Archeological Knowledge of Cisterns and Water Management in Malta

Abstract
Water is a vital resource for life to survive in all environments. The Maltese have been struggling with the lack of water as far back as 3000 BC. My research analyzes how the Island of Malta has handled the water crisis throughout many centuries and continues to handle it today. Through analysis of research in books by Garry Hogg, Quentin Hughes, and a few others, I have found that Malta designed its water management system around the uses of cisterns throughout local communities and large temples. These cisterns primarily were designed as water tanks to become the primary source of fresh water during the dry summer months and were replenished with fresh water during the rainy season. Malta’s terrain is very rocky and largely composed of limestone. This prevents the absorption of rainfall leading to the majority of this water escaping as run-off to the Mediterranean Sea. With the construction of the Wignacourt Aqueduct during the 16th century which transported fresh water from Mdina to Valleta, the new capital city of Malta, water resources became more accessible allowing for agriculture to advance beyond what it was previously capable of. The cisterns were used for many centuries as the main source of storage of fresh water. Even today, thousand year old cisterns are still used for irrigation and plumbing (usually not drinking due to bacteria). As technology advanced in the 19th century, the Maltese now use desalination methods to support the countries need for fresh water. Desalination methods account for about 50% of the fresh water in Malta. This project dives deeper into the analysis of how the water crisis in Malta has impact the culture and the development of water storage methods from 3000 BC till now.

Abstract and Biblio: Science and Engineering in Malta

Brig Bagley

ES 410

Abstract and Annotated Bibliography

10 Feb. 2011

Abstract

Education in Malta for science and engineering has only recently developed into the state we see it today. With most of today’s scientists and engineers in Malta under the age of 35, we see that Malta has made many important changes in its approach to technology. The Malta Council for Science and Technology oversees the scientific advancements of the state, not quite dictating, but certainly directing what areas researchers and educational institutions. Historically, Malta has had many early engineering feats, primarily within the areas of architecture and defense (being a small country geographically located in a prime position in the Mediterranean). But only until recently has the country made a more radical shift in producing more scientists and engineers. Although technology is becoming a more popular profession, it still remains a minority, with business, law, humanities, art, and education remaining the dominant professions. Due to its resources, location, and history, Malta focuses on professions that can easily compete in the global economy (such as business and law) and uphold it as a valuable contributor to the world’s needs.

Annotated Bibliography

Mayo, Peter, Pace, Paul, and Zammit, Edward. (2008). “Adult education in small states: the case of Malta.” Comparative Education Vol. 44, No. 2., pp. 229-246. Routledge: Taylor and Francis Group.

This paper discusses how the small-scale dimensions of the state of Malta affect the types of education available for adults, as well as the methods of education used in the state. In order to best utilize its resources, Maltese educators often serve in multiple educational positions, covering many topics. Also an important part of the system is the focus on enabling public participation and global community. This information might be useful in determining how the education of scientists and engineers is affected. However, since this is education in general, there will likely not be much evidence supporting the proposed thesis.

UNESCO International Science, Technology, & Environmental. (2003) “Malta Council for Science and Technology.” Education Newsletter Vol. 28, Issue 3/4, pp 18-19.

The Malta Council for Science and Technology is a part of the Maltese government that oversees the science and technologies within the state. This short description describes the purposes and goals of the council. This will be very useful in pin pointing the state of education in science and engineering in Malta because it is likely that this council influences governmental decisions that affect the education system in these areas. The council probably encourages schools to focus on certain technologies and likely proposes funding for these particular areas. Unfortunately, this article is very short. There will only be a small amount of information to support my thesis.

“BP teams up with chemical and food giants on biofuels facility.” Professional Engineering. p 12. 28 June 2006.

Although this article is very short and does not address very much about Maltese education, there is one fact mentioned that I find particularly interesting and useful: “Malta has the youngest population of all, with more than half of its scientists and engineers aged 25 to 34.” This means that Malta has only recently started pushing for more scientists and engineers. With this information, I can now use some history of Malta to try to determine why this push happened, and why it was only recently.

Connect: UNESCO International Science, Technology & Environmental. (2000). “THE STATE OF SCIENCE EDUCATION IN MALTA.” Education Newsletter.Vol. 25 Issue 3/4, p15. EBESCOhost.

