Calls for Papers
Find here non-event related calls for papers, such as special issue journals.
Last updated 05/10/2013 by Kathryn de Ridder-Vignone.
Association for Political and Legal Anthropology (APLA) Graduate Student Paper Prize Competition
Deadline: May 15 2013
Updated: May 10 2013
The APLA Board invites individuals who are students in a graduate degree-granting program (including M.A., Ph.D. and J.D.) to send stand-alone papers centering on the analysis of political and legal institutions and processes. Topics may include citizenship; colonialism and post-colonial public spheres; cosmopolitanism; cultural politics; disability; environment; globalization; governance; humanitarianism; medicine, science, and technology; multiculturalism; nationalism; NGOs and civil society; new media; immigration and refugees; resistance; religious institutions; sovereignty; war and conflict. We encourage submissions that expand the purview of political and legal anthropology and challenge us to think anthropologically in new ways about power, politics and law.
APLA awards a cash prize of $350.00, plus travel expenses of up to $650.00 if the prize winner attends the 2013 annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association (Chicago) to receive the prize in person. The prize winner will be announced in Anthropology News, and the winning paper will be published in the peer-reviewed journal of the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology, PoLAR: The Political and Legal Anthropology Review.
Authors must be enrolled in a graduate program through at least May 1, 2013. Papers should not exceed 8,000 words (including notes and references) and should follow the style guidelines of PoLAR, which are detailed in the American Anthropological Association Style Guide.
Please submit papers as PDF attachments.
Submissions and questions should be sent to Jennifer Hamilton at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
History and Philosophy of Technoscience
http://www.pickeringchatto.com/technoscience
Updated: May 10 2013
We would like to announce a new series of monographs and collected papers. It explores research practice across the disciplines and throughout history by foregrounding its technological setting: - when the problems to be investigated are themselves the product of science and technology in the modern world, - when technical and predictive control is sought within the technological infrastructure of models, instruments, measurements, computational methods, and media technologies, - when research accomplishments change the world materially more so than our thinking about it.
From nanotechnology to the environmental sciences, from alchemy to pharmacy, from solid state physics to human factors research, how are problems defined, what counts as an explanation, how are findings validated, how do values enter in? And most importantly for civic observers of contemporary research: How is robustness and reliability achieved even where we lack theoretical understanding?
Members of the editorial board include Hanne Andersen (Aarhus), Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent (Paris), Martin Carrier (Bielefeld), Graeme Gooday (Leeds), Don Howard (Notre Dame), Ann Johnson (South Carolina), Cyrus Mody (Rice), Maureen O’Malley (Sydney), Roger Strand (Bergen) and Nancy Tuana (Pennsylvania State). For more information write to Alfred Nordmann or Philip Good or see http://www.pickeringchatto.com/technoscience
Looking forward to queries, suggestions, and submissions, Alfred Nordmann (Darmstadt Technical University) and Philip Good (Pickering & Chatto Publishers) .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Spontaneous Generations: Gender, Race, and Class in Science and Technology Studies
Deadline: October 01 2013
Updated: May 10 2013
Christine V. Wood and Simon N. Williams, Guest Editors (contact: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address))
Science and technology reflect and create social inequalities - inequalities related but not limited to race/ethnicity, gender, and social class. Over the past several decades, scholars in science and technology studies, particularly those engaged with feminist and critical theories, have questioned the ways that inequalities among the ranks of those producing the knowledge affect the kinds of knowledge that is yielded. This special issue aims to encourage science and technology studies to focus on inequalities within scientific practice, professions, and knowledge production. We will feature work across a variety of disciplines that aims to better understand the experiences of individuals, particularly women and people of color, in trajectories leading or related to science work. We seek scholarship that pushes STS to re-engage with questions surrounding science as a professional “field” and, in particular, as one that remains stratified in practice by inequalities of race, gender, and social class.
We welcome research that interrogates the various and intersecting forms of inequality that shape power structures in science and technology. Following the “normative turn” in STS, the issue also seeks to probe the normative and ethical concerns of why diversity is “good” or meaningful for science, given science’s orientation as “value-free,” objective, and universal. We seek research comparing various arenas of scientific practice. Submissions can focus on a variety of institutional and national contexts, can use both historical and contemporary cases, and can draw on a variety of critical and methodological perspectives.
Those considering submitting manuscripts are encouraged to make pre-submission inquiries to discuss their submission with the guest editors, who can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Possible topics might include, but are not limited to:
1. Critical perspectives on inequalities within scientific practice, including for example Feminist theories and Critical Race Theories.
