ANNOUNCEMENTS AND ADVERTISEMENTS Postmodern Culture v.6 n.1 (September, 1995) pmc@jefferson.village.virginia.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Every issue of Postmodern Culture carries notices of events, calls for papers, and other announcements, free of charge. Advertisements will also be published on an exchange basis. If you respond to one of the ads or announcements below, please mention that you saw the notice in PMC. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Special Announcements * Cultural Cartographies Conference Award * PMC Call for Hypermedia Work ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Publication Announcements * Essays in Postmodern Culture * College Literature * LIT: Literature, Interpretation, Theory * Re-thinking Marxism * October * rachitecture * rachitecture 1.4 * Doom Patrols * Coded Messages: Chains * Electronic Antiquity * Feminist Majority * I/O/D TWO * Imagination * The Katharine Sharp Review * "LX," Interactive Short Story on the Internet * BUZZNET * The Poverty of Dialectical Materialism * Modern Fiction Studies * Speed * In Some Unrelated Land * Gruene Street * Women in French Studies * Project MUSE * Desktop Publishing * Directory of Electronic Journals * NewJour Announcement List * Public-Access Computer Systems Review ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Conferences and Events * NASIG Conference * Theories and Metaphors of Cyberspace * Evolving or Revolving * Patheticism * French Feminism * Queer Coalitions * International Assoc. for Philosophy and Literature * The Good, the Bad, and the Internet * Society for Literature and Science * Technical and Skills Training Conference * Access '95 WWW Conference ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Calls for Contributions * Assault: Radicalism in Aesthetics and Politics * Conduites * Computers and Writing XII * trans/forms * Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture * The Missing as Cultural Discourse * Comparative Drama Scandinavian Issue * Visual Behaviors/Digital Productions ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Other Announcements * The Black Poetic Society * Steven A. Coons Award * Gypsy Lore Society * E-Zine Survey * Asian American Media Mall * Teen Smoking ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Publication Announcements * Essays in Postmodern Culture An anthology of essays from Postmodern Culture is available in print from Oxford University Press. The works collected here constitute practical engagements with the postmodern -- from AIDS and the body to postmodern politics. Writing by George Yudice, Allison Fraiberg, David Porush, Stuart Moulthrop, Paul McCarthy, Roberto Dainotto, Audrey Ecstavasia, Elizabeth Wheeler, Bob Perelman, Steven Helmling, Neil Larsen, David Mikics, Barrett Watten. Book design by Richard Eckersley. ISBN: 0-19-508752-6 (hardbound) 0-19-508753-4 (paper) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Centennial Review [Image] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * College Literature [Image] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * LIT: Literature, Interpretation, Theory [Image] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Re-thinking Marxism [Image] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * October [Image] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * rachitecture 1.4 rachitecture v.1#4 rachitecture is my version of architecture on the internet. as a 'net based newsletter, it's only function is to get you out there to have a look around. of course, what is out there is always changing, and what seems interesting does too. in keeping with last month's architectures without the conventional plan and section, i must recommend a site put up by joseph squier called the place. why i think this place is architecture, or at the very least inhabitation, is told eloquently in his manifesto. if we are to wonder about cities we must think about the people who live in them and record them. but be warned, the images are large and even after you've loaded them some of these pictures will take you a long time to look at. the last few releases of rachitecture have largely focused on the theoretical implications of digital technologies on making cities and buildings, largely to the exclusion of buildings and cities themselves. fortunately, in the last few months, the number of architecture firms on the net has increased, bringing with them images of their work, as well as concreted examples of current digital practice. the range of approaches that architectural firms are taking toward the net range quite far a field. julie eizenberg, of koning eizenberg has created a portfolio of their work at ucla's school of architecture and urban design. North American Stijl Life, on the other hand, has a website devoted to their work in different mediums, and their practice has come to include design work ford websites as well. then there are the renegades, architects and designers who now devote considerable attention to work in digital media. one of the most notable firms doing this is io/360. most firms, however, are treading the line between virtual and real, using each to illuminate the other. a good example of this is space and light, whose use of radiance software has allowed them to model lighting effects in complex spaces like james stewart polsheck's inventure museum. simon crone has also done some work with radiace that shows off a little more detail. other good examples of the radiance software, may be found at the the School of Architecture, Property and