Virtual Lecture Series
The Association for Cultural Studies is delighted to announce its Virtual Lecture Series: an ongoing programme of online presentations by cutting-edge cultural studies theorists and practitioners.
The next talk in this series, by Siddhart Soni (University of Southampton), titled ‘The Impossible Ethics of Surrogate Friendship’ (followed by a Q&A), will take place on June 16th, 4 PM British Summer Time/ BST (GMT +1) (more information underneath).
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Siddhart Soni (University of Southampton, UK) – The Impossible Ethics of Surrogate Friendship
June 16th, 2025
4 PM British Summer Time/ BST (GMT +1)
Abstract: A similar question to the one Amia Srinivasan poses in her 2021 book The Right to Sex may be posed about friendship: does one have a ‘right’ to a friend? Can the one who feels lonely or isolated demand that you be or stay their friend? This question relates acutely to the onset of a particular phenomenon—the ‘griefbot’. Its premise, albeit contentious, is that if no one is talking to the lonely, we can at least let the lonely alleviate their social pain by talking to a chatbot, perhaps even one trained to mimic the styles and habits of old friends or romantic partners. By turning to the philosophy of friendship, as well as to literature on grief and friendship (such as by Elena Ferrante, Sigrid Nunez, Kazuo Ishiguro, Paul Auster) I explore what is at stake when suggesting that a) a form of ‘surrogate’ friendship is viable, and that b) it can be simulated using large language models.
Bio: Siddharth Soni is a Lecturer in Literature and Digital Culture at the University of Southampton. In 2023 a proposal for his book ‘Monstrous Archives’ was awarded the Ideas Prize for Non-Fiction. It will be published by Profile Books.
Upcoming VLS events (more details TBA):
July – Rosemary Overell (University of Otago)
August – Hsuan Hsu (University of California)
September – Lisa Calvente (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
October – Camilla Mørk Røstvik (University of Aberdeen)
November – Dianlin Huang (Communication University of China)
December – Sarah Bufkin (University of Birmingham)
January 2026 – Danzhou Li (Shenzhen University)
February – Gilbert Caluya (Deakin University)
Abstracts and links to the recordings of the past talks can be found here
Abstracts of the upcoming talks