TransVision 2006: Emerging Technologies of Human Enhancement (1 March, 2006)

August 17-19, 2006

Helsinki, Finland @ University of Helsinki, Main building

Prospective presenters are invited to submit proposals for presentations or full papers for TransVision 2006, the 8th annual conference organized by the World Transhumanist Association (Finland chapter).

The focus of the conference is on emerging technologies of human enhancement. Examples of possible topics for presentations will be made available at http://transhumanismi.org/tv06/ by January 2006.

Instructions for submitting material

Include all of the following information in a two-page proposal for your presentation:

* Title of presentation
* Objective(s) of the presentation
* Description of the content and format (300 words or less)
* Abstract (25-50 words) for inclusion in the conference program
* Media to be used and audiovisual equipment needed (if any)
* Designated contact person (only one per proposal)
* Complete name, title, organization, address, phone and fax
numbers, and e-mail address for each session presenter
* Brief biographical sketch (50-100 words) of each presenter

Please submit your proposals electronically to the conference chair: Ari
A. Heljakka (transvision2006 [AT] gmail.com).

After notification of acceptance of your paper, all presenters (at least one per presentation) will be required to pre-register for the conference.  Presenters not registered by June 1, 2006 will not be included in the program.

For more information, see the conference website or contact the conference chair.

Proposal selection criteria

* A clear and concise description of the proposed presentation
* Relevance to conference theme and goals
* Evidence of presenter experience with topic
* Completion of all information requested

Important dates

Proposals due by: March 1, 2006
Notification of acceptance: May 1, 2006
Deadline for presenters to pre-register: June 1, 2006

Recording of the proceedings

Conference panels and presentations will be audiotaped/videotaped. With presenter permission some or all may be made available on the web. Presenters are also encouraged to submit accepted presentations as electronic documents to be included in the coverage on the conference website.

Publication of proceedings

You may wish to submit your full paper for consideration for publication in the Journal of Evolution and Technology or Transhumanity. The former is oriented towards more academic articles, and the latter towards more popular articles.

The Philosophy of Film: Towards an Understanding of Film as Art (15 March, 2006)

A film conference, 8th-9th June, 2006.

To be held at the philosophy department of the University of Liverpool.

‘Why do people go to the cinema? What takes them into a darkened room where, for two hours, they watch the play of shadows on a sheet? The search for entertainment? The need for a kind of drug? All over the world there are, indeed, entertainment firms and organisations which exploit cinema and television and spectacles of many other kinds. Our starting point, however,
should not be there…..’ Andrei Tarkovsky

Many films give us information, explanation, they please the spectator with their action, music, dialogue, scenery (and what pleases the most is commonly derived from other arts). They might be fast, slow, violent, clever, crass, driven by commerce or ideas, but rarely with an understanding of nature, of life. They distract us, discourage us from taking the medium seriously, of thinking seriously about film as a distinctive art form. The aim of this conference is to clarify film’s role, to think about and better appreciate film as art. Areas that might be of interest include:

· The role of the director
· Film as philosophy
· Film as an evocative art
· Religious feeling and film
· Film and imagination
· Film and Eastern tradition
· The film and its audience: contemplation versus explanation

While this conference has a philosophical focus, it is open to all those who are interested in film, aesthetics and art, whatever their position on the matter. We are looking for papers that display originality, sensitivity and imagination.

Abstracts for presentations (of no more than thirty minutes) should be submitted by email to John Adams at jadam [At] liv.ac.uk

Deadline for submissions: 15th March

Conference organisers:

John Adams (jadam [AT] liv.ac.uk) and Payal Doctor (p.doctor [AT] liv.ac.uk)

Extreme Culture/ Extreme Bodies (Feb 15, 2006)

Call for Abstracts, Chapters, and Proposals ? Deadline Extended to February 15, 2006

Since the 1990s, ‘extreme’ has become part of the mainstream cultural vocabulary. The American public eagerly consumes extreme cuisine, wears extreme deodorant (‘energy-scented’), watches extreme television shows like Fear Factor, drives oversized extreme vehicles, practices extreme sports and signs up for extreme adventure vacations involving bungee jumping, ‘high falls,’ and ‘fire burns.’ Extreme body modification, both normative (as exemplified on the television shows Extreme Makeover and The Swan) and non-normative, has been subsumed into the mainstream media, as a form of entertainment and a marketing scheme. These carefully conceived mediated products effectively push boundaries, challenging our conceptions of beauty, deviancy, human pain thresholds, humiliation, entertainment, and leisure. Within this context, it appears that people who want to stand out have been driven to push the extreme to the extreme. Although the roots of extreme culture are counter-cultural, does the extreme body offer a way to resist the standardized, homogeneous, pre-packaged fakeness of consumer society?