2. Studies looking at diversity and inequality within inter/multi/trans-disciplinary scientific collaboration and “Team Science” (inclusive of academic and non-academic science teams).
3. Studies looking at the role of gender, race/ethnicity and socio-economic status in scientific education and training across the educational spectrum.
4. Research exploring the normative and instrumental value of diversity in science: why is scientific diversity a good thing? Have diverse scientific teams produced better science?
Authors are asked to conform to all style guidelines specified in the “Submission Preparation Checklist:” http://spontaneousgenerations.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/SpontaneousGenerations/about/submissions#authorGuidelines
Call for Authors - SAGE Encyclopedia of Transportation: Social Science and Policy
Deadline: March 12 2013
Updated: February 11 2013
We are inviting academic editorial contributors to *The Encyclopedia of Transportation: Social Science and Policy*, a new 4-volume reference to be published by SAGE Publications. Article submission deadline is May 12, 2013. How are decisions about transportation priorities and policies made? What are the social costs when highways divide communities or leave them behind, or when an airport is expanded near a poor neighborhood? In an age of indiscriminate terrorism, how do we secure key nodes on transport systems in ways that don’t unreasonably constrict those very systems? Should transportation systems be publicly or privately funded and managed? What are the social and financial costs of gridlock in our cities? *The Encyclopedia of Transportation: Social Science and Policy* will address such questions and introduces students to the vital topic of transportation via the lens of multiple disciplines within the social sciences and related fields including geography, public policy, business, and economics. Standing apart from existing reference works on transportation focusing on historical or on technical aspects; this academic work is centered on current social, economic, and policy aspects.
Four volumes are included in the set containing approximately 700 signed entries with cross-references and suggestions for further readings. The signed articles are accompanied by pedagogical elements, including the Reader’s Guide, Chronology of Transportation Policy, Resource Guide, Glossary, and thorough index. This comprehensive project will be marketed to academic and public libraries as a print and digital product available to students via the library’s electronic services. The General Editor, who will be reviewing each submission to the project, is Dr. Mark Garrett, Ohio State University. If you are interested in contributing to this cutting-edge reference, it is a unique opportunity to contribute to the contemporary literature, redefining sociological issues in today’s terms.
Moreover, it can be a notable publication addition to your CV/resume and broaden your publishing credits. SAGE Publications offers an honorarium ranging from SAGE book credits for smaller articles up to a free set of the printed product for contributions totaling 10,000 words or more. The list of available articles is already prepared, and as a next step we will e-mail you the Article List (Excel file) from which you can select topics that best fit your expertise and interests. Additionally, the Style and Submission Guidelines and the Reader’s Guide will be provided which detail article specifications. Please provide your CV or a brief summary of your academic/publishing credentials in related disciplines. Thank you, Sue Moskowitz Director of Author Management Golson Media .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Call for Chapters: Global Wikipedia: International and cross-cultural issues in online collaboration
Deadline: January 15 2013
Updated: December 10 2012
Important dates:
Proposals Submission Due: January 15, 2013 Full Chapters Due: March 15, 2013 Final Submission Due: July 1, 2013
Editors (to whom chapters should be sent and questions addressed):
Pnina Fichman (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)); Noriko Hara (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)) Indiana University, Bloomington. Introduction:
Wikipedia offers articles in 285 languages and more than 80% of Wikipedia articles are written in languages other than English. In addition, the English Wikipedia itself attracts users from all over the world. This global nature of Wikipedia provides a rich socio-technical environment to examine a wide range of international and cross-cultural issues. Despite the global reach of Wikipedia, most of the published works about Wikipedia are based on the English site. More research should pay attention to the global, multilingual nature of Wikipedia to gain a better understanding of online international cooperation, on one hand, and of cross-cultural variations in mass knowledge production processes and outcomes, on the other. The purpose of this book is to explore a wide range of international and cross-cultural issues as they are manifested on Wikipedia. We are particularly interested in research that takes a socio-technical perspective on the global Wikipedia and integrates social theory to explain online interactions. For example, we invite studies on online global collaboration, coordination, and conflict management in this rich socio-technical environment. We hope that these works will highlight implications for other socio-technical environments or extend the use and development of social theory. This unique publication aims to be a collection of international and cross-cultural research on the Wikipedia. We expect that this edited volume will appeal to academic researchers, graduate, and undergraduate students interested in Wikipedia and, more broadly, in social studies of information and communication technologies, as well as to Wikipedia contributors.
