley, and was the recipient of a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT. She lives in San Francisco with many other life forms, some of which have yet to be identified.

Karen Ordahl Kupperman, who holds a PhD from Cambridge University, is Silver Professor of History at New York University. Her scholarship focuses on the Atlantic world in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, particularly contacts and ventures between Europe and America and the ways that participants interpreted each other.

Kate Downey is a VIP Sales Associate and Renegade Tour Guide at Museum Hack, where she leads renegade team building adventures at the Met, focusing on amazing stories, interactive games, and authentic engagement. Previously, she produced and directed original theater pieces with the Ingenue Theater Company and has worked at Women’s Project Theater, The Public Theater, and Cherry Lane Theatre.

About the Festival of the Unknown

It’s about time we confess our ignorance, celebrate the ambiguous, and salute what’s left to explore. Let’s pay tribute to our age of uncertainty at The Festival of the Unknown.

We’ve brought together a series of exciting shows to take us on a journey through the world of unknowns—from science to history to our personal identities. Join us this August 12-17 for insightful, important, and powerful talks, conversations, and comedy.

Expect special live presentations from the podcasts You’re the Expert, Flash Forward, and The Story Collider, new talks by The Atlantic’s Ed Yong, Ars Technica’s Annalee Newitz, the premier of a new live show by SNL’s Will Stephen, and much more. See all events here.











When: Sun., Aug. 14, 2016 at 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
Where: The Wild Project
195 E. 3rd St.

Price: $12
Buy tickets/get more info now
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What does it mean to lose a city? Can we know who made hand-prints in ancient caves? What’s hiding just out of sight right in our own places?

It’s easy to think we know the past, that it’s a simple story about what happened before we got here. It’s also easy to think the past is a mystery, fundamentally unknowable because of the impossibility of going back to check. The truth is rather wonderfully and frustratingly in between, and studying the past is a constant struggle to understand what we can and can’t know.

Join us August 14th for three talks on how to piece together the fragmented past, from Ars Technica tech culture editor Annalee Newitz, NYU professor Karen Kupperman, and Museum Hack tour guide Kate Downey.

Annalee Newitz is the Tech Culture Editor at Ars Technica. Her work focuses on cultural impact of science and technology. She founded the science and science fiction blog io9.com, and is the author of Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction. She has a Ph.D. in English and American Studies from UC Berkeley, and was the recipient of a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT. She lives in San Francisco with many other life forms, some of which have yet to be identified.

Karen Ordahl Kupperman, who holds a PhD from Cambridge University, is Silver Professor of History at New York University. Her scholarship focuses on the Atlantic world in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, particularly contacts and ventures between Europe and America and the ways that participants interpreted each other.

Kate Downey is a VIP Sales Associate and Renegade Tour Guide at Museum Hack, where she leads renegade team building adventures at the Met, focusing on amazing stories, interactive games, and authentic engagement. Previously, she produced and directed original theater pieces with the Ingenue Theater Company and has worked at Women’s Project Theater, The Public Theater, and Cherry Lane Theatre.

About the Festival of the Unknown

It’s about time we confess our ignorance, celebrate the ambiguous, and salute what’s left to explore. Let’s pay tribute to our age of uncertainty at The Festival of the Unknown.

We’ve brought together a series of exciting shows to take us on a journey through the world of unknowns—from science to history to our personal identities. Join us this August 12-17 for insightful, important, and powerful talks, conversations, and comedy.

Expect special live presentations from the podcasts You’re the Expert, Flash Forward, and The Story Collider, new talks by The Atlantic’s Ed Yong, Ars Technica’s Annalee Newitz, the premier of a new live show by SNL’s Will Stephen, and much more. See all events here.

Buy tickets/get more info now