SPT Newsletter

Volume 31, Number 1 – Winter 2007

 

 

Contents:

 

 

1.      From the SPT Board

2.      Call for contributions

 

3.      Calls for papers

 

4.      Conferences, Workshops, and Lectures

5.      Recent Publications of Interest

6.      Membership and Dues

7.      SPT Officers

 

 

 

 

 

From the Board

 

 

 

Editorship of Techne

Call for candidates

 

The present editor of Techné, Davis Baird, will retire from his office in the near future. Candidates for this office are kindly requested to send in their applications (consisting of a letter of motivation and their resume) to the secretary of the SPT, John Sullins (preferably by email: john.sullins@sonoma.edu) before the first of April 2007. A committee consisting of Davis Baird, Sven Ove Hansson, John Sullins and undersigned will draw up an advice for the board of the SPT that will take a decision before or during the next SPT meeting.

 

Peter Kroes, president of the SPT

 

 

SPT Election Results

 

We have successfully completed the elections for the society's next president as well as one new board member.  We received 20 ballots total by the election deadline of November 30th and I would like to thank everyone that took the time to vote.

 

The results are:

 

President Elect, Diane Michelfelder- 17 for

Board Member, Seven Ove Hansson- 19 for

 

Congratulations to our new officers and we look forward to their inspired leadership.

 

Peter Kroes and Juhn Sullins

 

 

 

Call for Contributions

 

 

Humanities and Technology Review (HTR)

Manuscript Submissions

 

HTR is an annual publication of the Humanities and Technology Association. HTR offers a publication outlet for interdisciplinary articles on a broad range of themes addressing the interface between the humanities and technology. There are no page costs for accepted manuscripts. HTR is a refereed journal, and all decisions will be made by the assessing editors, the editorial advisory board and the chief editors. Commentaries and responses to individual articles and reviews are welcome.

 

Manuscript Submission Guidelines
All manuscripts should be submitted in triplicate and should follow the style and preparation presented in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (fourth or subsequent edition). Particular attention should be paid to the citing of references, both in the text and on the reference page.  Footnotes should be kept to a minimum. An abstract will be required for all accepted papers.  With the exception of papers that have been presented at the Humanities and Technology Association (HTA) Conference, papers should be prepared for blind review, omitting identifying information. Manuscript submissions and inquiries should be addressed to:

Frederick B. Mills, Editor
Humanities and Technology Review
Department of History and
Government
Bowie State University

14000
Jericho Park Road
Bowie, MD 20715

 

Book Review Submission
Authors wishing to submit book reviews are urged to write with the above interdisciplinary framework in mind. Reviews should include the name of the work reviewed, author of work reviewed, place of publication, publisher, date of latest publication, number of pages, and cost. 

Submission deadline for the Autumn 2007 edition is March 30, 2007.

 

Humanities and Technology Review
http://www.humanitiesandtechnology.org                       

 

 

 

Calls for Papers

 

 

ECAP’07:  European Computing and Philosophy Conference

June 21-23, 2007, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands,

 

Fifth European Conference on Computing and Philosophy (ECAP), to be held on the campus of the University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands. E-CAP is the European conference on Computing and Philosophy, the European affiliate of the International Association for Computing and Philosophy (IACAP, president: Luciano Floridi). The conference will deal with all aspects of the "computational turn" that is occurring through the interaction of the disciplines of philosophy and computing. The conference is interdisciplinary: we invite papers from philosophy, computer science, social science and related disciplines. Keynote speakers are Jeroen van den Hoven (Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands), Giovanni Boniolo (University of Padua, Italy), and Mark Bedau (Reed College, USA and ProtoLife and the European Center for Living Technology, Italy). Program Chair: Philip Brey. Local organisation: Katinka Waelbers, ECAP07@gw.utwente.nl

 

The plenary panel will be on ‘The Future of Artificial Intelligence. E-CAP 2007 will have eleven tracks, each with one or more track chairs:

1.    Philosophy of Computer Science. Chairs: Amnon Eden, Raymond Turner

2.    Computer-based Learning and Teaching Strategies and Resources & The Impact of Distance Learning on the Teaching of Philosophy and Computing. Chairs: Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic, Jules Pieters

3.    Biological Information, Artificial Life, Biocomputation.        Chair: Colin Allen, Pedro Marijuan

4.    Philosophy of Information and Information Technology. Chair: Patrick Allo

5.    Ontology. Chair: Lars-Göran Johansson

6.    Computational and Post-Computational Approaches to the Mind. Chair: Susan Stuart

7.    Information and Computing Ethics. Chair: Alison Adam 

8.    Intersections. Chair: Chris Dobbyn (UK) 

9.    IT and Globalization. Chairs: May Thorseth, Johnny Søraker

10.IT, Cultural Diversity and Technoscience Studies. Chairs: Christina Björkman and Jutta Weber

11.Philosophy and Ethics of Robotics.Chair: Gianmarco Veruggio

 

Authors should submit an electronic version of an extended abstract (total word count approximately 1000 words).  The extended abstract submission deadline is Monday 29th January 2007.  Please indicate a first choice and a second choice for the track in which you want to fit your abstract (number + name of track).  Please submit to:  ECAP07@gw.utwente.nl. PhD and master students are especially encouraged to submit. Student speakers will not have to pay a conference fee. More information: www.utwente.nl/ecap07

 

 

Minds, Bodies, Machines Conference

London, 6-7 July 2007

 

This interdisciplinary conference, convened by Birkbeck’s Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies, University of London, in partnership with the Department of English, University of Melbourne, and software developers Constraint Technologies International (CTI), will take place on 6-7 July 2007 at Birkbeck College, Malet Street, Bloomsbury.

 

The two-day conference will explore the relationship between minds, bodies and machines in the long nineteenth century.  Recent research on the Enlightenment’s frontier technologies has established that era’s preoccupation with developing machinery that could simulate the cognitive and physiological processes of human beings.  According to some critics, however, these Promethean ambitions were shelved during the nineteenth century, when the android as artefact was relocated to the realm of the imagination, where it became a threatening figure. According to this reading, the android as scientific project and a figure of possibility only re-emerges in our own era. The aim of this conference is to test this claim by exploring the continuities and discontinuities in the imagining of the human/machine interface in the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries.

 

The conference organisers – Hilary Fraser (Birkbeck), Deirdre Coleman (Melbourne) and Paul Hyland (CTI) – invite proposals for papers that examine the intersection of minds, bodies and machines during the long nineteenth century. Topics include: the virtual and the real; technologies of the sublime; evolution and machines; techniques of communication; technologies of travel; medical technology; miniaturisation; self-reproduction; and spiritualism.

 

The conference programme will include plenary addresses, seminars and workshops.  Confirmed speakers include: Dr Caroline Arscott, Professor Jay Clayton, Professor Steven Connor, Professor Iain McCalman, Professor Peter Otto, Professor Kevin Warwick and Dr Elizabeth Wilson. A selection of papers arising from this conference will be published in the online journal 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century.

 

Abstracts for papers of 20 minutes, as well as details of expected audio-visual needs, should be submitted no later than 28 FEBRUARY 2007.  Please send proposals by email to submissions@mindsbodiesmachines.org.

 

 

The Future of Identity in the Information Society

Third International Summer School, organized by IFIP WG 9.2, 9.6/11.7, 11.6, in cooperation with FIDIS Network of Excellence

Karlstad University, Sweden, 6th – 10th August 2007

 

The increasing diversity of Information Communication Technologies and their equally diverse range of uses in personal, professional and official capacities raise challenging questions of identity in a variety of contexts. Each communication exchange contains an identifier which may, or may not, be intended by the parties involved. What constitutes an identity, how do new technologies affect identity, how do we manage identities in a globally networked information society?