Recommended topics:
We are seeking chapters that include both empirical and conceptual work and soliciting innovative analysis of international and cross-cultural aspects of Wikipedia to be part of this book.
Appropriate topics for chapters include (but are not limited to) the following list:
· Case studies of Wikipedia in one of the 285 languages, with special interest in small and medium size Wikipedias; for example, focusing on policies, processes, interactions or information quality · Conflict and collaboration in editing international entries on any particular language of Wikipedia · International and cross-cultural collaboration; for example, international cooperation in fighting vandalism · Intercultural synergy across boundaries on Wikipedia or Wikimedia projects · Cross-cultural studies that compare more than one Wikipedia, for example, focusing on: · Cross-cultural comparisons of content, structures, and contributions · Comparative studies of policies, interactions, and processes · Efforts to understand similarities and differences across Wikipedia in multiple languages in user motivations, establishment and maintenance of local communities and challenges · Comparative analysis of editing policies around the globe · Information quality across two or more Wikipedia languages · Comparison of scope and representation of topics across Wikipedia in several languages · Vandalism and trolling behaviors across national and language boundaries Chapters are expected to have between 4000 and 5000 words (excluding references, figures, and tables). Only original work whose copyright is owned (or cleared) by the chapter authors and not considered for publication elsewhere can be considered for inclusion. Important dates:
January 15, 2013: submit 2-3 page chapter proposals and authors’ bios (200 words) Feb 1, 2013: receive acceptance notification March 15, 2013: submit first full chapters May 15, 2013: receive reviewers’ comments July 1, 2013: submit final versions This book is scheduled to be published by Scarecrow Press. Scarecrow Press is the publisher of, among other titles, Digital Media: Technological and Social Challenges of the Interactive World (2011). The publication is anticipated to be released in 2014.
The ESRC Genomics Network - Genetics and Society Book Series
Deadline: June 01 2015
Updated: April 14 2011
The ESRC Genomics Network - Genetics and Society Book Series provides an outlet for outstanding scholarship in the multiple fields of genetics and genomics social sciences research. Published with Routledge since 2006, the research monographs, handbooks, textbooks, and edited collections offer authoritative, cutting edge perspectives on issues covering the ethical, legal, social, economic or political aspects of:
* tissue engineering, enhancement, and cloning * genetic modification of foodstuffs and other organisms, * neuroscience and neuroethics * genetic screening and testing * stem cell research and reproductive technologies * psycho-social aspects of medical genetics and gene therapy * the social and ethical issues surrounding biomedical innovation * public engagement and political discourse * representations of genetics across the media and cultural spheres * regulatory policy and governance of biomedical research and its human applications * the sociology and anthropology of bio-science and bio-technology * bioethics * the economics of new biomedical technologies and their place in the ‘knowledge economy’
Proposals for new titles within the scope of these topic areas are encouraged from individuals and groups. Please see the book proposal submission guidelines and application form.
Further information, requests and queries contact:
Helen Greenslade, Editorial Manager Cesagen Cardiff University 6 Museum Place Cardiff CF10 3BG
e-mail: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) Tel: 02920 – 875389 Fax: 02920 – 870024
Asian Biotechnology and Development Review (ABDR): Call for Articles, Reviewers
Updated: May 16 2010
The Asian Biotechnology and Development Review (ABDR) is a peer reviewed journal published by Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS) from New Delhi, India. It is supported by Life Science Division of UNESCO and Department of Biotechnology of Government of India. This Journal is abstracted in CAB Abstracts. ABDR is guided by an Editorial Board and Editorial Advisory Board with distinguished experts, policy makers, academics, representatives of UN organizations as members.
ABDR is now into its 12th Volume ABDR has been a forum for informed views and perspectives on biotechnology and development issues. The contents of past issues except the last two issues can be downloaded from RIS website. ABDR is listed under journals in the publications section in the RIS website http://www.ris.org.in
ABDR has published articles on a wide variety of issues ranging from Access and Benefit Sharing to Bioethics in Asia, from regulation of stem cells to biosafety and international trade, from Bt. cotton in India to regulating biotechnology in Australia. ABDR has published Special Issues also focusing on a particular theme.
Besides articles ABDR publishes Book Reviews. Articles that provide a perspective on an issue or analyze an important case (e.g. Decision by WTO Panel/Appellate Body) can be considered for publication.