The editors of Extreme Culture/Extreme Bodies seek papers on all themes exploring the body, identity, and consumption within the context of extreme culture. Both theoretical and empirical studies are invited from sociological, cultural studies, media studies, and feminist perspectives. Suggested submission topics include, but are not limited to the following themes:

• The body and consumer culture
• Recent trends in cosmetic surgery
• The body within the context of extreme sports
• Non-normative or subcultural body modification practices
• The body as an artistic medium
• Expressions of the extreme body in advertising and popular media
• Embodiment within cyberspace
• Theoretical perspectives on postmodernity, identity, and the body

DEADLINE: February 15, 2006. Chapters must be submitted in Microsoft Word format, 12 point font, double spaced. Essays should be in the range of 7500 – 10,000 words with references in ASA style. We will also consider abstracts and shorter proposals. Include a cv with your submission.

Send submissions and inquires to mary.kosut@purchase.edu

Mary Kosut, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Sociology and Media, Society, and the Arts
School of Natural and Social Sciences
Purchase College – SUNY
Purchase, NY 10577

Elizabeth C. Bachner, Ph.D.
Instructor of Sociology
The New School
New York, New York

FORENSIC FUTURES: INTERROGATING THE POSTHUMAN SUBJECT

Birkbeck College, Malet Street, London WC1, 16, 17 and 18 March, 2006

Convened by Rosi Braidotti, Utrecht University; Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor, Birkbeck College.

This conference explores the shifting boundaries between life and death in contemporary culture, with special emphasis on issues of embodiment. The conference will address the proliferation of practices about ‘bio-power’ after Foucault. The common axis of reflection is biotechnology and the forms of biocapitalism that support it. On the critical side the conference will explore
the forensic shift in contemporary social theory and cultural sensibility from a number of interdisciplinary perspectives. On the affirmative side, it assumes that contemporary biocitizenship affects the very being of social subjects, creating the possibility for multiple ecologies of belonging.

Speakers will include: Ian Buchanan, Claire Colebrook, Sarah Franklin, Costas Douzinas, Paul Gilroy, Steve Connor, Nicholas Rose

There will also be an Open Forum on Saturday 18 March for researchers in the early stages of their careers to present papers that are relevant to the themes of the conference. Participants are invited to submit abstracts of their presentations to Christine Weber, c.weber [AT] bbk.ac.uk, by 28 February, 2006.

For full programme and registration information please see our website or contact Christine Weber, Birkbeck Law School, 020 7631 6504. Registration £100, reduced student rate £50

e-Science: Transformations in the Conduct of Scholarship

e-Science: Transformations in the Conduct of Scholarship

Special Theme Issue of the
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication

No less than a revolutionary transformation of the scientific enterprise is claimed to be underway. A plethora of phrases have been coined to describe this transformation: e-Science, e-Social Science, e-Research, cyberscience, Internet-mediated research. Whatever the term, observers assert that the very essence of science is undergoing change, particularly through employment of electronic networks and high-speed computers. The everyday procedures and practices of traditional forms of science in which most scholars engage during their professional lives are being affected by features of e-Science. Although emphasis varies, most descriptions of e-Science involve the following aspects: internationally-oriented collaboration among researchers separated by distance and using high-speed computers and Internet-based tools for managing the research enterprise; for performing data collection, archiving and analysis; and for disseminating findings.

