conferenza in Oregon

[alessandro gimona <ag0648@mluri.sari.ac.uk>]

Cari tutti,
per i piu' avventurosi, un potenziale viaggio, per i meno una visita al
sito web :-)

Saluti
Alessandro Gimona


CALL FOR PAPERS
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, author of Primate Visions;
Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium;
Simians, Cyborgs, and Women

Richard Lewontin, author of Biology as Ideology, The Dialectical
Biologist,
Education and Class, The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change, and Not
in
Our Genes

Andrew Pickering, author of Constructing Quarks, The Mangle of Practice,

and Science as Practice and Culture


Suggested conference topics include but are not limited to:


· Empirical  analyses of specific environmental issues and
proposed/implemented actions (for example: salmon restoration, forest
protection and management, toxic waste management, ozone depletion,
genetically modified organisms)

· 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, including how best to 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)

· The value of science studies for environmental studies and vice versa

· Investigations of the current realism/social constructivism debates

· 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

Panels:
We hope to form several interdisciplinary panels on the above and
related
themes.  Our goal is to encourage collaboration and interchange between
scientists, activists, and science studies scholars.  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
environmental health activist, to present issues relating to health
concerns; 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.)

Submission Guidelines:
Abstracts for proposed papers, research presentations, panels, and
forums
are encouraged.  Please send three copies of a two-page abstract 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 May 1st, 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