Another short article, UNESCO describes some of the direct influence of the Malta Council for Science and Technology on education for science and engineering. This will tie to the previously mentioned source that describes more in general the purpose of the council. The research project described in this synopsis is exactly the type of information I need to help me formulate reasons for the current state of education in Malta for science and engineering. Hopefully I will be able to track down references and sources that are related to this project.

Pollard, Justin. (2009). “The Eccentric Engineer.” Engineering and Technology. p. 18. 6-19 June 2009.

The author of this article explains that the earliest discovered evidence of engineering are in Malta. Because of this evidence, it is likely that the history of Malta’s science and engineering has taken a very different path from that of other countries around the world. Perhaps the recent jump to modern science and engineering was related to the country’s hesitance to deviate from traditional and long used methods of science and engineering. I would need to find evidence to support this claim, which might mean that this article doesn’t really help draw any conclusions.

Griffin, Joe, PhD., Ryan, Kevin. (2010). “Broadening the Education of Software Engineers – some lessons and pointers.” University of Limerick. IEEE.

Griffin and Ryan explain a method of collaboration between computer science students in a few different countries, including Malta. The methodologies correspond well with Global Engineering, as far as working with different cultures and understanding science and engineering from a more global perspective. Although the discussion of this article is relevant to the class and is lightly connected to Malta, it will probably not serve very well as a source in determining the state of Maltese education in the sciences and in engineering.

The Unionized Engineer

Draft Abstract: The Unionized Engineer
This article explores labor unions’ effect on engineers in Australia. With wages, centralized control and political sway within a union, engineering in Australia has become a hot-topic within the industries. The structure of a unionized profession ranges from “an organizing model” which we see often in the United States historically, to the “service model” that unions have historically been known for. This “service model” has been more often associated with the traditional role of a union, in that it is “based upon a transactional relationship where union officials deliver services and, in exchange, union members pay dues” (Carter). Engineering and technical unions in Australia have been changing and merging for many years, and have been every since the British started a branch of the Amalgamated Engineering Union in 1852 (Sheridan). There have been a number of changes within structures and associations of these unions with other countries, but Australia established their own for the first time after breaking away from the British union for the first time in 1968 and establishing the Amalgamated Metal Workers’ Union in 1972 (Sheridan). The force and the structure of a union can only be as strong as the supporters of it within the unionized profession, and this paper will go into the support and opposition for unions of engineers and how the unionization of engineering has caused a decline in the value of engineering in Australia.

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPY

Sheridan, Tom. “Mindful Militants: the Amalgamated Engineering Union in Australia, 1920-1972”. Publisher: The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press, © 1975.

This book focuses on the time frame of 1920-1972 and Australia’s growth through labor unions for engineers. This book focuses on the history of what unions were in place when, and their influence politically and in industry. It comments on the hardships of the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU) and how they overcame the obstacles presented by WWII, the Communist scare, and the aftermath of having been associated with a communist style leadership.

Matthew James. “Australia 2020: Foresight for our Future”. Science, Technology, Environment and Resources Group. 6 February 2001.

This article describes foresight and the three steps needed for an effective foresight analysis to take place. The article is an analysis of what Australia is focusing and what they should be focusing on in the author’s eyes. The author calls for the need to see beyond the next couple years to plan what will happen in a few decades and be able to incite change through environmental, political, social, and industry values. This article is not on engineering specifically, but focuses on the state of Australia in the early 200s.

Radio Australia News, “Australian parliament to debate flood levy”. 8 Feb 2011.

This article discusses the need for a levee in Australia, but the value of other restoration projects is also needed. This article is a great example of the immediate versus long term goals that the Australian government focuses on. This provides a current reaction to the need of an engineering project reported through direct media.

“Post-graduate courses in railway engineering: The needs of Australian engineers and rail organizations”
May 2000, Author: Athol Yates, Researcher: Dmitry Lobanov, The Institution of Engineers, Australia. RTSA.

This article expresses and surveys the need for railway engineers. This article contributes to the focus on the need for engineering, and that there is an expressed and surveyed need for them in Australia. The IEA shows statistics on the need for railroad engineering classes and units in their schools for higher education. The institute calls for the classes in railroad design and engineering for the graduated students to have as part of their Diploma requirements.

