[SIGCIS-Members] CFP for "Why Things Matter" at Cal State Fullerton

[Thomas Haigh]

[I just found this CFP posted as a comment on the SIGCIS.org web page
describing our email list! Obviously some people don't understand how the
archaic technology of the listserv works (or in our case, sometimes works)
but fortunately the call is still timely. Tom]


Dear all,

Just a note to let you know that I am organizing a material culture
confernece at California State University Fullerton March 6-8 2014.  I
wanted to draw this research community's attention to our call for papers.
We would very much like some participation from historians of the computer.

Why Things Matter 6-8 March 2014 California State University Fullerton

Over the last twenty years the interest in things has increased.  This
material turn has explored the social life of things, the way things and
society are co-produced and even the degree to which subject-object dualisms
can be broken down entirely.  More recently anthropologists and
archeologists such as Ian Hodder, have criticized these studies for not
going far enough, arguing that the approach to things across the academy is
still too much concerned with what things can do for humans in society,
their symbolism, their efficiency in performing a particular task, or its
material links to actor networks.   For the "Why Things Matter" conference
we invite potential participants to propose short papers that will attempt
to look even more closely at things themselves, to try and see the thing
itself and its multiple connections.  

For example we are interested in papers that reflect on:.      

.         The dependencies of things both on people and on other things  .


.         Transformations of things and how these changes may impinge on
human experience.      
The time scales of things particularly compared to human life; some things
endure well beyond human experience, others are so transitory that we hardly
notice them.      

.         The way thingness can be hidden as when things like window panes
or screens are invisible because we look through and not at them .      

.         Different ways of conceptualizing things from Entanglement to ANT
to SCOT.      

.         Things in the formation and development of the human mind.
Potential topics include:.      The landscape.      The extended mind.
The artefact.      Natural things.      Intangible things 

.         Abstracts of no more than 200 words should be submitted by 15
December 2013.

Inquiries and submissions should be sent to the organizers. 

.         Emily Miller Bonney Associate Professor Liberal Studies California
State University Fullerton ebonney at fullerton.edu 

.         Kevin Lambert Associate Professor Liberal Studies California State
University Fullerton klambert at fullerton.edu

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/attachments/20131018/4a3845dc/attachment-0001.htm>