SCAS News - 10 March, 2020

The SCAS Alumni Day 2020 Attracted Visitors from Near and Far

On 25 February, the Swedish Collegium hosted the SCAS Alumni Day 2020, to which all
former and current Fellows, as well as member of different SCAS committees, were invited.

A mix of academic and social events were on the agenda for this special occasion, as the day
started with Helga Nowotny’s public lecture on “Life in the Digital Time Machine" – the second
Wittrock Lecture in the recently instigated lecture series. In the afternoon, the lecture was follow-
ed by a panel discussion where Ash Amin (Cambridge; Former Fellow), Helga Nowotny (Vienna;
Member of the Academic Senate), Merja Polvinen (Helsinki; Current Fellow) and Sharon Rider
(Uppsala) presented and discussed different perspectives on the theme “Knowledge, Experts, and
Criticality: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Facticity and ’Truthiness’.” To conclude the festivities,
a reception with a buffet dinner, musical entertainment and plenty of opportunities to mingle with
other members of the SCAS community was held in the Thunberg Dining Room in Linneanum.

Part of being a Fellow at an institute for advanced study is the conversation across disciplinary, age
and national boundaries, and during the Alumni Day, this concept was offered once again. Moreover,
a further aspect was added to this, namely that of meeting and talking to members of the SCAS
community with experiences and memories from being in residence during a different academic year
than oneself.