Bob Carter and Rae Cooper. “The Organizing Model and the Management of Change
A Comparative Study of Unions in Australia and Britain”. Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations. Publisher: Département des relations industrielles de l'Université Laval. Volume 57, Number 4. Fall 2002, p. 712-742.

This article outlines the advantages and disadvantages of having jobs unionized, and how this politically is effective and ineffective. The article goes into depth on the information and surveys performed on the debate of unionization, and unionization reform solutions. The article portrays the different sides of having unions and certain structures of unions very well.

Additional Articles Planning to Use:

Buchanan, John.“Teams and Control on the Job: Insights from the Australian Metal and Engineering Best Practice Case Studies”. Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research and Training (ACIRRT), The University of Sydney, Sydney NSW 2006.

Briggs, Chris. “Australian Exceptionalism: The Role of Trade Unions in the Emergence of Enterprise Bargaining” published online: 19 DEC 2002. DOI: 10.1111/1472-9296.00003. The Journal of Industrial Relations Volume 43, Issue 1, pages 27–43, March 2001.

International Business Card Etiquette for Engineering

Abstract
Business card etiquette shapes the level of acceptance and professionalism that businesspeople have for one another internationally. Although a business card may seem easy to maneuver when handing it over to the another person, there is much to learn about the etiquette needed in order to be viewed positively in the clients eyes. Japan, the Middle East, Africa, etc. all have different cultural norms when handling business cards and my research will uncover these procedures. My hope is to understand the importance of business cards when making international ties with engineers globally. Engineering has become a global practice that allows for many different countries to interact with one another. These business cards have become one of the first procedures for the first impression between individuals. Every country has different customs and ways for dealing with business cards, making it key to understand the nature of others culture pertaining to business cards.





Kirsch, Virginia. " Business Cards Around the World ." Welcome to Wisc- Online.com . wisc- online, n.d. Web. 8 Feb. 2011. .

This article gives the reader basics steps on how to develop a business card that could be given to any customer all around the world. This presentation slide is based on the idea that it is an American or English speaking individual making a card that can apply internationally. For an American to present a business card in East Asia the individual needs to stand straight and present the card with both hands, making sure that the local language is facing up. In general when receiving a business card individuals need to handle the cards with respect and write notes on the card in private later. In Japan before shaking hands or bowing, exchanging cards is key. The Japanese receiver will read the card, and then bowing and shaking hands occurs afterward. The slide show continues to give tips on China, South America, Mexico, Russia, and Europe. The creator touched on all of the key topics that each country uses for business cards mainly during the process that it is given. The creator does not include enough information though about the afterward practices that different countries use with the business cards, the information just seems to cut itself off.

Martin, Jeanette S., and Lillian H. Chaney. Global business etiquette: a guide to international communication and customs. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2006. Print.

Emphasis on the importance of knowing one anothers’ tittle, ranking, and position in the business world is key when making a business card. The quality of paper and font is important in other countries that can symbolize professionalism. It is advisable to have a business card for the United States and also one for each country that you visit, because there may be a translation problem between cultures. Business men/woman in Japan carefully study the business card that has been given to them and keep it in close proximity during meeting for reference. In the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and African cultures individuals presenting a business card will only use their right hand, for the left hand is reserved for taking care of bodily functions. I think it is important to highlight that the author of this book included Canada in the Country Specific information, I feel as though Canada gets left out of research at times. This book gives great detailed information about many different techniques that business men/woman use all around the world.


Mente, Boye. Japanese etiquette & ethics in business . 5th ed. Lincolnwood, Ill.: Passport Books, 1987. Print.

This book focuses on Japanese etiquette pertaining to business cards. It is very important for the Japanese businesspeople to know the rank of everyone with whom they come into contact. They must know there personal rank and also the rating of their organization. “Meishi” is a name card in business, and these cards tell the rank of individuals and stature of company they represent. The card also distinguishes the level of language that each will use. Recipients receive business cards with both hands at the beginning of introduction. The Japanese hand their card to the other person while also accepting the other persons. If the other person goes by these very small but important cultural rules of the Japanese, they tend to gain a few points in the eyes of the Japanese recipients. The key point to this article is that individuals need to understand the rules of the superior subordinate ranking system to keep harmony amongst themselves and the Japanese businesspeople. Once again I do not think that the author includes enough information on how the business card is used after the interview or meeting. I feel that it would also be key to understand how the Japanese use these cards after, do they keep them somewhere special or just put them in their wallet?