Planning in Aukland, NZ (home of matieu carr, whose work we have profiled before). due to new zealand laws, their server is in danger of being shut down to international traffic, if this concerns you and you'd like to help, see their site. the Lighting Research Center at Renssaler is the world's largest university-based research and educational institution dedicated to lighting, and its pretty technical. for a slightly more poetic approach see graphica obscura's: properties of light for that non-pixel kind of light, the interior of the new building for the san francisco museum of modern art by mario botta, pays very close attention to the use of natural light, both in the main public spaces and in the more intimate gallery spaces. things feel so transitory on the web lately, you are probably running out of time to see terence chang's architecture thesis as he will graduate this summer, but check it out. his project was to create an architecture for a virtual school of architecture, and the work is impressive both conceptually and in it's final expression. someone needs to hire this guy and hire him soon. if you can finagle access to a vrml browser (that's a virtual reality modeling language), like sgi's webspace, check out terence's vrml models. they are the best use of vrml i have seen so far!! so there it is. comments, questions and suggestions are always welcome. rachitecture is available through email subscription at webworks@sirius.com, if you want to subscribe or be taken off the mailing list write me and on the subject line write "rachitecture." webworks@sirius.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Rachitecture rachitecture is my version of architecture on the internet. as a 'net based newsletter, its only function is to get you out there to have a look around. of course, what is out there is always changing, and what seems interesting does too. there are hundreds of architects out there who are working with computers but not doing "architecture" per se, what are they doing? what are they thinking about? where are the new technologies taking them? at first blush, the work of young architectural refugees seems to be just that -- the work of refugees. stephen perella speaks to the "homelessness" of the architect in the digital realm, in HYPERSURFACE architecture, a paper he presented at the doors of perception 2 conference. homeless or not, architects are not without skills. at columbia, eden muir and rory o'neill have started to ask questions about the role of the architect in this strange new world in The Quality of Life . . . Online. it's about time that architects start to view computers as more than just tools. malcolm mccullough has looked very closely at how architects use computers and how these uses have led to new ideas about practice in his book Digital Design Media. more recently he has been thinking about the implications of this new medium in Abstracting Craft. (malcom is heading off to xerox parc soon, so these pages may not be up for long). while the materials in digital design may be different from the materials of architecture, the essential issues are shared across both disciplines. structure, circulation and the detail are all necessary to create compelling web spaces, or to say it another way, a building must have a good interface. architects are good at creating interfaces, its what we are trained for. the problems faced by web designers are very similar to our own problems. in barking up the wrong hierarchy, nick routledge points out that the most difficult part of web design is navigation. navigation, action, perception are all within the provinence of the architect. in hypertext and hypermedia, the importance of these design issues is often hidden by the apparently associative way in which the reader "creates" the text. but the underlying structure still exists, much as a building becomes the background in which occupants trace their own paths of circulation. regardless of how accidental it may appear, the space of the interaction still has to be designed, as nathan shedrof of vivid studios points out. with the advent of vrml -- virtual markup reality language, and the promise of hot java, the need for carefully designed physical models of navigation and action will come to the fore in web design. and according to mark pesce, one of the creators of vrml, this is not a job for the technologist but for the designer. while the initial uses of vrml have been in more refined replications and representations of the of the physical world -- be it architectural or chemical -- vrml also suggests the possibility of creating three dimensional information spaces, which is to say zones of information you can move around in (in three dimensions) a la william gibson's vision of cyberspace. this is a curious inversion of architectural theory in which edifices will be literally be constructed from text -- and information will be clustered in a manner that we can actually navigate in and manipulate with our hands. the media lab at mit has been sponsoring a lot of work in this area. earl rennison and lisa strausfeld, have spent a great deal of time investigationg these ideas at the visual language workshop. unfortunately you need an sgi onyx to see their work. some of their peers at the media lab are investigating similar themes and have examples that you can see on the web, check out the work of david small and robin kullberg. all of this is not say that i think architecture is dead. it's just that the practice of architecture is getting bigger. computers are giving us new projects to work