The guidelines for contributors are available in the website. When an article is submitted it is immediately acknowledged and the review process is set in motion. We strive to publish the accepted articles as early as possible. ABDR welcomes articles, book reviews and other contributions. ABDR does not publish articles that are solely of scientific or technical in nature. The readership of ABDR is spread across the globe. While the contents of the past issues will give an idea about the nature and scope of the articles and book reviews published in ABDR, articles on themes and topics not covered before particularly articles on socio-economic impacts of emerging biotechnologies and developments in life sciences, and bioeconomy will be considered for publication. The scope of the contributions to ABDR need not be restricted to biotechnology related issues in Asia or developing countries.
ABDR is also interested in empanelling reviewers for doing peer-review of articles. Those interested in doing peer review are requested to submit a brief CV and their areas of specialization/expertise. Submissions can be sent by email to the Managing Editor and there is no need to send the same in CD/hard copy if submission is by email.
For more information about ABDR and work of RIS on biotechnology please visit http://www.ris.org.in Submissions can be sent by email to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) For more information please contact Dr. K.Ravi Srinivas, Managing Editor, ABDR email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) Fax: +91-11-24682173-74
The Construction of Personal Identities Online: a Special Issue of Minds and Machines
Deadline: December 15 2011
http://www.philosophyofinformation.net/grants/pio/index.html
Updated: January 15 2010
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are building a new habitat (infosphere) in which future generations will spend an increasing amount of time. So, how individuals construct, shape and maintain their personal identities online (PIOs) is a problem of growing and pressing importance. Today, PIOs can be created and developed, as an ongoing work-in-progress, to provide experiential enrichment, expand, improve or even help to repair relationships with others and with the world, or enable imaginative projections (the "being in someone else's shoes" experience), thus fostering tolerance. However, PIOs can also be mis-constructed, stolen, "abused", or lead to psychologically or morally unhealthy lives, causing a loss of engagement with the actual world and real people.
The construction of PIOs affects how individuals understand themselves and the groups, societies and cultures to which they belong, both online and offline. PIOs increasingly contribute to individuals' self-esteem, influence their life-styles, and affect their values, moral behaviours, and ethical expectations. It is a phenomenon with enormous practical implications, and yet, crucially, individuals as well as groups seem to lack a clear, conceptual understanding of who they are in the infosphere and what it means to be a responsible informational agent online. This special issue of Minds and Machines seeks to fill this important gap in our philosophical understanding. It will build on the current debate on PIO, and address questions such as:
- How does one go about constructing, developing and preserving a PIO? Who am I online?
- How do I, as well as other people, define and re-identify myself online?
- What is it like to be that particular me (instead of you, or another me with a different PIO), in a virtual environment?
- Should one care about what happens to one's own PIO and how one (with his/her PIO) is perceived to behave online?
- How do PIs online and offline feedback on each other?
- Do customisable, reproducible and disposable PIOs affect our understanding of our PI offline?
- How are we to interpret cases of multiple PIOs, or cases in which someone's PIO may become more important than, or even incompatible with, his or her PI offline?
- What is going to happen to our self-understanding when the online and offline realities become intertwined in an "onlife" continuum, and online and offline PIs have to be harmonised and negotiated? Papers comparing and evaluating standard approaches to PI in order to analyse how far they may be extended to explain PIO are also very welcome. Submissions will be double-blind refereed for academic rigor, originality and relevance to the theme. Please submit articles of no more than 10,000 words to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) in .doc or .pdf format.
The special issue is part of a series of workshops organised in connection with the AHRC-funded project The Construction of Personal Identities Online. Authors may also wish to submit their papers to one of the workshops organized on the same topic. Submissions will also be considered for publication in the special issue.
The Body in Breast Cancer: a Special Issue of Social Semiotics
Deadline: October 01 2010
Updated: January 15 2010
Social Semiotics invites submissions to a special issue “The Body in Breast Cancer” in order to mobilize new critical interventions into the materiality of breast cancer.
The body, at the level of the breast, is the terrain on and through which breast cancer registers. This body, as understood through poststructuralist theory, is always already constructed and negotiated in relation to technology. This body, then, is a technologized body. The experience of breast cancer at once compels particular interfaces of body and machine in detection, treatment, and “recovery,” and the necessity for corporeal reworking in relation to the machine. Stressing the material breast as a technologized terrain necessitates grappling with the myriad of troubled relations of/to the breast, such as the prosthetic breast, the absent breast, fear of the lost breast, refusal of the breast, the scrutinized fleshy breast. In order to enable such exploration, we solicit papers in the fields of science and technology studies, queer studies, cultural studies, performance studies, and disability studies that enter into dialogue with scholarship on (bio)technologies and/or the posthuman. Foregrounding the technologized materiality in breast cancer will yield new ways of understanding subjectivity and somatic resistance, crafting corporeality, and practicing critique/politics in order to extend “livable lives.”
