Upcoming Events

【能源人文大師講座】穿透綠色科技神話：Prof. Imre Szeman 跨國巡迴專場

主講人：Imre Szeman (加拿大多倫多大學人文地理學教授、加拿大皇家學會院士)

第一場【共作文明新趨勢專題講座】｜2026年3月24日（二）14:00–16:00

地點：台大文學院會議室

講題：Green Dreams, or, Why Technology Can't Save the World (英文演講)

主持人：李紀舍 (臺灣大學外文系教授兼文學院副院長)

報名連結：https://forms.gle/rauDBTWUravbej8BA

第二場【共同教育中心專題講座】｜2026年3月24日（二）19:00–21:00

地點：台大校總區博雅教學館102教室

講題：Why Do the Energy Humanities Matter Now? (英文演講)

與談人：洪廣冀 (臺灣大學地理學系教授)、貝格泰(臺灣師範大學英語學系教授)

報名連結：https://forms.gle/ZV9uiM5GWaCgEeCr7

【活動亮點】

• 全球視野：與澳洲雪梨大學人文學院&維爾•戈登•柴爾德研究中心（The Vere Gordon Childe Centre）同步特邀專題講座。https://www.sydney.edu.au/museum/whats-on/talks-and-events/green-dreams-technology.html （March 11 from 6pm to 7:15pm）

• 深度解構：剖析矽谷「綠色科技樂觀主義」如何重塑氣候時代的救贖信仰。

• 人文反擊：探討科技巨頭（Big Tech）如何在淨零承諾下，排擠了民主化的氣候治理與多元想像。

【關於講者】

     Imre Szeman 教授以作者、合著者或編輯的身份參與了30本著作，近年的代表作包括：

• 《論石油文化：全球化、文化與能源》 (On Petrocultures: Globalization, Culture, and Energy，2019)：探討能源使用的社會文化面向，及其對能源轉型與氣候變遷的影響。

• 《太陽的未來：再生生命的鬥爭》(Futures of the Sun: The Struggle Over Renewable Life，2024)：探討企業與國家如何掌控向再生能源轉型的過程。

• 《權力轉移：新能源政治關鍵詞》(Power Shift: Keywords for a New Politics of Energy，合編)：收錄了當今能源政治的相關詞彙表。

  他的最新合著作品《綠色夢想：為何科技無法拯救世界》 (Green Dreams: Why Technology Can’t Save the World)將於2026年由Bloomsbury出版社出版。

[Lecture Series on Advancing Connected Futures] Green Dreams, or, Why Technology Can't Save the World

• Time: Tuesday, March 24 | 14:00 – 16:00

• Venue: Meeting Room, College of Liberal Arts, National Taiwan University (NTU)

• Topic: Green Dreams, or, Why Technology Can't Save the World (Conducted in English)

• Speaker: Imre Szeman (Professor of Human Geography, University of Toronto; Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada)

• Moderator: Chi-she Li (Professor, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures; Associate Dean, College of Liberal Arts, NTU)

• Registration: https://forms.gle/rauDBTWUravbej8BA

• Organizers: College of Liberal Arts, National Taiwan University/Trend Education Foundation/Advancing Connected Futures

Abstract:

“Green techno-optimism” has become a defining common sense of the climate era: the belief that innovation, markets, and new technologies can deliver sustainability without forcing hard choices about growth, consumption, or high-energy ways of life. This lecture asks why that story is so persuasive, and how it reshapes what can be imagined, demanded, and defended as a climate future. It treats green techno-optimism as a cultural and political narrative, one that organizes hope, authorizes particular experts and institutions, and sidelines other ways of naming the crisis and acting within it.

Green techno-optimism finds its most powerful expression in Silicon Valley, where contemporary faith in technological salvation is made and circulated. As climate breakdown becomes a new frontier for venture capital and the rhetoric of creative disruption, tech companies have positioned themselves as central agents of climate solutions, driving a rapidly expanding field of green tech, from carbon removal and geoengineering to “green AI.” Focusing on Big Tech in particular, the lecture examines how these firms narrate themselves as climate leaders through net-zero pledges, sustainability reports, and renewable energy claims, even as their growth models, infrastructure, and rising energy demands work against meaningful decarbonization and democratic climate governance. For a humanities audience, the stakes are clear: if climate politics is being steered by the stories we tell about technology, then critique, interpretation, and alternative imaginaries are not secondary to climate action, they are part of the struggle over what solutions become thinkable and legitimate.

Speaker Bio: 

Imre Szeman is the inaugural Director of the Institute for Environment, Conservation and Sustainability and Professor of Human Geography at the University of Toronto Scarborough. He is author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of thirty books, including (mostly recently) On Petrocultures: Globalization, Culture, and Energy (2019), which explores the socio-cultural dimensions of energy use and its implications for energy transition and climate change; Futures of the Sun: The Struggle Over Renewable Life (2024), a book examining corporate and state control of the transition to renewables; and Power Shift: Keywords for a New Politics of Energy (co-edited), a lexicon of the politics of energy today. His latest book, Green Dreams: Why Technology Can’t Save the World (co-written), will be published by Bloomsbury in 2026. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.