June 4th 2008, Newcastle University, Beehive 2.22, 11am - 4.15pm
In June 2007, Reed Elsevier, parent company of academic publishers Elsevier, bowed to pressure from academics and announced its withdrawal from the arms marketing industry. This debate around the campaign raised wider questions over links between the military and the university: what are the multiple interconnections between the military and the academy, and what ethical questions do these raise? This one-day roundtable is intended to provide space to address both of these questions. The format will be on short presentations, with plenty of opportunity for open discussion and debate.
10.15 - 11am Arrival, refreshments
11am - 1pm Session 1: Mapping the terrain
Introduction: Nick Megoran; Chair: Kyle Grayson
The purpose of this session is get a sense of the multiple ways in which the military and the academy are interconnected, and how and why these are changing. Talks will outline spaces of interaction, panellists addressing topics such as institutional links between universities and the military; security/defence research funding; military activities, sponsorship and recruitment amongst students; military training.
Panellists are: Dr Jocelyn Mawdsley (Newcastle), Dr Anna Stavrianakis (Sussex), and Dr Rachel Woodward (Newcastle).
1pm-2pm Lunch (provided)
2pm-4:15pm Session 2: Ethics of engagement
Chair: David Murakami Wood
Having established a picture of the military-academic complex, this session asks what ethical questions it raises. Should we be encouraging, opposing or seeking to modify some or all of these interactions? What, if any, is the legitimate role of the military in the society at large and the university in particular? In the light of these discussions, what practical steps should we consider to take this further?
Panellists are: Dr Paul Chatterton (Leeds), Professor Anthony Forster (Durham), Mr Tim Street (Co-author of 2007 report 'Study War No More: Military Involvement in UK Universities'), and Professor Matthew Uttley (Kings College London / Joint Services Command and Staff College, Shrivenham).
4.15 - 5 Refreshments
Follow up
Those who wish to pursue this further may adjourn to a local restaurant bar for further discussion/planning.
Organisation
This event is organised by the Territory, Culture, and Politics Research Cluster, School of GPS, Newcastle University, in conjunction with the Northern Network of Critical Global Scholars and Newcastle University's Global Urban Research Unit. It is part of a series of events in 2008 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Newcastle's geography department, which, fittingly, began operating in a post-World War 1 Nissen Hut.
Costs
The conference fee, including lunch and refreshments, is £10 (£5 for postgraduate students).
Registration
To register please visit http://www.ncl.ac.uk/niassh/Military/index.htm. For enquiries about registration and logistics, please email Melanie Kidd at military@ncl.ac.uk or telephone her on +44 (0) 191 222 5807 (Monday - Wednesday 8.30am - 4.30pm).
--
On behalf of the organisers, Dr Kyle Grayson (kyle.grayson@ncl.ac.uk), Dr Jocelyn Mawdsley (jocelyn.mawdsley@ncl.ac.uk), Dr Nick Megoran (nick.megoran@ncl.ac.uk), Dr David Murakami Wood (d.j.wood@ncl.ac.uk), Dr Rachel Woodward (r.e.woodward@ncl.ac.uk), Newcastle University.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Thursday, March 13, 2008
New Sciences of Protection Conference
New Sciences of Protection: Designing Safe Living
Conference
An interdisciplinary international conference to be held at Lancaster University
Thursday, 10 July – Saturday, 12 July 2008
This conference investigates ‘protection’ at the intersections of security, sciences, technologies, markets and design. It considers three central questions:
How is ‘safe living’ conceived of by designers, artist-writers, policy makers and regulators, scientist-engineers, social scientists and humanities scholars, and how do these conceptualisations of ‘safe living’ engage with sciences and technologies of protection?
Is ‘safe living’ achievable, and how do conceptual, practical, political and cultural practices of design engage with sciences and technologies of protection to achieve ‘safe living’?
And if ‘safe living’ were achievable, would it be desirable – as a politics, as an ethic, as a day-to-day way of life? Would ‘new sciences of protection’ make us safe or would they commodify us and/or multiply our fears and anxieties?
Keynote Speakers
Professor Anthony Dunne (Royal College of Art, London, UK and dunneandraby designs
Fiona Raby (Royal College of Art, London, UK and dunneandraby designs)
Professor Susan Silby (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA)
Professor Lucy Suchman (Lancaster University, UK)
Professor Richard Buchanan (Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA)
Lynn Hershman Leeson (Director of ‘Strange Culture’)
Benjamin H. Bratton (Director Advanced Strategies Group at Yahoo!, SCI_Arc and UCLA DesignMedia Arts)
Papers
We invite papers and presentations on such topics as:
Designing safe life/designing safe living (e.g., synthetic biology, genetics, designing safe citizens);Designing safe places (environmental futures, workplace safety, home/homeland security, the built environment); Distributing protection and 'safe living' (RFID and the design of safe borders, targeting unsafe citizens/environments/species/systems/procedures, designing 'the exception'); 'Design noir' ; Designer security: fashion and new sciences of protection
Performing 'protection' and 'safe living' ; Design, law, justice; Global brands and new spaces of consumption and control design methodologies; Protocols, and procedures the safety of design as a practice and a method; Designing safe images/images of safety and protection; The codes and conduct of 'safe living'; Control, sustainable security, and the emergence of eco-cities safe/unsafe futures; Design, emotion, protection the pleasures of (un)safe design; Design and public engagement -- where should the design debate take place?
