CFP: "Science, Technology, and the Humanities"

This would be a great opportunity to hear Karen Barad speak, and it's within spitting distance of Manhattan.

CALL FOR PAPERS

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND THE HUMANITIES: A NEW SYNTHESIS

April 24-25, 2009
College of Arts & Letters
Stevens Institute of Technology
Hoboken, New Jersey 07030

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:
DAVID LOWENTHAL, Professor Emeritus, Department of Geography, University College London
KAREN BARAD, Professor of Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz

Several scholarly disciplines focus on science and technology. Especially since World War II, the fields of the history, philosophy, literature, and social studies of science and technology have become well established as academic programs, and they have brought us ever richer and more subtle appreciations of science, technology, and their social dimensions.

As valuable and productive as these research endeavors have been, it is also the case that their principal purpose has been to produce better understandings of the enterprises of science and technology. Even where “external” or socially-oriented considerations have been brought to bear, by and large the goal has remained to shed new light on science and technology and the continuing roles they play in our lives. What remains of mere incidental or peripheral concern are the humanistic disciplines themselves.

In many ways, the traditional humanities and liberal arts have hardly felt the impact of these studies of science and technology. In recognizing this circumstance, the College of Arts & Letters at Stevens Institute of Technology has taken as its institutional mission to rethink the traditional humanities and liberal arts with science and technology as our points of departure. In so doing, we aim to reverse the analytical arrow and to focus more directly on the ways science and technology impact, inform, and redefine our disciplines.

Our upcoming conference, Science, Technology and the Humanities: A New Synthesis seeks to inquire—both on theoretical levels and in case studies—how by taking science and technology into consideration, we might enrich our understanding of history, philosophy, sociology, literary analysis, and the arts.

We invite as wide a range of speakers and papers as possible. We anticipate the speedy publication of conference proceedings. The closing date for consideration of proposals is January 15, 2009. Please send abstracts to CAL Conference, Spring ’09, c/o Prof. James E. McClellan III, College of Arts & Letters, Stevens Institute of Technology, Castle Point on Hudson, Hoboken, New Jersey 07030