In Spring 2021, twelve CTL staff initiated a year-long exploration of the experience of being human in these times of accelerated interaction with digital technologies. The Coordinators’ Collaborative Collective is a professional development seminar framed by three texts recommended by its members: Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun (Spring and Summer 2021); Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Fall I, 2021); and Cathy Davidson’s The Next Generation (January and February 2022).

Facilitated by Michele Piso Manoukian and Estefany Gonzaga, members co-lead text-based digital sessions that engage personal and professional experiences about humanity and technology; each semester is planned to culminate in shared, presentations with the whole CTL staff.

In the representative videos shared here, CTL coordinators Ali Abdallah, Julissa Camilo, and Estefany Gonzaga pursue ideas raised by Ishiguro’s Klara: artificial intelligence and the soul; the experience of stigma; and the necessity of empathy in education. Seminar members hope to share their findings about the anxieties, responsibilities, and creativity of living in a “phygital” (physical-digital) world with the LaGuardia community in Spring/Fall 2022. Please join us in celebrating Julissa’s Fall 2021 admission to the Digital Humanities program at the CUNY Graduate Center.