Extraterrestrial Intelligences and Science Fiction from Antiquity to the Enlightenment
University of Nova Gorica invites to the public lecture Extraterrestrial Intelligences and Science Fiction from Antiquity to the Enlightenment by Dr. Matjaž Ličer (Slovenian Environment Agency, National Institute of Biology).
Lecture will take place on Thursday, 12 November 2026, at 5 p.m. at the EPICenter in Nova Gorica (Kolodvorska pot 10).
ABSTRACT:
The lecture discusses the works of authors who explored interplanetary travel and non-human intelligence in their fantastical texts between the 2nd and 19th centuries. These texts often served as tools to question the scientific and social beliefs of the time. Kepler, for example, used them as a didactic tool, while Huygens argued for the infinity of the universe with physical arguments, thereby problematizing both geocentrism and heliocentrism. He believed that the same physical conditions applied on other planets as on Earth and that intelligent civilizations might exist there. The lecture cannot ignore E.T.A. Hoffmann's stories, which, centuries before ChatGPT, describe advanced intelligent machines for communication in all world languages, thus opening up the burning questions of today about artificial intelligence and technological optimism or skepticism already in the Romantic period.
Lecture will be in Slovene.
Warmly welcome!
Co-organizers of the event: the Municipality of Nova Gorica and GO! 2025