on as well as changing the ways that we work on "traditional" projects. at basilisk, they're paying attention to these things. greg lynn's studio FORM is using computers to generate new forms. And in "instrumentalities and projects," ed keller describes how computers are leading to new approaches to architectural production. this was the first release of rachitecture devoted entirely to other architectures. there are hundreds of architects who aren't doing architecture on the web -- but what they are doing is changinging the way we think about the web and the way we think about the practice(s) of architecture. rachitecture is interested in these transformations and is sponsoring a forum devoted to ideas, writings and projects about the work of the architect in the digital realm. submittals or suggestions should be sent to webworks@sirius.com if you miss physical buildings, don't despair, rachitecture will continue to devote its attention to architecture on the web in all its forms, from the virtual to the real. and in case you were afraid that we were leaving the real world behind, check out how christo and jeanne-claude have been wrapping the leftovers. so there it is. comments, questions and suggestions are always welcome. rachitecture is available through email subscription at webworks@sirius.com, if you want to subscribe or be taken off the mailing list write me and on the subject line write "rachitecture." webworks@sirius.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Doom Patrols I'm writing to announce the Internet publication of my new book, DOOM PATROLS, which may be of interest to readers of Spoon Collective mailing lists. DOOM PATROLS is a 'theoretical fiction' about postmodernism and popular culture. Its subject matter ranges from comic books to MUDs and MOOs, from pornography to sociobiology, from William Burroughs to My Bloody Valentine to Dean Martin. Its theoretical references range from Deleuze and Guattari to Marshall McLuhan. Overall the book is an attempt to rethink many of the debates on postmodernism and on critical theory that have been so prominent in recent years (and that have certainly figured on many of the Spoon Collective lists). The book has been published in its entirety, and (for the time being) exclusively on the World Wide Web. It can be accessed at the URL: http://dhalgren.english.washington.edu/~steve/doom.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Coded Messages: Chains NEW SITE ON THE WWW - CODED MESSAGES: CHAINS Coded Messages: CHAINS is at once the most visceral and the most conceptual hypermedia found today on the World Wide Web. These unique pages feature breathtaking images, sounds, and video clips from the groundbreaking intercultural collaborative performances of the same name. Step into the midst of a remote African village. Step into a slave trade castle. Step at once into history and into the future. CHAINS Web will connect you and tradition in a new, continuous present. The CHAINS pages raise provocative questions about the power of language and communication in traditional and post-modern society today. They connect our friends in Ghana (where there is no Internet service at all) and Web surfers who can hop around the world at the click of a mouse. As a visitor to the CHAINS pages, you will experience the power of "the code" with every page and link. Come visit Coded Messages: CHAINS today, and add your voice to the site that grows everyday! Point your browser (Netscape 1.1 is required) to the following URL: http://found.cs.nyu.edu/andruid/CHAINS.html E-mail inquiries and comments to: andruid@slinky.cs.nyu.edu or mlang@eagle.wesleyan.edu Coded Messages:CHAINS is hosted by the NYU Center for Digital Multimedia (http://found.cs.nyu.edu/CAThome_new.html) and Courant Institute Media Research Lab (http://found.cs.nyu.edu/MRL/) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Electronic Antiquity ELECTRONIC ANTIQUITY: COMMUNICATING THE CLASSICS ISSN 1320-3606 Peter Toohey (Founding Editor) Ian Worthington (Editor) EDITORIAL BOARD Jenny Strauss-Clay (Virginia) Elaine Fantham (Princeton) Joseph Farrell (Pennsylvania) Sallie Goetsch (Michigan) Mark Golden (Winnipeg) Peter Green (Austin) William Harris (Columbia) Brad Inwood (Toronto) Barry Powell (Wisconsin) Harold Tarrant (Newcastle, NSW) (01) LIST OF CONTENTS (02) ARTICLES Alexanderson, B., "Ad Jacobi De Voragine Legendam Auream Adnotationes Criticae" (03) REVIEWS When the Lamp is Shattered: Desire and Narrative in Catullus by Micaela Janan Reviewed by Jacqueline Clarke Greek Rational Medicine: Philosophy from Alcmaeon to the Alexandrians by James Longrigg Reviewed by Mark Timmins The Athenian Cavalry by Ian Spence Reviewed by J.K. Anderson (04) KEEPING IN TOUCH Accommodation in UK Didaskalia Supplement 1 Conference: Aspects of Power in the Ancient World Australian National University, 12-14 July 1995 (Abstracts) Electronic Forums & Repositories for the Classics by Ian Worthington (05) GUIDELINES FOR CONTRIBUTORS Electronic Antiquity Vol. 3 Issue 1 - June 1995 edited by Peter Toohey and Ian Worthington antiquity-editor@classics.utas.edu.au ISSN 1320-3606 A general announcement (aimed at non-subscribers) that the journal is available will be made in approximately 12 hours time over the lists - as a subscriber you will be automatically contacted in advance when future issues are available. The editors welcome contributions (all articles will be refereed, however a section - Positions - will exist for those wishing to take a more controversial stance on things). HOW TO ACCESS Access is via gopher or ftp