Abstracts should include a title, medium of presentation, contact details of the author(s) (name, postal address, email), and a summary of no more than 300 words.
Please submit them to Anne-Marie Mumford at a.mumford@lancaster.ac.uk no later than 15 April, 2008.
Registration
To benefit from early-bird registration fees, please register before 15 May, 2008.
Please complete booking form and return to a.mumford@lancaster.ac.uk, then register and pay online at the same time. Your booking will not be guaranteed until we have received payment.
Registration Form
Register and pay online
Exhibition Space
If you would like to exhibit materials relating to the theme of the conference please contact a.mumford@lancaster.ac.uk. Please note that any costs incurred for hiring equipment are to be paid by the exhibitor.
Conference
An interdisciplinary international conference to be held at Lancaster University
Thursday, 10 July – Saturday, 12 July 2008
This conference investigates ‘protection’ at the intersections of security, sciences, technologies, markets and design. It considers three central questions:
How is ‘safe living’ conceived of by designers, artist-writers, policy makers and regulators, scientist-engineers, social scientists and humanities scholars, and how do these conceptualisations of ‘safe living’ engage with sciences and technologies of protection?
Is ‘safe living’ achievable, and how do conceptual, practical, political and cultural practices of design engage with sciences and technologies of protection to achieve ‘safe living’?
And if ‘safe living’ were achievable, would it be desirable – as a politics, as an ethic, as a day-to-day way of life? Would ‘new sciences of protection’ make us safe or would they commodify us and/or multiply our fears and anxieties?
Keynote Speakers
Professor Anthony Dunne (Royal College of Art, London, UK and dunneandraby designs
Fiona Raby (Royal College of Art, London, UK and dunneandraby designs)
Professor Susan Silby (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA)
Professor Lucy Suchman (Lancaster University, UK)
Professor Richard Buchanan (Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA)
Lynn Hershman Leeson (Director of ‘Strange Culture’)
Benjamin H. Bratton (Director Advanced Strategies Group at Yahoo!, SCI_Arc and UCLA DesignMedia Arts)
Papers
We invite papers and presentations on such topics as:
Designing safe life/designing safe living (e.g., synthetic biology, genetics, designing safe citizens);Designing safe places (environmental futures, workplace safety, home/homeland security, the built environment); Distributing protection and 'safe living' (RFID and the design of safe borders, targeting unsafe citizens/environments/species/systems/procedures, designing 'the exception'); 'Design noir' ; Designer security: fashion and new sciences of protection
Performing 'protection' and 'safe living' ; Design, law, justice; Global brands and new spaces of consumption and control design methodologies; Protocols, and procedures the safety of design as a practice and a method; Designing safe images/images of safety and protection; The codes and conduct of 'safe living'; Control, sustainable security, and the emergence of eco-cities safe/unsafe futures; Design, emotion, protection the pleasures of (un)safe design; Design and public engagement -- where should the design debate take place?
Abstracts should include a title, medium of presentation, contact details of the author(s) (name, postal address, email), and a summary of no more than 300 words.
Please submit them to Anne-Marie Mumford at a.mumford@lancaster.ac.uk no later than 15 April, 2008.
Registration
To benefit from early-bird registration fees, please register before 15 May, 2008.
Please complete booking form and return to a.mumford@lancaster.ac.uk, then register and pay online at the same time. Your booking will not be guaranteed until we have received payment.
Registration Form
Register and pay online
Exhibition Space
If you would like to exhibit materials relating to the theme of the conference please contact a.mumford@lancaster.ac.uk. Please note that any costs incurred for hiring equipment are to be paid by the exhibitor.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Conference: The Politics of Virtual States
To register go to
http://www.dur.ac.uk/sgia/events-new/virtual/
Conference Program
DAY 1 (Thursday 20th March)
8:45 – 9:30 am Registration/Coffee
9:30 – 9:45 am Opening/Welcome
9:45 – 10:30 am Keynote Speech – Prof. Nick Rengger, University of St. Andrews
On the characters of modern virtual states: Two Questions
10:30 am – 12 pm Panel 1
THE ROLE OF THE STATE – Challenging traditional perceptions of statehood
· Nina Caspersen (Lancaster)
Democratisation in virtual states: a contradiction in terms?