Mitchell, Charles. A short course in international business culture . Novato, CA: World Trade Press, 2000. Print.

In todays world of business it is more of a courtesy to have your card translated into the local language of the country you are coming from. It is normal nowadays to have the home language on one side and the foreign language on the other side. Never fling a card across a table or desk, that is considered bad manners. If presenting to a multitude of people, it is important to hand the card to the individual who is the highest ranking in the room. A great sign of respect is to put the card that you receive on the table in front of you, so that the Japanese individuals know that you have taken the time to look at their card. I thought it was incredibly interesting to learn that in the Islamic world, the left hand is considered unclean. So this is important in always using the right hand. This book uses informational bullet points that help the reader to understand more clearly the steps needed to take to have a successful “card game.” Yet I believe that the author focused very much on Japan, leaving out many other countries that he could have covered and helped his audience with.

"Japanese business etiquette and doing business in Japan." Doing business in Japan How to start doing business in Japan. Venture
Japan, n.d. Web. 8 Feb. 2011. .

This website focuses on Japanese business etiquette. The author gives detailed information on the number of business cards one should keep on hand during business trips to Japan. They propose carrying at least 100 cards for a 1 week business trip to Japan, expecting to give out about 3-4 Japanese business cards at a small meeting and as many as 10-12 cards at a larger meeting. Once again never flick, throw, or slide the business card to the Japanese Businessperson. Never write notes on the Japanese business card. Never forget to pick up and keep all of the business cards that are handed to you at a business meeting with Japanese individuals because that is seen as a “slap in the face.” This goes back to the idea that even the individuals in the meeting who are considered the lowest on the hierarchal level, probably control millions of dollars and deserve the same amount of respect that you give to the individual at the top. I thought it was great to hear of at least one author talk about the importance of the people at the bottom, not forgetting them. I enjoyed that this author actually included pieces of information on how the person who is visiting Japan should prepare and also how the Japanese deal with the cards when the meeting is done.



Alana Snelling

Call for Papers: Five Sessions with a Latin American Emphasis / Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S)

Five Sessions with a Latin American Emphasis

Society for Social Studies of Science (4S)Annual Meeting.

November 2-5, 2011, Cleveland, Ohio USA.

http://www.4sonline.org/meeting

This year the 4S gathers in Cleveland, Ohio.  The issues dominating the news continue to be the global economic crisis, human rights (freedom, education, health), energy constraints, climate change, sustainable development, and global terror.  These inter-dependent challenges inspire much popular and scholarly attention, while advances in science and technology over the past century are often framed as both the culprit and panacea in discussions of how we arrived in these troubled global waters and how we might navigate our way out of them.

As has been noted in past STS work, the manner in which science and technology are produced or translated and then employed to address challenges depends greatly on historical and national contexts.  The production of knowledge about the interactions of science, technology and society is not exempt from this contextualization.  Yet much like the production of tehno-scientific knowledge, STS knowledge production remains primarily EuroAmerican despite the field's attempts to broaden its conceptual perspectives.

The 4S has committed to reducing the geographical and intellectual barriers that have divided and at times isolated global STS communities.  To this end, the 2014 4S meeting is scheduled for Buenos Aires, Argentina in conjunction with the annual meeting of its Latin American counterpart ESOCITE.  To continue the dialogue on Latin American STS (that stretches back to the 2004 Paris 4S joint meeting with EASST), the 4S Latin American section is proposing five thematic sessions for this year’s conference in Cleveland, Ohio.

The general goal of these five sessions is three-fold:

(1)  To explore the contributions to thinking about science, technology and society by scholars in Latin America: past and present.

(2)  To provide scholars from around the world working on Latin American STS issues a space to showcase their investigation and findings.

(3)  To further contextualize how science and technology innovation, diffusion and adaptation in Latin America are antecedents for, and perhaps solutions of, global and local challenges in this region.