or World Wide Web. The journal file name of this issue is 3,1-June1995. Previous issues may also be accessed in the same way. GOPHER: o info.utas.edu.au and through gopher: o open top level document called Publications o open Electronic Antiquity. o open 3,1-June1995. o open (01)contents first for list of contents, then other files as appropriate FTP: o ftp.utas.edu.au (or info.utas.edu.au) o > departments o > classics o > antiquity. o In Antiquity you will see the files as described above. World Wide Web: ftp://ftp.utas.edu.au/departments/classics/antiquity/3,1-June1995 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Feminist Majority The Feminist Majority Online -- http://www.feminist.org In the two weeks we have been up, the Feminist Majority Online has received over 50,000 hits, been named Best Non-Profit Women's Site for 1995, added hundreds of entries to our Feminist Faculty Network, and received many messages of support and encouragement. Thanks to all who have visited and helped to spread the word, as well as provide suggestions for further improving the site. One of the most common requests was that we make it easier for interested users to be informed of major additions to this large site, such as this week's detailed table of women's issues mailing lists. In addition, many users expressed a desire to stay informed on key issues. Thus, the Feminist Majority Online would like to announce a new, important expansion of our commitment to using the Internet to fight for women's equality. Beginning immediately, we invite you to join our Feminist Alert Network. We have set it up as an informational mailing list -- to subscribe, send an email message to: majordomo@feminist.org with "subscribe fem-alert" in the message body. Alternately, you can sign up directly on our site, at http://www.feminist.org/action/femalert.html. While there, be sure to take a look at our Field Notes From Beijing, as mentioned in today's Washington Post. Thanks for all your support -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * I/O/D TWO "Most current multimedia takes it as read that our eyes are desperate for stimulation: like rotten fruit, they'll collapse inwards gushing foul liquids if they don't get enough feed. Deprivileging the eye in multimedia offers us a chance of rediscovering synaesthesia after the bureaucratisation of the body into organs" -- from the editorial. I/O/D 2 is an investigation of the physicality of multimedia. Destroying notions of a 'transparent' interface, blacking out the screen, dragging the user into the machine - it is the first interactive work to use a sound-led interface. Against a background of a multimedia culture that is content to be just a minor branch of behaviourism, I/O/D is commited to experiment. Issue Two includes: "Addictionamania" by the Critical Art Ensemble is a history of narcotics, addiction and excess. "If It Weren't for You I Wouldn't be Here" by Peter Plate - instructions to be used when hit by a rubber bullet during a budget cut protest "Home Sweet Home" by Maxine Boobyer - embroidery as digital imaging. "Sound" by the 12th Sonderkommando - extreme speedcore assault, a sound based operating system I/O/D is produced by: Simon Pope, Colin Green and Matthew Fuller I/O/D is aided and abetted on the nets by Calum Selkirk. CONTACT: Post: I/O/D, BM Jed, London, WC1N 3XX, UK E-mail: cselkirk@freenet.columbus.oh.us or matt@axia.demon.co.uk Where is I/O/D available from? I/O/D 1 and 2 are available for downloading as an easy-to-decrypt Binhex file from the following sites. o via World Wide Web at the I/O/D home page: + http://mcjones-mac.wca.ohio-state.edu/i_o_d + http://www.uio.no/~mwatz/i.o.d/ o I/O/D is also available on a disk by post within the UK for PS3 per issue. Cheques and Postal Orders to be made payable to 'Cactus' from: I/O/D, BM Jed, London, WC1N 3XX, UK. Technical Requirements: I/O/D comes by post as a Self Expanding Archive (SEA) containing a Macromind Director player and attendant files on one High Density disk. It is also available on various networks (see above) as a Binhexed SEA. I/O/D requires a Mac with at least eight megabytes of RAM, Quick Time and a 14 inch screen. Unfortunately, faster is better - this is something we're working on. Further details about the producers: Simon Pope and Colin Green are interactive designers from Cardiff, Wales. Their unique and iconoclastic approach to interface has won them international recognition. Matthew Fuller is the editor of the key anthology of critical cyberculture Unnatural, Techno-Theory for a Contaminated Culture, and an editor of the paper Underground. Further details about the contributors: Peter Plate is a San Francsico based novelist. His latest book is One Foot off the Gutter, published by Incommunicado. 