It is timely and appropriate to critically examine these developments from the perspective of the social sciences. This theme issue of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (JCMC) will consist of reflective and empirical articles that examine the basic principles and features of e-Science and analyze early initiatives emerging from this new approach to scientific investigation. Abstracts of 300-500 words are invited that consider e-Science initiatives and should be submitted by 1 November 2005. General topics relevant for consideration include:
* Managing collaboration and communicating among researchers separated by distance;
* Developing and using Internet-based tools for data collection, analysis and visualization of findings;
* Archiving and providing access to data;
* Publishing results in an electronic environment.
Reflective case studies are particularly welcome based on projects emphasizing one or more of the aspects of e-Science.

Authors of selected abstracts will be invited to prepare full-length journal manuscripts (ca. 8000 words). These manuscripts will be double blind reviewed. Pending the results of the review process, up to 10 manuscripts will be selected for the JCMC theme issue scheduled for publication in January 2007. An edited book may also be prepared and include additional contributions. Below is the schedule for preparation of the issue:
* 1 November 2005: Abstracts due
* December 2005: Invitations to prepare manuscripts
* April 2006: Manuscripts due
* June 2006: Reviews sent to authors;
* September 2006: Revised manuscripts submitted
* January 2007: Publication of JCMC theme issue

Please direct queries regarding this call to theme issue editor Nicholas Jankowski and submit abstracts per email to: nickjan@xs4all.nl.

Nicholas W. Jankowski
Radboud University
Department of Communication
P.O. Box 9104
6500 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Dangerous bodies: hysteric nation-states and rational reproduction in a biomedical age

Submissions are being sought for a proposed panel for the 2006 meeting of the American Anthropological Association (to be held in San Jose, California, November 15-19, 2006).

Call for Papers:

“Dangerous bodies: hysteric nation-states and rational reproduction in a biomedical age”

Biomedical interventions into pregnancy have rapidly become an expected part of the reproductive landscape for women in
industrialized countries, and increasingly elsewhere as well. In the international health circuit, the provision of reproductive health services constitutes part of nation-states’ claims to modernity and morality. Yet, as anthropologists have argued, biomedical definitions of “rationality,” compliance, and “risk reduction” with regard to reproductive health practices may be at odds with women’s own evaluations of their behavior. This panel examines the critical juncture where biomedico-statistical techniques of encouraging, defining, and enumerating “health” may conflict with, and devalue, women’s understanding of their own “moral motherhood” and reproductive wellbeing. We question whether, in these moments, reproductive health care becomes less about the wellbeing of individual women and their fetuses than the reproduction of state and medical “rationality”
and “morality” in the international arena.

Please submit proposed 100-word abstracts and 3-5 sentence biography including institutional affiliation to Elise Andaya
(elise.andaya [AT] nyu.edu) and Alyshia Galvez (alyshia.galvez [AT] nyu.edu) by Monday, February 27, at 9am (Eastern time). The deadline for SMA invited status is Wednesday, March 1, so a quick turnaround is necessary. Submissions should be in Microsoft Word or in Adobe Acrobat attachments.

Elise Andaya
New York University

World Leisure Journal

Message from Prof Ken Roberts at Liverpool University

The first issue of the 2006 volume of the World Leisure Journal will be published during March. The contents of the issue are set out below.

The journal is available online to members of World Leisure .

Vol 48, 1
Editorial
Obituary
George Torkildsen, 22 December 1934 – 20 October 2005

Special feature
Leisure: a framework for policy, Christopher R Edginton
Research papers
Philosophical leisure as recuperative praxis: texturing human communication, Annette M Holba
An exploration of the relationships between free time management and quality of life of wage earners in Taiwan, Wei-Ching Wang and Chin’Ksung Kao
The Norwegian home – way of life, way of consuming, Ragnhild Brusdal
Service quality measures: recreationists’ perceptions of US Pacific Northwest National Forests, Robert C Burns and Alan R Graefe
News and notices
World Leisure elects new board members
Upcoming events
Book review
J T Haworth and A J Veal, eds, Work and Leisure, Routledge, London, 238pp, reviewed by Francis Lobo

The World Leisure Journal is the official refereed journal of World Leisure. It has a large, worldwide and otherwise diverse readership composed of researchers, scholars, educators, policy-makers and managers in the commercial, public and voluntary sectors, who work in the arts, the media, sport, tourism, community recreation, therapeutic recreation and other specific fields, and in leisure in general.

