Humanities and Technology Annual Conference (2009, Sept 24-26, Virginia)

CALL FOR PAPERS Humanities and Technology Annual Conference

September 24-26, 2009

University of Virginia

Special Topic:

Technology, Democracy, and Citizenship

Democracy and democratic citizenship shape and are shaped by technology. Taking the broad approach, this conference invites papers and session proposals bringing insight to the important albeit complicated and intricate relationships among technology, democracy, and citizenship.

Besides scholars in Science and Technology Studies and the Humanities and Social Sciences, we hope to attract practitioners and researchers in engineering, science, public policy, architecture, government, and international development to engage in a series of wide-ranging conversations focused on three broad intersections of technology and democracy:

IDEALS—For example, how can technology be managed so that it promotes democratic ideals? How can technology undermine democratic ideals? Exactly what do we mean by “democracy” and “democratic citizenship”?

PROCESSES—This category includes socio-technical systems directly involved in democratic processes, such as voting machines and blogs, as well as broader questions of education, public discourse, deliberation, and decision-making.

DECISIONS—Perhaps the broadest category of all, this includes the full range of specific areas in which democracies must establish policy and make decisions—energy, the environment, national defense, transportation, homeland security, health care, regulation of business and entrepreneurship, genetic engineering, funding of research, and more.

To propose a paper, send an abstract of no more than 250 words. To propose a session, include a session title and rationale as well as an abstract for each paper. Include the affiliation and relevant contact details for all authors. Please direct electronic submissions and questions to Andreas.Michel@rose-hulman.edu, or write to Andreas Michel, HTA 2009 Program Chair, Humanities and Social Sciences, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, 5500 Wabash Ave, Terre Haute, IN, 47803. We will begin reviewing proposals as soon as they are received.

Proposals are due no later than June 15, 2009

Messages to the list are archived at http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/philos-l.html. Prolonged discussions should be moved to chora: enrol via http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/chora.html. Other philosophical resources on the Web can be found at http://www.liv.ac.uk/pal.