Here’s an online set of articles (until Feb 19) about technology. Some nice summary work by Dobres, Ingold, Bijker, and for gender and technology, Wajcman. It is interesting that there is no overview about history of technology–even Wacjman who knows something of the field said nothing. It suggests there is need to make history more visible in this ahistorical time. I also think we need to work on the theory side of things (such as the “big picture history” I’ve been interested in).

kathleen ochs

***********************

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

I wanted to let you know that I have a newly published article, “Archaeologies of Technology,” published by the Cambridge Journal of Economics. It is available for free download (until February 19, 2010) at: http://cje.oxfordjournals.org/current.dtl.  I welcome your feedback (gulp!).

peace,

marcia-anne

========================

Dr. Marcia-Anne Dobres
Faculty Associate
Department of Anthropology
University of Maine, Orono

http://www.lib.iastate.edu/spcl/wise/wise.html

Bubble wrap, sanitizer, helmets, knee pads, H1N1 vaccines, mammograms,
protective goggles, preemptive strikes, the Patriot Act,
car/fire/health/home/laptop/life/renters’/travel insurance, condoms,
sunscreen, car seats, airbags, pensions, life vests, organic food, safe
drinking water, safe streets… Our lives are filled with devices,
organizations, and agreements to keep our bodies, loved ones, and belongings
“safe.” These practices appease our fears, but what does it mean to be or to
feel safe? Is safety synonymous with security, stability or stasis? Is it a
condition, or the negation of threat, risk and danger? Can we ever be truly
safe? If not, why does it endure as an ideal?

For some, safety is a condition of living, as in “better safe than sorry”;
for others, safe signals the refusal of life itself, as in the Nietzschean
revision of the Socratic ideal of examined life, “an unexplored life is not
worth living.” What are the aesthetics, metaphysics and metaphorics of the
dynamic multivalency of safe? Is safe a place (“safe house,” “safe box”), a
moment (“safe and sound”), a practice/norm (“safe sex”), a feeling, a
cognitive state, a number/figure (“savings”), a status (“sauf”: “save” as in
“exception”) or a visible logos (“saved document”)? What sort of politics
does the ambition to be safe entail? In what ways is safe imbricated with
class, race, sexuality and gender? Can we feel safe without restricting
ourselves to a prophylactic existence?

This special issue of WSQ invites work that will contribute to an
exploration of safety and security, broadly conceived. We welcome academic
papers from a variety of disciplinary approaches including theory, empirical
research, literary and cultural studies, as well as creative prose, poetry,
artwork, memoir and biography.  Suggested topics may include but are not
limited to:

- Bioethics, biopolitics
- Children, childhood, family and safety
- Crisis and resolution, memory
- Discipline; docility; drill; habit-formation
- Domestic space, domestic violence, haven, home, shelter, retreat,
refugees
- The politics of food safety
- Geography and mapping, enclosures/prisons, harbors and asylums
- Security state, homeland security, environmental security, job security
- Illnesses, epidemics, preventions, screenings, health risks, health
care
- Otherness, ethnicized and marginalized populations, borders and
enclosures
- Risk society, theories of risk, technology, prediction
- Sex, pain, pleasure and risk
- Terror and/of terrorism, war & trauma, treaty and alliance, recovery

If submitting academic work, please send articles by March 15, 2010 to the
guest editors, Alyson M. Cole and Kyoo Lee at WSQSafeIssue@gmail.com.
Submission should not exceed 20 double spaced, 12 point font pages.

Poetry submissions should be sent to WSQ’s poetry editor, Kathleen Ossip, at
WSQpoetry@gmail.com by March 15, 2010.  Please review previous issues of WSQ
to see what type of submissions we prefer before submitting poems. Please
note that poetry submissions may be held for six months or longer.
Simultaneous submissions are acceptable if the poetry editor is notified
immediately of acceptance elsewhere. We do not accept work that has been
previously published. Please paste poetry submissions into the body of the
e-mail along with all contact information.

Fiction, essay, and memoir submissions should be sent to WSQ’s
fiction/nonfiction editor, Jocelyn Lieu, at WSQCreativeProse@gmail.com by
March 15, 2010. Please review previous issues of WSQ to see what type of
submissions we prefer before submitting prose. Please note that prose
submissions may be held for six months or longer. Simultaneous submissions
are acceptable if the prose editor is notified immediately of acceptance
elsewhere. We do not accept work that has been previously published. Please
provide all contact information in the body of the e-mail.

Art submissions should be sent to the guest editors, Alyson M. Cole and Kyoo
Lee, at WSQSafeIssue@gmail.com by March 15, 2010. After art is reviewed and
accepted, accepted art must be sent to the journal’s managing editor on a CD
that includes all artwork of 300 DPI or greater, saved as 4.25 inches wide
or larger. These files should be saved as individual JPEGS or TIFFS.

–
Zoe Meleo-Erwin
Administrative Associate
WSQ
at the Feminist Press
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY  10016
212.817.7926
www.feministpress.org/wsq

–from http://www.worldexpertise.com/May_2007.htm

WITH members should read this 1997 version “WITH at 21″ carefully and make additions or corrections. It’s posted to receive comments so we can prepare an update for the 50th anniversary. This will form the base for the 50th anniversary document and updates in future years.

Send text corrections to the listserv with the subject line “WITH at 50″

WITH at Twenty-one: A Look Back 1976-1997 (1997)