Among other things, technologies are stories about possibilities that we come to believe in, and attempt to, collectively realise. We live in a time when the adoption of AI technologies seems to have become fait accompli across a range of policy, governance, and affective landscapes; the algorithms will often determine the geographies of our knowledge about ourselves and the world, make sense of our experience as we interface with digital and real entities, decide what we can access, and curate what we can, and do, care for. But many innovative developments in the history of computing remain to be worked on from the age of early AI.
This lecture is based on Professor Kaul's Westminster-Smithsonian partnership project "Love in the time of early AI: Machines, Matchmaking, and Minorities".
The 1950s and 1960s were marked by a techno-futurist shaping of social subjectivities and consciousness, where identities became ever more intertwined with technological developments in all aspects of our lives. Specifically, computers began to be made available commercially, and their uses seemed endless. Popular culture was taken up by these machines. The data pattern matching by machines was seen as an exciting promise for machines to be matchmakers who could "do" love and marriage better than human beings. Enter the era of "Electronic Cupid" and "scientific matchmaking".
This illustrated presentation will provide an innovative account of that social, political, and epistemic history through a focus on technology and identities in the late 1950s and early 1960s United States of America.
The lecture will be followed by responses from students Abigail Larbi, Aishath Leesha, and Namgyel Wangchuk, who have co-curated the exhibition on the theme of "Love Before AI" that will be on display between 24 June – 2 July 2025 at the University of Westminster's Regent Street Campus.
Bio of the speakers
Nitasha Kaul
Nitasha Kaul (Joint PhD Economics and Philosophy, University of Hull) is a multidisciplinary academic, novelist, economist, poet and public intellectual. She is Chair Professor in Politics, International Relations and Critical Interdisciplinary Studies, and the Director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD), at the University of Westminster, UK. She is the author of over 150 publications on themes relating to democracy, political economy, Hindutva/Indian politics, misogyny, technology/Artificial Intelligence, identity, global right-wing nationalism, feminist and postcolonial critiques, small states, geopolitics, Bhutan, Kerala, and Kashmir. Her books include Imagining Economics Otherwise (Routledge, 2007), Man-Asian Literary Prize shortlisted Residue (Rupa, 2014), Future Tense (Harper Collins India, 2020), Can You Hear Kashmiri Women Speak? (co-edited; Kali for Women Press, 2020), and Contemporary Colonialities: Kurds and Kashmiris (co-edited; University of Westminster Press, 2025). Read some of her works on AI here.
Her interventions on politics, democracy, gender and human rights have appeared in major international radio, televisual, and print media. She is the recipient of multiple research grants and awards for her research and writing across genres and disciplines. On Twitter @NitashaKaul. For links to all her work, see her CV.
Namgyel Wangchuk
Namgyel Wangchuk is a PhD researcher in Politics at the Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster, where he works with Prof. Nitasha Kaul. His research focuses on “Electoral Democracy and the Politics of Education Policies in Bhutan,” supported by the IMPACT Studentship. A 2020–2021 Chevening Scholar, he is a Bhutanese civic innovator and policy practitioner with expertise in education, governance, and public policy.
Namgyel has led and contributed to national initiatives in Bhutan aimed at strengthening civic engagement and inclusive policy reform. He also serves as a Trustee of the Loden Education Trust. His work bridges grassroots practice with academic research and has been featured at international forums to advance Bhutan’s development priorities, democratic resilience, and global engagement. Visit his LinkedIn here.
Abigail Larbi
Abigail Larbi is an M.A student of International Relations and Democratic Politics at the University of Westminster. She earned her bachelor’s in English and Linguistics and an MA in Communication Studies from the University of Ghana. She is a media development professional and advocate for media freedom. Passionate about designing and implementing interventions aimed at supporting public interest journalism and strengthening the capacities of the media to promote civic participation, accountable governance, democracy and development.
She worked as the Team lead for the Media and Good Governance Programme at the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) and has been a jury member of several journalists’ awards schemes in West Africa. She is a Chevening Scholar and a Mandela Washington Fellow.
Aishath Leesha
Aishath Leesha is a Doctoral Researcher at the University of Westminster. Her research is on the impact of great power politics on small states, particularly on the Maldives as a democratising small state. She earned her bachelor’s Degree in Law from the International Islamic University, Malaysia, and completed her MA in International Relations and Democratic Politics at the University of Westminster.
She has served as Legal Counsel at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Maldives and later as an Additional Secretary at the Ministry’s Economic Corporation Department. Prior to this, she worked at the President’s Office of Maldives and the Judicial Service Commission
Agenda
Registration: 5.30pm–6pm
Welcome note and speaker introduction: 6pm–6.05pm
By the University of Westminster.
Talk by Prof Nitasha Kaul: 6.05pm–6.45pm
In this lecture, Professor Nitasha Kaul will provide an original account of how the ordering of relationality and romance were mediated by the emergence of new technologies in the mid-20th century onwards; she will trace an innovative history of machines, matchmaking, and minorities in late 1950s and early 1960s USA.
Responses: A Co-Creation Experience: 6.45pm–6.55pm
With Abigail Larbi, Aishath Leesha, and Namgyel Wangchuk, co-organisers of the talk and co-curators of the exhibition “Love Before AI”.
Q&A: 6.55pm–7.25pm
Reception: 7.25pm–8pm
Drinks and snacks.
Location
152-153 Cayley Room, 309 Regent Street, University of Westminster, London W1B 2HW