· Nkolika E. Obianyo (Nigeria)
Reconstructing the State in Africa: Good Governance, Market Reform and Virtual governance-Is the State still Relevant? - The Experience of Nigeria
· Tim Montgomery (Sheffield)
Virtually real – on the political fluidity of sovereignty
12:00 – 1:00 pm Lunch
1:00 – 2:30 pm Panel 2
IDENTITY AND DIASPORA – Exploring the world from a virtual base
· Athina Karatzogianni (Hull)
Media representations of small states, cross-border interests and local violence in an era of fast virtual communications
· Joanne Wallis (Cambridge)
Roots and Routes: Transnationalism and the development of the deterritorialized Tongan nation-state
· K. Luisa Gandolfo (Exeter)
The Influence of Socioeconomic Conditions on the Palestinian Diaspora Identity: the Case of Jordan
2:30 – 3:00 pm Coffee
3:00 – 4:30 pm Panel 3
SECURITY, TERRITORY AND LEGITIMACY – New locations of power and influence
· Veronique Barbalet (York)
Rebellious diplomacy: the socialisation of armed non-state actors into the Westphalian state system
· Laura Khor (St. Andrews)
A Terrorist Diagnosis for “Failed States”
· Roger MacGinty (York)
Reconstruction in the absence of the state: The case of post-July 2007 war Lebanon
4:30 – 6:00 pm End of Panels for Day 1, participants to settle into accommodation for
the evening
6:00pm Documentary and Dinner at Josephine Butler College
DAY 2 (Friday 21st March)
10:00 – 10:30 am Coffee
10:30 am – 12 pm Panel 4
BIG POLITICS, SMALL STATES – The virtual state as a means to an end
· Michael Strauss (Paris)
Guantanamo Bay as a Westphalian Laboratory
· William Vlcek (London)
Behind an offshore mask: the nomad and the sovereign in global finance
· Scott Littlefield (Cambridge)
Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transdniestria: Virtual States towards Other Ends?
12 – 1pm Lunch
1 – 2:30pm Panel 5
CASE STUDY: KURDISTAN
· Denise Natali (Exeter)
The Logic of the Kurdish Quasi-State
· Natalie Hausknecht (St. Andrews)
Is a virtual state enough? Autonomy, federalism, and sovereignty in Kurdistan
· John Myhill (Haifa) (to be confirmed)
Virtual states in the `Arab world’
2:30pm Closing Remarks by the DIAC Committee
http://www.dur.ac.uk/sgia/events-new/virtual/
Conference Program
DAY 1 (Thursday 20th March)
8:45 – 9:30 am Registration/Coffee
9:30 – 9:45 am Opening/Welcome
9:45 – 10:30 am Keynote Speech – Prof. Nick Rengger, University of St. Andrews
On the characters of modern virtual states: Two Questions
10:30 am – 12 pm Panel 1
THE ROLE OF THE STATE – Challenging traditional perceptions of statehood
· Nina Caspersen (Lancaster)
Democratisation in virtual states: a contradiction in terms?
· Nkolika E. Obianyo (Nigeria)
Reconstructing the State in Africa: Good Governance, Market Reform and Virtual governance-Is the State still Relevant? - The Experience of Nigeria
· Tim Montgomery (Sheffield)
Virtually real – on the political fluidity of sovereignty
12:00 – 1:00 pm Lunch
1:00 – 2:30 pm Panel 2
IDENTITY AND DIASPORA – Exploring the world from a virtual base
· Athina Karatzogianni (Hull)
Media representations of small states, cross-border interests and local violence in an era of fast virtual communications
· Joanne Wallis (Cambridge)
Roots and Routes: Transnationalism and the development of the deterritorialized Tongan nation-state
· K. Luisa Gandolfo (Exeter)
The Influence of Socioeconomic Conditions on the Palestinian Diaspora Identity: the Case of Jordan
2:30 – 3:00 pm Coffee
3:00 – 4:30 pm Panel 3
SECURITY, TERRITORY AND LEGITIMACY – New locations of power and influence
· Veronique Barbalet (York)
Rebellious diplomacy: the socialisation of armed non-state actors into the Westphalian state system
· Laura Khor (St. Andrews)
A Terrorist Diagnosis for “Failed States”
· Roger MacGinty (York)
Reconstruction in the absence of the state: The case of post-July 2007 war Lebanon
4:30 – 6:00 pm End of Panels for Day 1, participants to settle into accommodation for
the evening
6:00pm Documentary and Dinner at Josephine Butler College
DAY 2 (Friday 21st March)
10:00 – 10:30 am Coffee
10:30 am – 12 pm Panel 4
BIG POLITICS, SMALL STATES – The virtual state as a means to an end
· Michael Strauss (Paris)
Guantanamo Bay as a Westphalian Laboratory
· William Vlcek (London)
Behind an offshore mask: the nomad and the sovereign in global finance
· Scott Littlefield (Cambridge)
Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transdniestria: Virtual States towards Other Ends?
12 – 1pm Lunch
1 – 2:30pm Panel 5
CASE STUDY: KURDISTAN
· Denise Natali (Exeter)
The Logic of the Kurdish Quasi-State
· Natalie Hausknecht (St. Andrews)
Is a virtual state enough? Autonomy, federalism, and sovereignty in Kurdistan
· John Myhill (Haifa) (to be confirmed)
Virtual states in the `Arab world’
2:30pm Closing Remarks by the DIAC Committee
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