We are especially interested in accounts of queer, non-white, crip, male, classed bodies, and other particularities of subjecthood, that explore the practices of the technologized body in breast cancer at the level of machine and science, and imagined through biotech, the cyborg, cybernetics, prostheses, biometrics, and so forth.
We welcome articles that investigate:
• Excavations of the breast that foreground the policing, containment, mutilation, resignification, and crafting of the breast
• Bodies in breast cancer surveillance
• Bodies and breast reconstruction
• Bodies in treatment (radiation, the chemotherapy ward, detection, ultrasound, MRI, biopsy, mammogram, the breast clinic)
• Bodies and traces of military technologies; marks of cancer treatment
• Body-erotics/sexuality and breast cancer
• Visual economies of the breast and legalities of breastlessness
• The body and prognosis in breast cancer
• Altered notions of bodily capacity in relation to breast cancer
• Breasted aesthetics as self-crafting/disciplining
• Renegotiations of subjectivity at the interface with machines
• Unstable assemblages between flesh and machine in detection, risk assessment, prognosis
• Cancer and matter
• Regeneration and illness
We invite traditional essays as well as a variety of alternative forms: short performative pieces, short critical etymologies, visual essays, case studies. We are hoping to put together a range of different submissions for this issue in order to encourage unorthodox approaches to breast cancer. If submitting a traditional paper, the word count should be no more than 8000, including notes and bibliography. Alternative formats should be between 1 and 15 pages (maximum). For all submissions, please note that one image is equivalent to 250 words (half page). The journal citation style is Chicago Author-Date. For style guidelines and further information about figures and formatting, please see the journal website instructions for authors: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/authors/csosauth.asp Articles should be prepared for anonymous review. Please provide a separate short author biography and an abstract of no more than 150 words. The deadline for submissions is 1 October 2010, with a final publication date scheduled for January 2012. Papers should be submitted by electronic attachment as a Word document (.doc or .txt) or pdf. The subject line of your email should state the special issue title “The Body in Breast Cancer” and be addressed to: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
General Call for Papers: East Asian Science, Technology and Society: an International Journal
http://www.springerlink.com/content/1875-2160
Updated: January 13 2010
Editor-in-Chief:
Daiwie Fu, National Yang Ming University, Taiwan
Associate Editors:
Warwick Anderson, University of Sydney, Australia / University of Wisconsin-Madison, US
Pingyi Chu, Academic Sinica, Taiwan
Sungook Hong, Seoul National University, South Korea
Togo Tsukahara, Kobe University, Japan
EASTS is an interdisciplinary quarterly journal based in Taiwan guided by editorial boards of STS scholars from Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and the West. Founded in 2007, EASTS provides an international platform for STS scholarship on East Asia. The goal of the journal is to bring Western and East-Asian STS communities together to share ideas, knowledge and research on the full range of topics encompassed by STS. EASTS promotes STS studies from and to the East Asian and worldwide STS communities.
Submit Your Paper Now!
Papers should be submitted via Editorial Manager: http://www.editorialmanager.com/east
Editorial queries can be addressed to: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Recent Special Issues:
Constructing Intimacy: Technology, Family and Gender in East Asia
Guest Editor: Francesca Bray
Gender and Reproductive Technologies in East Asia
Guest Editors: Adele E. Clarke, Azumi Tsuge and Chia-Ling Wu
The Globalisation of Chinese Medicine and Meditation Practices
Guest Editor: Elisabeth Hsu
Emergent Studies of Science and Technology in Southeast Asia
Call for Papers for Edited Volume –Trans Studies: Beyond Hetero/Homo Normativities
May 15 2013 |
Deadline: May 15 2012
Updated: December 16 2011
Call for Papers for Edited Volume –Trans Studies: Beyond Hetero/Homo Normativities
The Institute for Research at Women at Rutgers University invites submissions for an edited volume entitled, Trans Studies: Beyond Hetero/Homo Normativities, which we anticipate publishing at a university press.