12th Sonderkommando are 'Soundtracks for an Insurrection' recorded by Jason Skeet of Dead by Dawn technoparties and Dean Whittington of Fist magazine. Critical Art Ensemble are a collective of six artists of various specializations dedicated to exploring the intersections between art, technology, radical politics, and critical theory. Their widely acclaimed book The Electronic Disturbance was published last year by Semiotext(e). Maxine Boobyer is an artist working in Cardiff and London. Her work is focussed on playful disruptions of the commonplace and mundane. Issue One is also available from the above sites and from directly from us by post. It includes: "Eschatology" by Mark Amerika, a frenetic collapse of suposedly discrete narratives which finds Madonna and Nikola Tesla fighting their way out of each other's skins. "Black Capital" by Stephen Metcalf is a convulsive reading of Burroughs that traces the trade routes of disintegration. Recordings by Scanner forming a random archaeology of the telephonic voice, to seep sporadically into your cranium. "Filth" by Graham Harwood is a bug-eyed sequence of anti-interactive graphics that drags the digital into the bacterial and back. Future issues will include material by: Ronald Sukenick and TechNet -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Imagination Imagination is a non-profit international e-journal proposed by a group of students in Bogazici University as a sub-project of Imagination Project, whose objectives are: o To show the importance of imagination in our lives o To encourage people to explore their imagination o To encourage people to make use of their imagination in their daily lives o To explore alternative theories and their applications for current problems in various fields by combining knowledge and imagination Imagination E-Journal is planned to be created by a voluntarily international staff. We have already published our first issue by the efforts of the initial staff. We are growing with new contributions. If you would like to take a look at Imagination E-Journal just navigate to Imagination WEB at this address: http://www.busim.ee.boun.edu.tr/imagination/ In addition, we have opened a discussion list as a playgorund for people to imagine and share their imagination with many other people by means of their e-mails. If you would like to take a look at the current discussions held in Imagination Discussion List, you can subscribe by sending this command to listproc@boun.edu.tr: subscribe imagination Your_Name We want to meet with other e-journals which have already started their adventures on Internet. I would be happy if I could get some info about your e-journal. If you have any ideas/suggestions or critics feel free to send me an e-mail. Ersin Beyret Editor, Imagination E-Journal Bogazici University 80815 Istanbul/TURKEY E-Mail: beyret@boun.edu.tr Address: Bogazici University, Bebek-Istanbul/TURKEY Imagination, the skill to dream the different one... -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * The Katharine Sharp Review The Katharine Sharp Review ISSN 1083-5261 http://edfu.lis.uiuc.edu/review The Katharine Sharp Review, the premiere review of student scholarship in library and information science, announces the publication of its inaugural issue! KSR is published by the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and showcases student authors writing about issues that range from those that affect the core of contemporary librarianship to new concepts in network administration. Come take a look! Articles are available in both HTML and PDF formats. http://edfu.lis.uiuc.edu/review Table of contents: o Louise F. Spiteri - The Classification Research Group and the Theory of Integrative Levels o Peter McCracken - Disaster Planning in Museums and Libraries: A Critical Literature Review o Shannon Crary, Jane Darcovich, Tracy Hull, & Anna Maria Watkin - The Advances of Technology: A Case Study of Two Midwest Academic Slide Libraries o Steven E. Egyhazi - A Study of Interlibrary Loan of Video at Indiana University, Bloomington o Michele Freed, Arthur Hendricks, Robert Sandusky, & Jian Wang - A Higher Level Information Tool for Network Administrators o Robert Schroeder - Access vs. Ownership in Academic Libraries o David Saia - Advocacy for Bibliographic Instruction: A Challenge for the Future Kevin Ward Editor The Katharine Sharp Review review@edfu.lis.uiuc.edu http://edfu.lis.uiuc.edu/review -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * "LX," Interactive Short Story on the Internet Steinkrug Publications have created an interactive short story which uses the hypertext capabilities of the World Wide Web to achieve multiple narratives. The purpose of the work is to demonstrate the flexibility which can be achieved once the restrictions of printed mediums have been removed. It also provides an indication of how multi channel mediums, such as cable television, could revolutionise drama, soap operas and even advertising. "LX" is the story of four people who, despite coming from different backgrounds, find their paths crossing during the course of a day. Each character's view of events is in the form of a separate web page. The reader is able, therefore, to retrieve the characters they are interested in and read their story off line. Each account forms a self contained story. However, within the text there are hypertext links to other characters and these can be selected if the reader wishes to change the viewpoint or to follow the character to another scene. Hypertext markers, other than names, link to descriptions of memories and fragments of media output which influence the way the character reacts to, or perceives, events. Using the approach adopted in the creation of "LX" it is possible for other authors to introduce characters into a particular scenario. Also, regardless of which Web site they reside on, characters are able to 'interact' with each other. "LX" can be accessed from Flames Magazine on the World Wide Web at:- http://www.gold.net/flames/ "LX" Key Characters: o Alex Lane is a post graduate who has reached the end of his current research and is undecided as to whether he should continue as an academic or move into the media industry. He is faced with prospect of considering both options during the same day when an interview with the advertising company, Media Lines, coincides with a conference at which he is a speaker. o Lana Thompson is also a postgraduate. But she, unlike Alex, is committed to continuing her research. For the past three years she and Alex have been close but in recent weeks differences over their work have had an impact on their relationship. o Jack Nettles is the owner of Media Lines, an advertising agency which has been in decline since the end of the 80's. Jack is still trying to come to terms with a rapidly changing attitude to advertising which, for the most part, he doesn't understand. o Jane Reed is Media Lines' Creative Manager. Although she is on the verge of leaving the company she still sees the of recruitment of a new employee as a possible route to getting a new company car. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * BUZZNET The fourth issue of BUZZNET is now up on the Internet at http://www.hooked.net/buzznet. In this issue of BUZZNET, readers can explore San Francisco's burgeoning ambient music scene with Colin Berry, a contributor to Wired and author of the recently published 'A Pocket Tour of Music on the Internet." They can also get up close and personal with the Japanese band Pizzicato Five and their Los Angeles worshippers, and get the scoop on SFO2, an annual showcase of San Francisco's best unsigned bands. BUZZNET also covers fiction, visual arts and sports with the same cutting-edge sensibility. Up-and-coming writers survey the best in underground comics, and a BUZZNET sports writer sits on the bench with infamous Sportschannel/Westwood One talk show host Scott Ferrall. Starting soon, BUZZNET will list its readers homepages in THE HIVE. If you have a homepage, please email the URL to info@buzznet.com or use the handy dandy form which can be accessed from the cover page: http://www.hooked.net/buzznet. BUZZNET was started in August, 1994, by San Francisco twenty-somethings Anthony Batt, Marc Brown, Alistair Jeffs and Mike Levin. "We started BUZZNET because there were no magazines on the Web we wanted to read," Brown says. "So we built our own." The first issue of BUZZNET went up on the World Wide Web in January, 1995, mainly to document San Francisco's third annual Noise Pop Festival. "We printed pictures of the festival and put them on-line the day after they were taken so people all over the world could see them," Jeffs says. "Since then, that's been done by the Macintosh Music Festival, but they had a few more dollars behind them." If you've missed past issues of BUZZNET, don't worry. The fourth issue offers access to back issues. BUZZNET can be found by setting a World Wide Web browser such as Netscape to http://www.hooked.net/buzznet/. For best results, BUZZNET should be viewed with Netscape 1.1+, but the site offers a "text-only" index as well as its "Full Graphic Assault." Contact: Marc Brown or Alistair Jeffs info@buzznet.com Buzznet, 461 second street suite 207, sf, ca 94107 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * THE POVERTY OF DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM by Eric Petersen In these days of Post Modernism everyone is taking another look. Here is "another look" that is long overdue. Eric Petersen critically examines a century of received wisdoms and questions the prevailing line on nature. Dialectical materialism is an often mentioned but little understood attempt to confirm the political theories of Marxism with the discoveries of natural science. Does it deserve to be better understood, or does it deserve to be ditched? This book aims to rescue Marxism from attempts to elevate it to a superuniversal ontology and restore it to what it was originally: a guide to human liberation by socialist revolution. Cover designed by Steve Irons SYNOPSIS Chapters. (1) The Marxist tradition has never completed a comprehensive statement of its philosophy. Consequently, dialectical materialism has wrongly occupied centre stage. (2) Philosophy is the vanguard of science. (3) The Dialectic, as postulated by philosophy, is a process of constant change and development which is driven by internal contradictions and present in all things. (4) Marx and Engels based their political theory upon the dialectic of history, and (5) speculated that identical processes were present in nature. (6) Most Marxists have thought that nature is dialectical and that Marxism is a theory of politics and nature. (a) Plekhanov first coined dialectical materialism and popularised the view that Marxism was a guide to nature. (b) The Second International de-humanised Marxism's social philosophy. (c) Lenin restored human creativity in social philosophy, but popularised Plekhanov's view of nature. (d) Stalinism turned dialectical materialism into an authoritarian state religion. (e) Mao used dialectical materialism to justify Stalinist politics in China. (f) Trotsky used dialectical materialism to misunderstand Stalin's counter-revolution. (g) Most Trotskyists are loyal to Trotsky on this point, even though it doesn't assist their politics. (h) Not all Marxists agree, but none have formulated a coherent critique of dialectical materialism. (i) It is necessary to assault dialectical materialism on its own terms, and test it against natural science. (7) Natural science is the best guide to nature. (8) Dialectical materialism does not assist natural science. (9) Human society is based upon conscious human labour; it obeys laws that are fundamentally different to natural laws. (10) The materialist conception of history is a guide to history and political science. (11) Dialectical materialism is useless in politics. (12) The associated Marxist philosophy of