Papers are invited to contribute to the following five thematic sessions:

1. In search of “lines of flights” in Latin America

Session Organizer:

Ivan da Costa Marques [imarques@nce.ufrj.br]

Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro

Session Description:

Reliable knowledge today is strongly identified with scientific knowledge.  The overwhelming majority of scientific facts and artifacts, however, are produced in the North and arrive in their stable forms (as ready objects) in Latin America, where they enjoy the attributes of universality and neutrality (in spite of STS results).  In these terms it is possible to say that modern sciences from the West provide a cage that confines the space available for Latin Americans to search for solutions of their practical problems, since it would make no sense “to do” spaces and times or propose objects outside universal and neutral knowledge – they would be “simply wrong” since Latin Americans usually lack the resources to build counter-laboratories.  As an example, in the name of science the Brazilian Association of Nutritionists oppose local habits of nutrition that are found effective by large parts of the Brazilian population to nourish their children.  This session indicates a special welcome to papers about programs and/or controversies involving conflicts between Western scientific knowledge and local practical knowledge.

2. Technologies of Health Care in Latin America

Session Organizer:

Maria Olarte Sierra [olarteSierra@gamil.com]

University of Manchester

Session Description:

Given that the STS work on Latin American’s appropriation and transformation of technologies is increasing in numbers and relevance, we propose a panel that explores STS on health care technologies in Latin America.  The panel has three objectives.

(1)  To present the diverse academic interest and scientific productions from people working on medical technologies in Latin American realities

(2)  To give room to discussing the theoretical and methodological contribution that such scholars are making to the broader field of STS studies.

(3)  To enable a network of scholars, with similar interest, in the area of STS and medical technologies working in and on Latin America.

Papers are invited to address issues such as: Approaches at studying specific medical technologies; studies addressing medical technologies in relation with social processes; and studies on power/knowledge struggles over medical or technological authority

3. Bio-technologies: Policy, Practice, & Scientific Change in Latin America

Session Organizer:

Christina Holmes [christinapholmes@gmail.com]

EHESS-CNRS, Paris, France

Session Description:

Biotechnology represents an important 'growth' area, in terms of scientific knowledge and publication possibilities, as well as presenting potentially applied uses.  It has been suggested as an important way of improving agricultural cultivars; as a way of mapping, managing, and profiting from biodiversity; as a way of protecting a country's genetic patrimony; and as a way of creating new industrial and medical applications.

This panel aims to foster discussion about biotechnology and Latin America by asking the following three questions:

(1)  How has Latin America interacted with biotechnology?

(2)  How have the policies and practices surrounding biotechnology in Latin America compared to wider, global trends?

(3)   How are biotechnologies part of wider processes of scientific change?

4. The Global South and the Global Cyberspace

Session Organizer:

Yuri Takhteyev [yuri.takhteyev at utoronto.ca]

University of Toronto

Fifteen years ago an American poet living in California proclaimed the Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace, a world “both everywhere and  nowhere,” foretelling the coming obsolescence of the “Governments of the  Industrial World” from China to the United States, thanks to the rise of  the new digital information and communication technologies.  In the  following years, those technologies have played a key role in the  visions of the coming globalized world.  At the same time, the Cyberspace has for the most part been a “northern” domain.

This panel will explore the place of the Global South in the Global Cyberspace, as well as more broadly the relationship between ICTs and globalization in southern contexts.   We welcome papers looking at how ICTs are used by different actors as tools in their own globalization projects, as well as papers looking at the increasing globalization of the development of ICTs.  The latter could include the more recent outsourcing of what used to be considered “northern” high-tech work to the south, the increased role of the distributed communities of software developers (including those working on free / open source software), as the well as the more mundane importation of “northern” ICTs into the southern contexts.

The papers should focus on the Global South, including in particular Latin America, considering either the south-north ties or the lateral ties between southern regions. Historical perspectives on the relationship between ICT and globalization would be highly welcome, including those looking back to the days before the 1990s.

5. Environment, Technology and Society Interactions in Latin America

Session Organizer:

Rick B. Duque [rick.duque@univie.ac.at]

University of Vienna

Session Description:

This panel converges upon research focused on both the natural and anthropogenic risks inherent when communities and environments collide.  The impact and aftermaths of tragic tsunamis/floods in Indonesia, the US gulf coast, and Pakistan and recent earthquakes in Italy, China, Haiti, and Chile reminds us that both resource poor and rich communities are at risk of extreme natural forces, technological failures, bureaucratic mismanagement and root social asymmetries.  In resource-poor regions, environmental and technological risks are often magnified and the resilience of marginalized communities and indigenous peoples tested often beyond their limits.  To address sub-regional distinctions and offer solutions, this session invites comparative and case study papers that delve into historical and contextual accounts of colonial and post-colonial environmental and technological dialogues in Latin America. 