Currently at the cutting edge of interdisciplinary scholarship, Trans Studies have undermined pre-existing, oppositional sex/gender binaries by focusing on the fluidity and malleability of gender identity and expression. Trans Studies therefore destabilize and complicate many of the debates about the social, biological and cultural constructions of gender and sexuality. There has also been a heated debate among scholars and activists—especially in the United States and Latin America—on the distinctions between transgender, transsexual and transvestite, and the ways in which each one of these terms interrogates scientific, artistic, popular, cultural and ethnic definitions of gender and sexuality based on the idea of a set spectrum, or conceived as a result of a particular performance or practice. Scholars and activists who work on trans issues are currently analyzing the social, psychological, and legal impact of surgical gender reassignment, as well as promoting the protection of legal rights for trans people in public spaces. The proposed edited volume would like to address this topic as an exploration of the new frontiers that are open when the relationships between gender, sexuality and the body are not conceived within heteronormative or homonormative frameworks, but from the perspective of psychoanalysis and desire, philosophy and subject theory, law and civil rights, cultural and social studies and issues of representation, and sociological and political science debates on social imaginaries and political radicalism.
This volume will encourage a broad conversation about the most recent redefinitions in Women’s, Queer and Sexuality Studies in dialogue with debates in Trans Studies. Possible topics might explore:
The relationship between identity, desire and the body The relationship between feminist theory, queer theory and trans theory; the ways in which Trans Studies have transformed Feminist and Queer Studies The performativity of gender and sexuality The history of gender as social and scientific construct The relationship between LGB and T in movement politics, nationally and internationally The relationship between trans studies and transnational studies; migration, queer and trans rights; trans tourism The possibility of translating trans identities beyond territorial borders Queer linguistics; the challenge of capturing fluid conceptions of gender identity and expression in language; of terminology and its associated politics (e.g. transgender, transgendered or trans; intersex or DSD); of exporting/transposing nomenclature between different national contexts HIV infection and trans people The most pressing medical/social/legal/public policy issues affecting trans people The role of intersectional oppression (e.g. race, ethnicity, class, sexuality) in the field of Trans Studies Sexual rights as human rights, especially rights related to gender identity and gender expression
The volume will be edited by Dr. Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel and Dr. Sarah Tobias (bios below). Please send abstracts of 200 – 300 words accompanied by a C.V. to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) by May 15, 2012. Full text articles should be ready no later than May 15, 2013.
Call for papers: Engineers and Sustainability: Achieving technological transitions
June 06 2013 to June 07 2013 | Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway
Deadline: February 15 2013
http://www.ntnu.no/censes/engineers-and-sustainability
Updated: February 05 2013
Background of the workshop Engineers engage with important and wide-ranging environmental issues related to, for example, physical planning, construction of buildings, transport, and water management. Their main expertise resides in technology and architecture, and they play a crucial role in the ongoing shaping and reshaping of the physical qualities of nature and culture, of landscapes and the built environment. How may social science advance knowledge about the role of engineers and their production and use of environmental knowledge? In this workshop we want to focus on engineers’ practices with regard to sustainability, as well as their knowledge management. It is vital that environmentally relevant knowledge is available and put to use, in order to make engineering more sustainable and thus achieving transition to more sustainable technologies. Social science studies of environmental issues have largely focused on the environmental movement, public attitudes and values, management of local resources and – above all – on the strategies and institutions of environmental policy-making.
The role of expertise has been analyzed, but mainly in a critical way to suggest that experts do not act on environmental knowledge as they should or that they neglect important input from lay people experiencing environmental problem. However, less is known about the way experts find and appropriate environmental knowledge, nor how they try to put it into play with respect to advising private and public decision-makers. Thus, it is important to discuss also the context of engineers’ practices. Workshop topics We invite papers that address one or more of the following topics: Learning and knowledge acquisition. What are the most important sources of knowledge to strengthen the environmental aspects of their practices? How are they able to use these resources? Also, we will inquire into interest and motives to engage with environmentally relevant knowledge and knowledge practices.
Activities of mediation. In relation to learning and knowledge acquisition, what are the activities related to possible mediations of knowledge from research and environmental policy-making? Engineers’ organizations have often been expected to act as intermediaries or boundary organizations between R&D institutions and decision-makers in government and industry (Guston 2001). In theory, boundary organizations should develop rules, procedures, and norms about accountability that shape perceptions of salience, credibility, and legitimacy of the information and guidance that they provide. To what extent do consulting engineering companies engage in such activities of rulemaking, etc., and how? Calculating and representing sustainability. Consulting engineers have to use instruments to measure environmental qualities, and they need to assess these qualities. This involves choices of indicators as well as standards to represent and evaluate. How are these choices made, and what kind of practices with respect to calculation and representation do we find? To what extent do companies innovate to improve environmental aspects of their services, what kinds of innovation happen, and how do they perceive their possibilities to develop new practices?
