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digest 2000-05-04 #001.txt
11:23 PM 5/3/00 -0700
From: "Society for Literature & Science"
Daily SLS Email Digest
-> Deadline Extended to June 15th: Taking Nature Seriously
by Christie Hanzlik-Green
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Date: 3 May 2000 11:42:28 -0700
From: Christie Hanzlik-Green
Subject: Deadline Extended to June 15th: Taking Nature Seriously
CALL FOR PAPERS - Deadline Extended to June 15th!!!
Taking Nature Seriously: Citizens, Science, and Environment
February 25-27, 2001
University of Oregon
This conference is designed to bring together scientists, community
activists, and science studies scholars who are working on environmental
issues in an effort to reveal and move beyond barriers that have
inhibited
interaction between scholars in the sciences, social sciences, and
humanities, and between academics and activists. From the common ground
of
our concern for our global environment, we devote this conference to
establishing a dialogue between the interdisciplinary fields of science
studies (history, philosophy, sociology, literature, cultural studies)
and
environmental studies (biological and natural sciences, social sciences,
humanities, management, policy, design, and law), as well as between
academic research and public activism.
The chief goals of the conference are to foster dialogue that engages
the
practical and theoretical challenges of "taking nature seriously," that
illuminates the value of interdisciplinary and inter-community
collaboration, and that envisions new models of scholarship and policy
that
can move us beyond culturally constructed barriers. We will explore
whether and how scholars studying scientific practices can contribute to
more effective scientific research and policy formation, and we will
investigate the ways practicing scientists and environmental activists
can
and do work together on pressing environmental issues. Such a dialogue
promises to enable both a richer understanding of similarities and
differences in our approaches to environmental problems and a
realization
of the common ground shared in our ultimate goals.
Keynote Speakers:
Donna Haraway, Professor of History of Consciousness and Women's Studies
at
the University of California at Santa Cruz, author of Primate Visions,
and
Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium
Richard Lewontin, Professor of Biology and Population Sciences at
Harvard,
author of Biology as Ideology and The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary
Change
Andrew Pickering, Professor of Sociology of Science and Technology at
the
University of Illinois, author of Constructing Quarks and The Mangle of
Practice
Interdisciplinary Panels: With a goal of encouraging collaboration and
interchange between scientists, activists, and science studies scholars,
we
hope to form several interdisciplinary panels around themes of specific
environmental issues. For example, a panel on Genetically Modified
Organisms might include: a geneticist, to discuss the effects of gene
modification at the organismal and ecosystem levels; an agricultural
biologist, to present the pros and cons of modified seeds/crops; an
environmental health activist, to present possible hazards of ingestion
of
modified food sources; and a science studies scholar, to discuss
conceptions of "natural" at play in current environmental health
debates.
Prospective presenters are welcome to submit a complete panel proposal
or
to advertise for panel participants on the conference Web site. (Send a
title and a brief description of your proposed panel, along with contact
information, to conference coordinator Lynne Fessenden,
tns@darkwing.uoregon.edu.)
We welcome proposals for panels, workshops, papers, on the following or
related topics:
¬? Salmon restoration, forest protection and management, toxic waste
management, global climate change, genetically modified organisms and
other
empirical analyses of specific environmental issues and
proposed/implemented actions
¬? Questions of expertise, citizenship, and sustainability
¬? Environmental justice: the relationship between protecting the
environment and implementing equity among people
¬? The roles of humanistic and scientific rhetoric in environmental
arguments and activism: how do we translate theories and research
results
into public environmental discourse?
¬? The nature and potential of Public-Interest Science (i.e. scientific
research developed and conducted with the collaboration of an active,
informed citizenry)
¬? Investigations of the current realism/social constructivism debates
¬? The value of science studies for environmental studies and vice versa
¬? The history and role of the idea of an independent reality, free of
human
interaction
¬? Analyses of distinctions such as body/mind, nature/culture - whether
and
how they might be productively reconceived
¬? Assessments of recent models and metaphors for framing the material
and
social aspects of nature, such as the cyborg, hybridity, actor network
theory, the mangle of practice, and the transgenic organism, etc.
¬? The contributions of feminist science studies and race theories to
the
bridging of science studies and environmental studies / scholarship and
activism
Submission Guidelines: Abstracts for proposed papers, research
presentations, panels, and forums are encouraged. Please send three
copies
of your abstract (500 word maximum) and one copy of an abbreviated
curriculum vita for each participant. Prospective presenters should
keep
in mind an interdisciplinary and inter-community audience rather than a
specialist audience.
Proposals are due no later than June 15, 2000.
Send proposals to:
Taking Nature Seriously
Environmental Studies Program
10 Pacific Hall
University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403-5223
Web site: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~tns
Questions?
Phone: 541/346-5399
Fax: 541/346-5096
E-mail: tns@darkwing.uoregon.edu
Conference Organizers:
Nancy Tuana, Ph.D.
Philosophy, Women's Studies & Environmental Studies
William Rossi, Ph.D.
English & Environmental Studies
Lynne Fessenden, Ph.D
Marine Biology, Science Communication, & Environmental Studies
Sponsors:
This conference is sponsored by the Oregon Humanities Center, the Center
for the Study of Women in Society, the University of Oregon
Environmental
Studies Program, College of Arts and Sciences, and the Departments of
Biology, English, and Philosophy.
Thank you,
Christie Hanzlik-Green
Graduate Research Fellow