The session is particularly interested in attracting work that compares indigenous and non-indigenous techno-scientific responses to the environmental and social challenges of free-market global development like for example climate change, ozone depletion, water controversies, urban sprawl, waste management, alternative energy sources, disaster preparedness, industrial and natural toxic exposure, and the conservation of indigenous forests, fisheries and sacred artifacts and lands.

Please send an abstract of a paper (minimum 250 words, maximum of 400 words) to the appropriate session organizer above.

Submission deadline: March 7, 2011.

ReWired: Asian/TechnoScience/Area Studies - Call for Participation

THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA HUMANITIES RESEARCH INSTITUTE presents
in conjunction with the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa 
 

SEMINAR IN EXPERIMENTAL CRITICAL THEORY (SECT VII)

ReWired:

Asian/TechnoScience/Area Studies

August 1-10, 2011 at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa

The Seminar will address how technoscientific knowledge-systems are re-ordered when geo-political formations shift.

   You "don't invent the future," John Seely Brown famously noted - "you unleash it by leveraging the global community mind."

    Today the fastest expansion of technoscientific knowledge production and urban development is occurring across multiple Asian sites in the throes of techno-economic boom. Seely Brown's observation, made in conversation with Paul Duguid, was meant to characterize late 20th century knowledge institutions and sites of technological production in the US. It nevertheless uncannily predicts the radical de-centering of global technological futures in the 21st century, not least in the Asian context.

    The 2011 Seminar in Experimental Critical Theory (SECT VII) seeks to elucidate these rapidly transforming landscapes of knowledge production, the shaping of contemporary knowledge institutions, their impact on social life in intense urban contexts, and this century's techno-scientific horizons of possibility. Comprehending these movements, forces, and structures requires integrating deep understandings of history and politics represented by Asian and critical Area Studies with emergent work on the transnational dynamics of science and technology as well as on market economies and their modes of governance.

    The social life of information emerges in particular kinds of institutional structures and historical conditions. It refracts, reflects and embeds larger social forces and modes of production, extending some ideas and undercutting others. What are the impacts and influences of varying social arrangements and socio-technical assumptions on each other, and on learning practices and institutions? What sorts of networks are conducive to knowledge making now? How do the shapes and impacts of open source knowledge arrangements, for example, compare with proprietary ones?  What do these recent formations and experiences tell us about the knowledge institutions and production arrangements to come?

    Envisioning the technological future has too often seemed the province of western technologists. Recent media and economic analyses accurately identify the importance of new technological practices in contemporary Asia. Nevertheless, they often reduce complex historical processes to simplistic narratives: about the invisible hand of technoscience, or about the formerly ignorant attaining progress and becoming newly-empowered individuals and societies. The dominant questions that follow are equally misleading: Does information technology liberate developing countries from their legacy of poverty? Is Asian science as good as western science? Are women empowered by the digital revolution?

    This way of viewing things presumes Asian modernities to be marked by lack and belatedness. It views technology as the sole or dominant driver of social, economic, political and cultural change. It sees scientific ability as inherent to certain kinds of peoples. And it highlights the Asian "tiger "and "dragon" as representative of particular techno-political threats to US dominance.

Sect VII--ReWired: Asian/TechnoScience/Area Studies--will seek a more nuanced understanding of these processes by engaging a diverse set of critical accounts of science and technology as they apply to the historical conditions of these developments in Asia. Computing practices, unlike older forms of technoscience from physics and mathematics to botany and forestry, are increasingly recognized as emerging via networks shaped by, in, and across the formerly "underdeveloped" world, including India, China, South Korea and Taiwan. The Seminar will experiment with juxtaposing histories of "older" sciences with the contemporary practices of "digital natives;" integrating critical knowledge of states, science, and social movements from the histories and social sciences of Asia; engaging studies of cultural production in Asian contexts; and broadening studies of peer-to-peer creative and community-based practices generated by the transnational digital sphere.