Knowledge management for sustainability. In principle, knowledge management tools like intranet systems for knowledge sharing, etc. may be helpful to ensure that concerns for sustainability are pursued by the consultants. To what extent are such tools present in the companies? How well are environmental concerns integrated into the tools? Are they used by the employees, and how? Commercialization of environmentally oriented consulting engineering services. Arguably, the consulting engineering companies are involved in the construction of a market for services with a focus on sustainability, but do they see these efforts as successful? How do they perceive their achievements with respect to the mediation (and implementation) of their environmentally relevant knowledge to different groups of users, and what do they consider to be the key facilitators and impediments of success? What are their customers/clients demanding, and how does that shape the services offered? What kind of pragmatic adaptations are made? What is the influence of important auditing and evaluating institutions like public environmental agencies?
Interdisciplinarity and new combinations of knowledge. Consulting engineering companies mainly employee engineers. To what extent do they see a need for extending their competence by hiring other professions, like biologists, geographers or sociologists, to meet the challenges related to sustainability? What are their strategies for combining the different kinds of knowledge, and how is this influenced by professional and pragmatic concerns? Confirmed invited speakers are: - Professor Gary Downey (Virginia Tech), - Professor Andrew Jamison (Aalborg University), - Professor Ulrik Jørgensen (Aalborg University - Associate Professor Ibo van de Poel (Delft University of Technology).
Those who are interested in attending, please send title and abstracts (2-300 word) to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). For further information contact Vivian A. Lagesen (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
Technology in the Age of Information
July 04 2013 to July 06 2014 | Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal
Deadline: February 01 2013
Updated: November 09 2012
The School of Economics and Management (ISEG-UTL) and the SOCIUS research centre at the Technical University of Lisbon and the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon (ICS-UL) are organising the 18th Biennial International Conference of the Society for Philosophy and Technology (SPT). On the early evening before, July 3 from 3-7 pm, the conference will also co-host a special corporate workshop.
A main aim of the conference is to encourage debate on the cultural, social, economic, political and ethical implications of advances in information and media technology. Digital networks and computerized technological systems have enlarged the domain of human technological action and responsibility, which raises new questions about the impacts of globalization and of the expanding information economy on the public and cultural spheres. A challenge facing the philosophy of technology and STS disciplines is to reflect upon our changed human condition and propose new ways to think through the quandaries technologies generate. Reflecting on the emergence of information and communication technologies (ICTs), several questions may be raised: How do our lives change in an information society? What role do ICTs play in culture, politics, or social revolutions? How do ICTs shape the global economy? What new challenges do ICTs present to the public sphere and to individual privacy? How do ICTs affect human cognition and aesthetic sensibilities? How are ICT converging with nano and biotechnologies? Do ICTs stimulate ideas of new technological utopias? Many other topics can be addressed and are welcome! As in previous SPT conferences, contributions from a variety of disciplines are encouraged. Bringing together scholars and practitioners from a wide spectrum of fields, who focus on understanding the relationship of technology and the human condition is a goal of the conference. Showcasing contributions from philosophers, social scientist, natural scientists, engineers, and policy makers, SPT conferences provide lively and thought-provoking interdisciplinary discussion.
The list of tracks outlined below is suggestive of the topics that will be considered, but does by no means restrict them: 1 – ICTs 1: globalization, informational economy, and commodification 2 – ICTs 2: control, discrimination, and surveillance 3 – ICTs 3: Webs, imaginaries, and utopias 4 – ICTs 4: new media, public sphere, and democracy 5 – ICTs 5: politics, alternatives and revolutions, 6 – Consumption and mobile lifestyles 7 – Informatics, nano- and bio-technological convergences 8 – Materiality and immateriality in the digital era 9 – Information and aesthetics 10 – Reflective practice and the ethics of complex, sociotechnical systems (Co-sponsored with Forum Philosophy, Engineering, and Technology; and Council of Engineering Systems) 11 – Philosophy of engineering and design 12 – Phenomenology of technology 13 – Ethics, politics, and the good life 14 – Environment, sustainability, and risks 15 – Technology, gender, and culture 16 – Technological Innovation 17 – Technology and critical thinking 18 – Philosophy of technology and social sciences
Submissions Abstracts should be submitted by February 1, 2013. They must be between 500 and 750 words in length (references excluded) and submitted via email as embedded plain text or an attachment in RTF, WORD, or PDF format. Abstracts will be subject to blind refereeing. They should include the name(s) of author(s), affiliation(s), contact details and the paper title. They should also contain the number and name of the track to which the abstract is submitted. If an abstract does not seem to fit with any topic, simply note that with the submission. All submissions are welcome, and authors should not feel constrained by the topics. Identification information will be then removed during the review process. For this reason, abstracts should not contain author-identifying references.
