SMU Jewish Studies, Department of Religious Studies, and Bridwell Library present Nate and Ann Levine Endowed Lecture in Jewish Studies a lecture by Amy Kurzweil – Artificial: The Art of Graphic Resurrection.
Amy Kurzweil will discuss her new book, Artificial: A Love Story, a graphic memoir about love, loss, and AI. Artificial tells the story of the mission of Amy’s father, renowned computer scientist, author, and futurist Ray Kurzweil, to build a chatbot from the salvaged writings of Amy’s grandfather, a Viennese musician who fled the Nazis in 1938 and died in 1970. Amy will address the book’s themes and the process of drawing and writing comics about self and family.
Amy Kurzweil is a New Yorker cartoonist and the author of Artificial: A Love Story (2023) and Flying Couch: A Graphic Memoir (2016). Amy was a 2021 Berlin Prize Fellow with the American Academy in Berlin, a 2019 Shearing Fellow with the Black Mountain Institute, and has received fellowships from MacDowell, Djerassi and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated for a Reuben Award and an Ignatz Award for “Technofeelia,” her four-part graphic series with The Believer magazine. Her writing, comics, and cartoons have also been published in The Verge, The New York Times Book Review, Longreads, Literary Hub, WIRED and many other places.
The lecture is free and open to the public. Surface parking is available after 7:00 PM. For additional information, contact Dr. Serge Frolov, sfrolov@smu.edu