nature is: materialism, atheism, and support for the potential of natural science under rational human control. Appendices. (A) Dialectical logic is useful in political theory. (B) Engels' attempts to apply dialectics to nature were a product of the Marx-Engels relationship. (C) Marx and Engels applied historical materialism in their practical politics. (D) Trotsky, when not talking dialectical materialism, made major contributions to Marxism. PUBLISHER This book is published by Red Door Co-op, a group of independent artists set up to publish and market all forms of art for artists who have no other outlet for their work. Red Door are happy to receive enquiries from other artists. HOW TO OBTAIN THE BOOK You may obtain the book by ordering it from Red Door Co-operative Limited or alternatively if you wish I can send you sections of it via the internet on request. The book retails for $18.95 but preview copies can be obtained at a discount rate of $15.00. To obtain a copy of this book, fill in the preview copy order form and send to Red Door, 24 Morris Street, Summer Hill NSW 2129, Australia Phone: 61 2 798 6074. Fax: 61 2 798 6786. Preview Copy Order Form: Name:.......................................................... Address:....................................................... ............................................................... Petersen,EG Dialectics of Materialism No:...................... Barcham, J through the keyhole No:...................... Amount enclosed $....................................... ALSO PUBLISHED BY RED DOOR - JUST OUT Jeff Barcham, _Through the Keyhole_ Poetry by a promising young Sydney artist with a review by prominant Australian poet Geofferey Lehmenn and 13 pen and ink. illustrations by Steve Irons Review Copy price $10.00 "Can a Lung Forget to Breathe?" A Review of Jeff Barcham's poetry _Through the Keyhole_ Reviewing a book of poetry that promises to deal with a young man's own sexuality? In this feminist world, such a project must be approached with caution. There are too many examples of where similar projects have fallen in a heap of guilt or wallowed in the mire of quasi feminist substitutionism or, even worse, of subdued anger trying to 'reclaim the night' from the girls ("after all, we men have feelings too" they whine in careful indignation). This book, _Through the Keyhole_ by Jeff Barcham (Red Door, 1995, $12.00 Academic preview $10.00) is a book about the sexual feelings of a young man. But search as I might, I find no cause for alarm. The title prepares me for the poet's main subject, which is his own feelings, particularly feelings about his sexual experiences. But reading the work, I find a refreshing honesty and openness, as a young man comes to terms with his inner world. A stunning, exciting and frightening world of anger, lust, passion and grief. No urge to be politically correct here, just an honest portrayal of such things as jealousy, fear, hatred and his own form of sexual experience. The work is not polluted by the urge to promote a correct view of the world or, alternatively, by a hatred of women. On the contrary, the book is more an insight, a window onto someone else's world. The fact that this world happens to be the secret world of a man, is an accident of birth, and of the personal need of that man to grow to maturity in twentieth century fin de siecle. This is Jeff Barcham's first published book of poetry. Nicely presented, with original drawings by Steve Irons and a foreword by well-known Sydney poet, Geoffrey Lehmann, at $10 it's a steal. The book is published by Red Door, a new co-operative venture promoted by independent Sydney artists. This may make it hard to locate, as normal outlets are not in the habit of promoting such work, but I've heard on the grapevine that a simple phone call to Red Door will secure a copy. The book is in four parts. The first part appears to be an attempt to capture moments of experience in a few unrelated words. These early works take their lead, I am sure, from Haiku, the traditional Japanese poetic form that presents a complete idea in a few syllables. Not always successful, they nevertheless are a smart way to begin, for they prepare the reader for what is to follow: Naked, supine, open Watching with lust, your pleasure soar, into mine Part two is a series of stories. These stories cover a range of experiences, from the lust for the girl in the Michael Jackson video, the guilt felt as the phone rings 'a regular twenty minute interval' to interrupt thoughts about an illicit interlude that has just ended, to obtaining porn at school from a budding entrepreneur. The last three works in this section are major pieces of work. The first describes in tactile detail the experience of losing a lover to a stupid car accident, the feeling of anger, of being betrayed, of being under siege, as remorse shuts out the rest of the world. The second describes the 'sympathy of friends' as they try to relate to the grief felt by the poet and fail. The third relates the experience of watching a friend die momentarily, before his eyes, in a Grand Mal: Look, and see, alive and breathing the fate of us all, as age overtakes youth, mire and incontinence rasp away decades of careful sculpting and decoration Part three, is about love. Much of it is unrequited. The poet deals with his desire and pain and weakness and lack of courage. Later in the chapter there is the excitement and soaring elation of romantic love, only to be dashed again in a true love that can never be. A love that is real, but lost 'in an instant': Nor will it