Chelsea Manning

Chelsea Manning speaks on the social, technological, and economic ramifications of Artificial Intelligence, and on the practical applications of machine learning. She is an advocate of queer and transgender rights and government transparency. During her time as an intelligence analyst for the U.S. Department of Defense, Manning publicly disclosed classifed documents that she felt revealed human rights abuses and corruption connected to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan during her deployment in Iraq in 2009. Upon being sentenced to 35 years for leaking government documents, she publicly identifed as a trans woman and asserted her legal rights to medical therapy. After serving seven years in military prison, President Barack Obama commuted her sentence; she was released in 2017. Heather Dewey-Hagborg is a bio-political artist and educator. In her creative collaboration with Chelsea Manning, Probably Chelsea (2017), Dewey-Hagborg received cheek swabs and hair clippings from Manning to create DNA-derived sculptural portraits. The work illustrates a multitude of ways in which DNA can be interpreted.

Co-presentation with the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, the Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, and Munger Graduate Residences, with additional support from the Rackham Graduate School, the Knight-Wallace Fellows, the Dissonance Event Series, and the International Institute’s Conflict and Peace Initiative.