Authors of accepted abstracts are kindly invited to submit full versions of their papers (8,000-10,000 words) until May 31, 2013, for publication in a digital support (Pen Drive or CD-ROM) to be distributed to conference attendees. This Pen Drive/CD-ROM will also include the abstracts. Proposals for panels should also be submitted by February 1, 2013. They will also be refereed. Panel proposals must be between 500 and 1,000 words in length, they much include a brief description of the general topic and an outline of the issues to be addressed, as well as a short biography of all the panelists. Notification of acceptance for all submissions will be no later than March 8, 2013. All submissions should be sent by email in Word or rtf format to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (write “[your last name] SPT abstract OR Panel” in the subject line).
Keynote Speakers and Plenary Sessions: TBA Important Dates Deadline to submit abstracts and panel proposals is February 1, 2013. Notification of Acceptance will be no later than March 8, 2013. Deadline to submit final papers is May 31, 2013. Conference is on July 4-6, 2013. Additional Information Corporate Workshop With the topic, Connecting Technology and Responsibility, this corporate workshop will unite SPT 2013 and CEPE 2013 conferences participants in a stimulating debate with ICT companies regarding the potential ethical quandaries that their products raise. The corporate workshop will be held on July, 3rd, 2013, from 3 to 7 p.m. at ISEG. The keynote speaker of this Workshop will be Professor Simon Rogerson, De Montfort University, UK. Professor Rogerson will speak about his research on computing and social responsibility.
CEPE 2013 conference is hosted by UAL, July 1-3, 2013 with the topic Ambiguous Technologies: Philosophical Issues, Practical Solutions, Human Nature. CEPE is an important worldwide forum that debates ICT philosophical issues in society through the lens of information and computer ethics. See CEPE important dates for abstracts/papers at: http://www.cepe2013.com/ Important Note 1: To be a participant at this Corporate Workshop, you must be registered for SPT 2013 or CEPE 2013 conferences. Important Note 2: Participants who attend both conferences will have reduced fees. More information about registration fees will soon be available on the conference website.
Planning Later Life – Bioethics and Politics in Aging Societies
July 10 2013 to July 12 2013 | Göttingen (Germany)
Deadline: November 01 2012
http://www.biomedizinische-lebensplanung.uni-goettingen.de
Updated: October 24 2012
The aim of the international conference Planning Later Life – Bioethics and Politics in Aging Societies is to critically reflect on the relevance of modern medicine in shaping the lives and situations of aging and elderly persons today. It discusses and contrasts the ethical, social and political consequences of demographic change in the field of medicine and health care as well as the implications of the rise of anti-aging medicine and prevention, and recent trends in dementia research and care. The conference is interdisciplinary, combining perspectives from ethics, sociology, cultural anthropology and nursing sciences.
Among the confirmed keynote speakers are: Norman Daniels (Harvard), John Harris (Manchester), François Höpflinger (Zürich), S. Jay Olshansky (Chicago), Thomas Rentsch (Dresden), Dieter Sturma (Bonn), Nancy Jecker (Washington), Jason Powell (Preston), Perla Werner (Haifa). Apart from the plenary sessions, there will be open parallel sections discussing the changing images of old age between autonomy and dependency, the evidence and benefits of anti- aging and prevention, problems of personal identity and dementia as well as solidarity and social responsibility in future healthcare policies.
Contributions in the form of oral presentations of 20 minutes are invited. Please send an abstract of no more than 300 words, highlighting question, methods and results of your research, to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) goettingen.de. Deadline is November 1st 2012. All abstracts will undergo peer review. The conference will take place within the framework of the BMBF-funded research project Biomedical Life Plans for Aging. Values Between Individual Ethical Reflection and Social Standardization