The journal’s policy is to publish papers that will be of interest to this readership. Authors are necessarily from particular countries and particular academic disciplines, and often have special interests and expertise in the arts, sport, tourism etc, but can still have important things to say that are relevant to the entire readership. We publish papers arising from narrowly-focused research projects where the findings and conclusions are of much wider interest alongside theoretical contributions where the arguments are relevant to people working in any of the various fields of leisure and whatever the country. The journal also publishes state of the art reviews dealing with specific forms of leisure, the leisure of particular socio-demographic groups, or leisure in particular countries or world regions. The journal also welcomes reviews of the state of leisure research and teaching in particular countries or groups of countries. Contributions are welcome from authors in cognate (to leisure) fields such as health, migration, family and youth studies, and criminology. Offers of sets of papers addressing a common issue or topic, possibly arising from workshops or conferences, are also welcome.

The papers selected for publication are typically 3500-6000 words in length but the journal will also consider shorter research notes, contributions to debates and responses to papers in previous issues, plus occasional longer contributions where the content and relevance to the readership justify the length.

Authors are encouraged to submit by email.

The anonymous review process will be assisted if authors submit initial copies of their manuscripts with all author-identifiable passages and references removed. Please inform the editor-in-chief if such material has been edited-out of the copy submitted.

Upon acceptance of the article for publication, authors should submit by email or on disk the final copy of the work with any revisions, plus short (100 word max) author bios.
Contact address:
Professor Ken Roberts AcSS,
Editor-in-chief, World Leisure Journal,
Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work Studies,
University of Liverpool,
Eleanor Rathbone Building,
Bedford Street South,
Liverpool L69 7ZA,
England.
Email: wlj [AT] liverpool.ac.uk
Phone: 44 (0)151 794 2971
Fax:  44 (0)151 794 3001

HOME, National Theatre of Scotland launch

Yesterday, I attended one of the Home shows taking place in the east end of Glasgow. The performance was located outdoors based in a tower block. Performers included Billy Boyd, of former hobbit fame, and the entire evening coincided with 9 other performances around Scotland that similarly launched the NTS. I cannot imagine any stronger commitment to bringing theatre into the community, as an attempt to represent more inclusive aspirations. The performance was accessible and engaging given the context.

Wonderland Magazine and This Sporting Life

A month or so back, I interviewed for Wonderland magazine for a feature on Sport and Technology. At the time, it felt like just another interview, but I have now learned that Wonderland exists as a result of funding from the tv programme The Dragon’s Den. If you take a look at the magazine’s website, it really looks like a wonderful piece of work with great attention to design. Having seen one episode of The Dragon’s Den, it makes it all the more interesting to have been a part of this one!

Web Lecture from Torino

While in Torino for the Games, I gave a lecture via some new software we are piloting at the University. Thanks to Kris, Boris and Robert for making this happen. After the death of one laptop and impossible firewalls at the Media Center, British Columbia Canada Place was really the only option. Thanks also to Daniel who convinced the pc to play ball.

Andy Miah gives a remote university lecture

Originally uploaded by bmann.

Glasgow School of Art

Here I am sitting with 3 students from the GSA talking about the merits of wordpress and how it can provide many more facilities compared with other blogs. Kris, you have convinced me that this is worthwhile and I even went pro with Flick and I even talked about your work in the lecture. How much more of a rock star does that make you feel?

Back from Torino

I returned from the Torino 2006 Games yesterday with the finger wagging advice of the Bryght guys. So here I am. I want to use this place to gradually replace the static look of my website. It would be nice to post all the material I usually include within my website here. Frequently, new elements of my website don’t fit into any other research blogs I write, so this should be where all that goes. In essence then, this should give an impression of my week to week activities rather than function as a snapshot of my life.

Empty Stadia but Lots of Passion

In case you missed it, Torino’s slogan is ‘Passion Lives Here’ and it certainly does seem true. Yesterday, we spent 3 hours queuing for the 400 tickets to the medal plaza that were made available for free to anyone. In the end, we missed out by about 20 places, but the experience was enlightening. Many of the people in the queue seemed more aware of and interested in the artist who would be performing, than the athletes who would be receiving medals.

