<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div>All,</div><div><br></div><div>We would love to see some submissions from these community to this special issue of Science as Culture on the "imaginaries of techno-optimism" - see details below. Apologies for cross-posting; please forward widely! Let me or Damien know if you have any questions.</div><div><br></div><div>Warmly,</div><div>Morgan Ames</div><div>Center for Science, Technology, Medicine and Society</div><div>University of California, Berkeley</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><br clear="all"><div>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-Normal1" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><b><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Imaginaries
of Techno-Optimism</span></b><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">: <span></span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-Normal1" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">CfP for <i>Science as
Culture<span></span></i></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-Normal1" style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-Normal1" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Guest Editors: Damien Droney, Morgan G. Ames, & Mark
Gardiner<span></span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-Normal1" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-Normal1" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Deadline for Abstracts: March 1st 2018<span></span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-Normal1" style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-Normal1" style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Techno-optimism
— the expectation that science and technology will lead to economic, political,
or social good — is a mainstay of business, government, and popular culture.
Techno-optimistic attitudes range from the hope that technologies may have
positive effects to the assumption that they necessarily will. For
entrepreneurs or political leaders, promoting the promise of scientific and
technological progress can lead to publicity and financial investment, draw the
attention of development agencies, and attract enthusiastic employees and
clients. While a charge of techno-utopianism is often taken as an insult,
techno-optimism is embraced by some technology writers and activists.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-Normal1" style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-Normal1" style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">It
is especially important to examine techno-optimism in the cynical contemporary
moment, which is marked by an increased perception of the threat posed by
technology (Richardson 2015). In recent years, the promises of new media have
been tempered by fears of state-sponsored hacking and corporate data
monopolies. While techno-pessimism is on the rise, an underlying expectation of
technological progress continues to structure technological design and policy.
In this proposed special issue, we explore the nature of the hope that science
and technology will make the world a better place and consider its effects.
Drawing on Jasanoff and Kim’s (2015) conceptual framework of sociotechnical
imaginaries, the contributors to this special issue ask:<span> </span>H<i>ow is
techno-optimism produced? <span> </span>and what are
its consequences</i>?<span></span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-Normal1" style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-Normal1" style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The
concept of sociotechnical imaginaries provides an orienting framework for
understanding the origins and consequences of these positive and future-focused
dispositions toward technology. Jasanoff defines sociotechnical imaginaries as
“collectively held, institutionally stabilized, and publicly performed visions
of desirable futures, animated by shared understandings of forms of social life
and social order attainable through, and supportive of, advances in science and
technology” (2015:4). Sociotechnical imaginaries explicitly connect the
production of imaginaries (see Anderson 1983, Taylor 2003, Appadurai 1996) to the
production of sociotechnical systems (see Bijker, Hughes, and Pinch 1987). In
this way, it foregrounds science and technology as co-produced with moral and
political landscapes of social life (Jasanoff 2004), highlighting social,
ethical, and political attachments that motivate technoscientific project. We
focus in particular on optimistic sociotechnical imaginaries as these visions
often motivate and direct the design and governance of technologies. By
centering the performances of imaginaries within distributed sociotechnical
systems, the framework of sociotechnical imaginaries draws attention to both
the means and effects of articulating optimistic attitudes toward the
sociotechnical future.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-Normal1" style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-Normal1" style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Where
does techno-optimism come from? We welcome contributions that consider the
origins of particular optimistic imaginaries and the ways that those
imaginaries are maintained. Submissions could focus on the power-laden sources
of techno-optimism, including unequal capacities to shape or sustain
sociotechnical imaginaries. <span></span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-Normal1" style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-Normal1" style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">What
are the consequences of optimistic sociotechnical imaginaries? We seek
contributions that examine the intended and unintended effects of
techno-optimism. Papers may consider which groups are served by
techno-optimistic imaginaries, or which problems are highlighted within
optimistic discourses of the technological future.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-Normal1" style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-Normal1" style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">We
especially welcome contributions that expand the geographic and thematic
diversity of the special issue, including case studies from Europe or Asia on
topics including medicine, finance, and computing. In addition, we are
interested in contributions that employ critical social analysis that is not
foregrounded in existing applications of the sociotechnical imaginaries
framework. Submissions may, for example, employ the concept of ideology to
analyze techno-optimism (see Masco 2004; Turner 2006; Barbrook and Cameron
1996), or consider examples of techno-optimism that are “cruel” (Berlant 2011)
by working against the features that make technologies attractive in the first
place.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-Normal1" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-Normal1" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Please
submit abstracts to Damien Droney (</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%"><a href="mailto:ddroney@uchicago.edu" style="color:blue;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(17,85,204)">ddroney@uchicago.edu</span></a></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">) by March 1st. Abstracts should
follow the <i>Science as Culture</i>
guidelines (200-250 words, see <a href="http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/authors/csac_edit_guidelines.pdf" style="color:blue;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank">http://www.tandf.co.uk/journal<wbr>s/authors/csac_edit_guidelines<wbr>.pdf</a>),
but longer drafts or synopses are also welcome. If accepted, full 7000-word
drafts would be due June 1st. <span></span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-Normal1" align="center" style="text-align:center;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><b><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span> </span></span></b></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-Normal1" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><b><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">References<span></span></span></b></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-HangingIndent" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 17.9pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt">Anderson, B.
(1991). <i>Imagined Communities</i> (2nd ed.).
London: Verso.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-HangingIndent" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 17.9pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt">Appadurai, A.
(1996). Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-HangingIndent" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 17.9pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt">Barbrook, R.
& Cameron, A. (1996). The Californian Ideology, <i>Science as Culture</i>, 6(1): 44-72.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-HangingIndent" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 17.9pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt">Berlant, L. G.
(2011). <i>Cruel Optimism</i>. Durham: Duke
University Press.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-HangingIndent" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 17.9pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt">Bijker, W.,
Hughes, T., & Pinch, T. (eds.) (1987). <i>The
Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology
and History of Technology</i>. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-HangingIndent" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 17.9pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt">Jasanoff, S.
(2004). <i>States of Knowledge: The
Co-Production of Science and Social Order</i>. London: Routledge.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-HangingIndent" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 17.9pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt">Jasanoff, S.,
& Kim, S.-H. (Eds.) (2015). <i>Dreamscapes
of Modernity: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and the Fabrication of Power</i>.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-HangingIndent" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 17.9pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt">Mosco, V.
(2004). <i>The Digital Sublime: Myth, Power,
and Cyberspace</i>. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-HangingIndent" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 17.9pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt">Richardson, K.
(2015). <i>An Anthropology of Robots and AI:
Annihilation Anxiety and Machines</i>. New York: Routledge.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-HangingIndent" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 17.9pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt">Taylor, C
(2003). Modern Social Imaginaries. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-HangingIndent" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 17.9pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt">Turner, F.
(2006). <i>From Counterculture to
Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital
Utopianism</i>. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><span class="m_5116665744538807228HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><span></span></font></span></font></span></span></p><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><span class="m_5116665744538807228HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
<p class="m_5116665744538807228m_-2626679814201944560gmail-HangingIndent" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 17.9pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><br></p></font></span></font></span></div></div></div></div></div><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<br>Morgan G. Ames<br><a href="http://morganya.org" target="_blank">http://morganya.org</a><br><br><br></div>
</div>