 

The theme of this Summer School will be on Identity Management in relation to current and future technologies in a variety of contexts. IFIP takes a holistic approach to technology. FIDIS supports interdisciplinary exchange. So participants’ contributions combining technical, social, ethical or legal perspectives are welcome. Topics of interest include: identity management, security, profiling and customer relation management, advanced identity documents, ID related crime, RFID, tracking technologies, biometrics, privacy, anonymity and pseudonymity, surveillance, data retention, knowledge management, impact on social exclusion/digital divide/cultural issues.

 

All sessions will start with an introduction by an invited speaker, followed by parallel workshops in the morning and afternoon. The workshops will consist of short presentations based on the contributions that have been submitted by the participants, followed by active discussion. The aim of the Summer School is to encourage a stimulating discourse between all participants – be they new researchers or experienced academics. Contributions will be selected based on an extended abstract review by the Summer School Programme Committee. Accepted papers will apply an interdisciplinary view or support it and will be published on the Summer School web site before the event. Selected papers will be published in proceedings after the Summer School. 

 

Dates and guidelines for submission

The final paper should be maximum 10 pages, and formatted to the Springer style http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html.

Submission address for extended abstracts (2-4 pages): IFIPsummerschool@kau.se

Submission Deadline: 15. March 2007                

Notification of Acceptance: 30. April 2007

Final paper (up to 10 pages): 30. May 2007

 

 

 

Conferences, Workshops, and Lectures

 

 

CEPE 2007

Seventh International Computer Ethics Conference

July 12-14 2007, University of San Diego, USA

 

The 2007 Computer Ethics: Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) conference is the seventh in a series of international conferences that date back to 1997. The 2007 conference will be held over three days on the University of San Diego campus in beautiful southern California. The theme for the 2007 event is not limited and thus open to all aspects of computer and information technology ethics. More information: http://cepe2007.sandiego.edu

 

 

re:place 2007 - The Second International Conference on the Histories of Media, Art, Science and Technology

Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 15-18 November 2007

 

re:place 2007, the Second International Conference on the Histories of Media, Art, Science and Technology, will take place in Berlin from 15 - 18 November 2007 as a project of Kulturprojekte Berlin GmbH in cooperation with Haus der Kulturen der Welt. This conference is a sequel to 'Refresh!', the first in this series, chaired by Oliver Grau and produced by the Database of Virtual Art, Leonardo, and Banff New Media Institute, and held at the Banff Center in Canada in September 2005, which brought together several hundred artists, scientists, researchers, curators and theoreticians of different disciplines.

 

re:place 2007 will be an international forum for the presentation and the discussion of exemplary approaches to the rapport between art, media, science and technology. With the title, 're:place', we propose a thematic focus on locatedness and the migration of knowledge and knowledge production in the interdisciplinary contexts of art, historiography, science and technology.

 

The re:place 2007 conference will be devoted to examining the manifold connections between art, science and technology, connections which have come into view more sharply through the growing attention to media art and its histories over the past years. It will address historical contexts and artistic explorations of new technologies as well as the historical and contemporary research into the mutual influences between artistic work, scientific research and technological developments. This research concerns such diverse fields as cybernetics, artificial intelligence, robotics, nano-technology, and bio-technology, as well as investigations in the humanities including art history, visual culture, musicology, comparative literature, media archaeology, media theory, science studies, and sociology.

 

The conference programme will include competitively selected, peer-reviewed individual papers, panel presentations, poster sessions, as well as a small number of invited speakers. Several Keynote Lectures, by internationally renowned, outstanding theoreticians and artists, will deliberate on the central themes of the conference. The conference will also include dedicated forum sessions for participants to engage in more open-ended discussion and debate on relevant issues and questions.

 

A dedicated website and online paper submission system is now ready for submissions. Abstracts of proposals, panel presentations and posters will have to be submitted in either Text, RTF, Word or PDF formats. (At this stage, only an abstract is required; the reviews will be done by March 07, full papers are due in the late summer.)

Please, access the online submission form at: http://www.mediaarthistory.org/

The DEADLINE for submissions is 15 January 2007.

 

 

MEPHISTOS conference

April 6-8,