Asia has long been part of global flows of knowledge, commodities, and culture, all too readily overlooked in conventional accounts of its "emerging" development. Accordingly, SECT VII will avoid euphoric claims of radical novelty, as well as assumptions of simple continuity with colonial pasts. We approach Asia's disparate hybrid modernities without postulating a unifying Asian modernity, seeking to understand their various, often contradictory but productive discourses of science, technology, digital revolution, political economy, community, nation, and identity.   

    In this experimental critical space, SECT VII will seek to nurture, across disciplinary and regional borders, discussions of the kind that have not flourished within the more established Area Studies or disciplinary paradigms. The seminar space will be one of practical invention and intellectual innovation. We find continuities with other ongoing projects: most notably, the Digital Media Learning initiative of the UCHRI, and the HASTAC program, that aim to create "a generation of scholars equally at ease with current (which is also to say historical) knowledge in the humanities, arts, and social sciences, on the one hand, and with the technological, scientific, and engineering knowledge on the other, with a view to facilitating development of new discoveries and new relations between currently available knowledge sources, in order to digitally prompt new bodies of important knowledge." SECT VII similarly builds on the Poor Theory Manifesto developed out of UC Irvine's Critical Theory Institute that sees the past, present, and future as mutually constitutive and "heterotemporal", attending to the "unsystematic" and undisciplined "practices of the everyday."

SECT VII: ReWired is thus concerned with the large questions of infrastructure and information, social technology and technoscience, institutions of knowledge making and learning. It will be of particular interest to those concerned with Science and Technology Studies, Asian Studies, Global Studies, Digital Media, and their interface. And it will appeal to those drawn to theoretical modesty, tinkering and improvisation, appropriation and recombinatorial experimentation, to relationalities and rearticulations.

Dates: August 1-10, 2011

Location: University of Hawai'i at Mānoa

Instructional faculty:
Itty Abraham, University of Texas
Ivan da Costa Marques, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Wendy Chun, Brown University
Joe Dumit, UC Davis
Roger Hart, University of Texas
Cori Hayden, UC Berkeley
Tim Lenoir, Duke University
Kavita Philip, UC Irvine
Achal Prabhala, Wikimedia Foundation
Sha Xin Wei, Concordia University, Montreal
Nishant Shah, Center for Internet and Society
Lucy Suchman, Lancaster University
Siva Vaidhyanathan, University of Virginia
Kath Weston, University of Virginia

Application Fee: $20

Registration Fee: $1250

Registration fee includes shared housing, instruction, and some meals. 

Applicants are urged to seek funding from their home institutions. A very limited number of scholarships may be available to full time registered students.

Presented by the University of California Humanities Research Institute and the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Hawai'i, Mānoa. For additional information, please visit http://www.uchri.org/sect.php or contact us at sect@hri.uci.edu or 949-824-8900.

Progress Report 1: The Untold Story of Technology

For my research project, I’d really like to expose the other side of technology and advancements of Western culture. For example, I feel that engineering, being born out of capitalism and modern technology, is a lot history. HIS-story is told, the story of the conqueror and it is the same with technology and engineers who create or implement this technology. We only see benefits and progress come out of it because we are the ones who are benefit from it, but what about the other effects that it has on other communities? What may be progress and advancements to us, may be taking a huge step back for others. It is important I feel to realize different world views and how these world views may affect how we view progress.

One example of where I got this idea is the emergence of a ‘new field’ in which humans study animals and their use of plants as medicine. This has been in existence for thousands of centuries, Native peoples’ have always done this, this has been part of the reason they have been able to gain knowledge of the plants and eco-system. This is exactly what I intend to explore with this research project, how we may feel we are using ‘cutting edge’ technology and ‘progressing’ because we are a superior Western culture, but, what if other countries employ the same methods in different ways, but are ignored simply because they do not compete with the West? What if others have more effective and efficient methods?

I don’t have a specific country that I’d like to look at, but I feel it’d be interesting to look at indigenous cultures and go from there. I plan on going to your office hours for a better discussion on direction I should take this.

I also think it'd be interesting to look more into the Academic Military Industrial Complex and how it affects our education as well as shapes our entire world view as a Western Culture.