Date: Monday 16 June 2025
Time: 20:00 (drinks from 19:30)
Location: Arminius, Museumpark 3, Rotterdam
Admission: €12,50 (regular), €7,- (reduced)
Language: English
On Monday, June 16, we welcome acclaimed sociologist Ruha Benjamin to De Dépendance for a public talk on the occasion of her new book, Imagination: A Manifesto. Benjamin is Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, where she studies how emerging technologies – especially algorithms and artificial intelligence – can perpetuate inequality and reinforce racial discrimination, or be used as tools for social justice.
In her revelatory latest work, Benjamin calls on us to take imagination seriously as a site of struggle and a place of possibility for reshaping the future. To fight harmful systems shaped by white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, and colonialism, we must first imagine things differently. Drawing on work that critically examines tech-mediated inequities, Benjamin offers a pragmatic and poetic approach to worldbuilding—one that invites each of us to consider the role we play in maintaining or transforming the oppressive status quo.
Participants
Ruha Benjamin
Ruha Benjamin is the Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, founding director of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab, and award-winning author of Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code, Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want. She recently released her fourth book, Imagination: A Manifesto.
Sennay Ghebreab
Sennay Ghebreab serves as Professor of Socially Intelligent AI at the University of Amsterdam and directs the Civic AI Lab. With a background in computer vision and medical imaging, he focuses on developing AI solutions for social justice. He holds advisory positions on the State Commission against Discrimination and Racism and NEMO Science Museum’s Supervisory Board.
Marianne Klerk
Marianne Klerk is a historian and programme curator. Working on the intersection of academia and the public debate, Marianne researches, curates debates and publishes on a variety of social and political topics, ranging from cultural heritage to neoliberalism. She is a senior lecturer in humanities at the Erasmus University College and a fellow at Debatpodium Arminius in Rotterdam. Currently, she is writing a book on the history of gentrification, titled ‘Stadtschmerz in tijden van gentrificatie’ (Boom uitgevers).