Student Report on Ghost Rivers in the Urban Anthropocene

Reported by Cody Schmidt, class of 2025

This talk was hosted by HRC’s Citizenship Lab. The Citizenship Lab seeks to understand the transformation of citizenship and the ways in which citizenship is expressed through ecological, temporal, and spatial terms.

Professor Kregg Hetherington from Concordia University joined Duke Kunshan’s Citizenship Lab on February 17th to deliver a presentation titled “Ghost Rivers in the Urban Anthropocene.” Moderated by Citizenship Lab co-director Robin Rodd, the lecture recounted the story of the St. Pierre, a river that once ran through Montreal and nourished the city in its foundation, now considered a “ghost river.” Continue reading “Student Report on Ghost Rivers in the Urban Anthropocene”

HRC Superdeep: Philosophers’ Cave | Mon 9am-late

Superdeep Philosophers’ Cave (Blast!)

Date/Time: Every Monday, 9am – late (China time)
Location: IB2026

The Philosophers’ Cave is Superdeep‘s shared writing & work space, to help everyone start the week on a high—i.e. Superdeep—note. The Cave opens every Monday 9:04 am till late in IB2026. Coffee, tea, & snacks are served at each meeting. Everyone is welcome to join.

Once a year, at the end of session 3 we do a Cave Blast: the Cave remains open from Mon morning till the Signature Work product due date that week. This year’s Cave Blast: Mon Mar 4, 9am — Thu Mar 7, midnight! (+ extra coffee & tea 😉

Anthropocene XR Lab is accepting proposals for the “Onsite Student Hackathon”

HRC Anthropocene XR Lab presents:
Onsite Student Hackathon Registration Open

Interested in XR (VR&AR) and environmental designs? Come and learn, practice, have fun with us!

Submit your team/individual hackathon proposals to get:

  • Funding: up to ¥ 5,000 per project
  • Equipment support: VR headset, AR glasses, etc.
  • Mentorship; indicate a DKU faculty mentor/seek mentorship from XR lab co-directors

Timeline:

Feb: Accepting Proposals
Feb-Mar: Workshops and Individual Mentoring Sessions
March 17-18: 48 hours of Hackathon
March 18: Showcase / presentation

Check out the HRC website to learn more about the Lab! sites.duke.edu/dkuhumanities/projects/anthropocene-xr-lab/ Any question, please email: leiyuan.tian@dukekunshan.edu.cn

Anthropocene XR Lab Presents: Entrepreneurship in AR/VR/XR

Date/Time: Fri, Feb 24, 12-12:45pm China time
Zoom ID: 879 6872 6939
Guest Speaker: Dr. Simon Mak

Biography: Dr. Simon Mak is Executive Director of the Caruth Institute for Entrepreneurship and Professor of Practice in the Department of Strategy, Entrepreneurship, and Business Economics at the SMU Cox School of Business. He directs the Caruth Institute staff and its many community service programs, such as the Dallas 100 Entrepreneur Awards, the Southwest Venture Forum, the Starting A Business certificate course, and the Startup Camp for Teens. In addition, Dr. Mak leads the academic entrepreneurship programs at Cox by overseeing the BBA Specialization in Entrepreneurship and the MBA/graduate program in entrepreneurship, managing a team of over a dozen adjunct professors in teaching over 20 entrepreneurship courses. Dr. Mak also works with the Lyle School of Engineering on the MS in Engineering Entrepreneurship degree program.

Superdeep Nighthawks: “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” (Gondry 2004) | Feb 23, 9pm

IB 1008 (IB Auditorium)

Presumably inspired by the Superdeep Nighthawks’ last two gatherings, even the last Philosophers’ Cave ended only at 12:07am. To glimpse some sunlight again, the Nighthawks will resume on Thu Feb 23, 9pm to bask in Michel Gondry‘s 2004 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (…& food & drink).

The screening will be the second Superdeep event that day, following Superdeep #17 (“Lucid Dreams Elucidated”) at 6pm in IB 2026.

HRC Superdeep Nighthawks meet on Thu eve (9pm till late). Their current screening series, revolving around dreams in film, is hosted in collaboration with the HouTu Research project Unforgotten Dreams.

Student Report: Superdeep#16: “ChatGPT” with Tim Fitz (Turnitin)

Reported by Dongkun Lyu (with ChatGPT)

Before I started to write a report, I asked ChatGPT:

“Could you please write around a 300 words seminar report for me? The date is Feb 1, 2023. People are Tim Fitz (engineer of Turnitin), Professor Daniel Lim and DKU professors and student. The content is encompassing the research area of the speakers, the process of the development of AI, their experience and thought of ChatGPT and some classic computer experiment like ‘The Turing test’ and ‘Chinese character test’.”

Consequently, most of this report, except for the first paragraph (because it repeats the information I was given), was not useful. Continue reading “Student Report: Superdeep#16: “ChatGPT” with Tim Fitz (Turnitin)”

Superdeep #17: “Lucid Dreams Elucidated” (Mo, Wang, & Hauthaler) | Thu Feb 23, 6pm

IB 2026 | Zoom 69 79 89 79 69

Join us for our next  Superdeep workshop meeting, in which  Weifan Mo (E&L Philosophy ’23), and Siyu Wang (E&L Philosophy ’25), and Nathan Hauthaler will revel in “Lucid Dreams Elucidated”.

Soon after the workshop, the Superdeep Nighthawks will continue to shine their late projector light on dreams of Michel Gondry‘s 2004 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

As always, everyone is welcome to join; no prior knowledge of philosophy is required. And, as always, snacks and refreshments will be served at the meeting.

– – – – – – –
For more information on DKU’s Superdeep workshop,
see https://sites.duke.edu/dkuhumanities/superdeep/
or contact Nathan Hauthaler.