That night, the first, it was Andrea Boccelli, so the italians were particularly passionate about obtaining tickets. A few arguments broke out and people soon became strategic in their attempt to obtain a ticket. We overheard some people talking about buying them from others and a couple of times, we saw people offer their tickets to others.

The frustration came in the evening when seeing many of the seats empty. It is clear that the sale of tickets does not rate particularly highly for an organising committee, but it seems that it would be wonderful to avoid these situations, which seem to happen over and over again.

I think today, we will go direct to the Plaza in the evening and see if we can benefit from someone’s generosity. Who can spend 3hrs queuing in Olympic Fortnight? I’m just glad i had my LifeDrive and a stack of reading.

Doping in Torino

I am writing from the Torino Media Centre within the City after having read and heard a lot more about Repoxygen. Over the last few days, there have been a number of journalists getting in touch wanting to find out about this. On Thursday, I interviewed for the Canadian Broadcast Corporation’s evening news. I spoke with Tom Harrington, whom I first met in Toronto when Genetically Modified Athletes came out. It’s so good to speak to Tom, as he is genuinely interested in the broader philosophical questions that the development in technology provokes. I am also interviewing for CBC’s The Hour on Monday, which will take place at the Main Media Centre in Torino.

From what I have seen, doping has been high on the news agenda for Torino. There still seems a lot of confusion about whether genetic doping is taking place and there are no confirmed cases. However, there does seem to be a lot of uncertainty about the circumstances here, which is quite different from Athens where nearly no discussions emerged during Games time about whether gene doping might be happening.

From what I have read, there is also less clarity about how best to deal with genetic doping. While WADA and others wish to treat it as just another form of doping, i believe that there is also a philosophical uncertainty about the future of doping and its bearing on humanity. This ambiguity relates to the broader changes within society through technology. In the end, we appear to live within a culture of enhancement and, in this environment, the relevance of prohibiting genetically modified athletes is weakened. All that remains is the medical interest to protect its integrity and the safety of athletes.

If any journalist would like to call me for interview while in Torino, I can be contacted on:

0034 6365 0302

Torino 2006

The cauldren is about to be lit here in Torino. The city squares are full of people watching big tv screens and the final arrangements to the city are over. The Olympic Truce moment in the Opening Ceremony was spectacular, creative and poignant. Beatriz and I are now in the Media Centre among around 30 other journalists. The city has become progressively busy today, though still no major queues around ticket offices.

We learned that the medals plaza will be open to non-residents and that 400 tickets will be available each night for those who try to obtain them.

A couple of nights ago, we saw the dress rehearsal of the opening ceremony, but they didnt include the amazing ferrari moment. The red lookof the city is in clear coordination with the TOROC look of the Games. There seems to be a good collaborative branding to both elements and the Cultural Olympiad has a strong, subtle and stylish presence around the city.

Tickets were hard to obtain today. The website was unavailble for some time and although cheapest options were shown available, it was not possible to select them. WE eventually accessed some from the ticket office near Medal Plaza where a very small queue had formed. Typically, each customer took around 20mins to serve as they had to pick which days they wanted to visit venues.Not simple.

Repoxygen

Last week, a new gene doping story broke just as I was preparing my final grades for the end of semester and desperately trying to finalise details for the the research trip to the Torino Olympics. Repoxygen has been billled as the first case of genetic doping. Naturally, the media has gone crazy trying to understand what this means and sports officials already claim that a test is already under development.

Interestingly, the claim about this new method of doping using 'repoxygen' was discovered through heresay:

"The springboard for these dire pronouncements was an email German police found on the computer belonging to former east German coach to Katrin Krabbe, Thomas Springstein, who is on trial at the moment for doping under-age female athletes. The message complained how "difficult it is to get hold of Repoxygen. Please give me new instructions so that I can get hold of the product for Christmas". Michael Butcher, Scotland on Sunday [who, by the way, didnt bother to call me for an opinion!]

I'm off to Turin tomorrow and already have interviews lined up on this subject. On the approach to Athens, scientists were claiming that Beijing might be our first Gene Games, but it seems Turin might have that famous title.