Graduate STS Workshop
Sign up sheet
Christie - Interested in attending other sessions too, particularly “Virtual worlds”.
Marnia
Erik - wants to go to help out. it's a totally sweet spot.
Invitation
We are working to recruit a number of robotisists, engineers, bio artists, DIY biologists and their works for a retreat at the Marin Headlands Institute that will take place a week from Saturday (June 27). The retreat is the annual gathering of the California Science and Technology Studies (STS) network: a group of over 50 graduate students from disciplines such as philosophy, history, anthropology, and sociology, as well at 7 faculty/postdoctoral researchers. We represent a variety of universities: Stanford, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, UC Irvine, and Santa Clara University.
Marnia and I will be running a workshop on Saturday (from 4:00-7:30, including dinner) called SF Borderlands. We would like to collectively probe science fictions and facts using your work and ideas to help start the conversation. Marnia is an artist (who co-curated the Multispecies Salon with me) and is a member of DIYbio-SF, SWARM, and recently curated the art exhibition at Robogames.
The aim is to give the graduate students the opportunity to learn about robotics, bioart and DIYbio and to prompt them to tell us some original fictions that speak to anxieties, hopes, and theoretical concerns. I envision that for the first 30 minutes or so the robotisists, engineers, bio artists, and DIY biologists would either give a presentation about their work or engage in an extended Q & A session. After that each group of students will get a mission. They will be reading Anna Tsing's "Game of Global Futures" (in a book called Histories of the Future) and playing our own game of sorts. Each group will be assigned a robot or bio project and I will deal each group one of Tsing's missions: "Bring about world peace. Overthrow a government..." Then each group will produce a plausible story (possibly with a multi-media slide show) that fulfills the mission and that speaks to broader concerns in the Science and Technology studies literature.
We can offer to give you money for gas and to feed you diner. You are also welcome to attend any of the other events at the STS retreat.
Let us know if you have any questions about the workshop and see the below link if you want the full details about the STS retreat.
What do you say? Do you think that you might join us?
Warm wishes, Eben and Marnia
http://sts.ucdavis.edu/summer-workshop
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S. Eben Kirksey, Ph.D.
NSF Post-Doctoral Fellow 2008-2010
Web: people.ucsc.edu/~skirksey/
Direct-line: +1.831.600.5937 Projects: http://www.skyhighway.com/~multispecies/
Marnia Johnston Independent Artist marniajohnston.com (650) 520-1878