fade with time, as if the come and go of days could make a lung forget to breathe! With the sweet memory comes too the aching hole inside, and even to fill it in would not suffice. Part four is passion. The sexual reality of hot flesh, porn, masturbation, homosexuality, suicide and lust. The poem "Closet Industry" describes in livid detail the reality of the public toilet for gays and prostitutes. _Through_ the Keyhole: Not for the prude or the weak hearted, but definitely worth a look. Review by Barrington Bateman 2/3/95 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Modern Fiction Studies MFS: Modern Fiction Studies now has an active web site. Our URL is http://www.sla.purdue.edu/academic/engl/mfs/ Patrick O'Donnell Editor, MFS Patrick O'Donnell Professor of English and Editor, MFS -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Speed We're happy to be linked from PMC and have returned the favor. We have a Web site of our own now, that we think looks a lot better than the "gopher" version. See if you agree: http://www.arts.ucsb.edu/~speed Benjamin Bratton editor, Speed. e-mail: 6500benb@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * In Some Unrelated Land Pilgrim Press announces the publication of its first online serial, IN SOME UNRELATED LAND, a novel with art on the World Wide Web written by Martha Conway. http://www.ced.berkeley.edu/~mang/title.html IN SOME UNRELATED LAND is Berkeley, California, where twenty-two year old Jane Brandt moves after her parents die in an accident. With few friends and no money, Jane tries to set up a new life: she gets a trial job working for a new-age publisher in his basement, moves into a communal house, and divides her wages among rent, beer, and drugs. IN SOME UNRELATED LAND chronicles one summer in Jane's life, a time of unusual liaisons and hand-to-mouth living -- it is the freefall of someone waiting for "real" life to begin. The novel will be published in nine parts on the World Wide Web. Each part is divided into 7-10 short linked files, with art incorporated into the text. IN SOME UNRELATED LAND is complete, and will be published over the next twelve weeks. PUBLISHING SCHEDULE: Sept. 4 I get a job Sept. 15 Drugs Sept. 29 I learn more about many things Oct. 6 Day rides and night rides Oct. 13 The cat dies Oct. 20 And I escape to New York Oct. 27 Lucy and Henry Nov. 3 After the Met Nov. 10 Home ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Martha Conway is a published writer and book reviewer living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work has appeared in The Quarterly, The Carolina Quarterly, Puerto del Sol, Folio, Enterzone, Mississippi Review Web, and other publications. She is currently working on her next novel. This novel is being published on the shareware model, but if you are interested in a free review copy, please contact Mona Mang at pilgrim@eworld.com. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Gruene Street Literary E-Journal Announcement & Call for Submissions The premiere issue of Gruene Street: an Internet Journal of Prose & Poetry is now available online from the following sources: o THE ONLINE LITERATURE PROJECT AT VIRGINIA TECH: http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/olp/gs/gruene.html o THE E-TEXT ARCHIVES: + gopher://gopher.etext.org/11/Zines/GrueneStreet + ftp://ftp.etext.org/pub/Zines/GrueneStreet If you are unable to access these sites, drop us a note and we'll forward you a copy of the first issue & submission guidelines. Submission guidelines are included within the ASCII version of the journal and ON the masthead page (near the end of the first document) in the web version. We are currently accepting submissions of poetry, short fiction, essays, criticism, and reviews to be considered for issue #2. The deadline for submission is 1 November 95. ******************************************************************* G R U E N E S T R E E T: An Internet Journal of Prose & Poetry ******************************************************************* Volume #1, Issue #1 Summer 1995 ******************************************************************* Editors Amelia F. Franz Matthew Franz ******************************************************************* * * * * C O N T E N T S * * * * ******************************************************************* ---- P O E T R Y ---- Autopsy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leilani Wright Spoor The Gun of a Dead Man Three Mile Island. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Janet McCann Coming Back from Okanogan. . . . . . . . . . . George Perreault Vespers Dancing Naked on the Mesa Temporary Meaning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . James Cervantes Neighbours. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Colin Morton ---- F I C T I O N ---- The Way You Swim in Dreams. . . . . . . . . . . Douglas Lawson The Jew's Wife. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thomas Hubschman from _Oceans Apart_ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Colin Morton ---- E S S A Y S and C R I T I C I S M ---- On Collaboration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sherry Lee Linkon The Writing on the Bijou Wall: . . . . . . . Steven G. Kellman Cinema and Post-Literate Culture ---- R E V I E W S ---- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, _Strange Pilgrims_ . . . Douglas Lawson Kay Cattarulla, Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . Amelia F. Franz _Texas Bound: 19 Texas Stories_ ******************************************************************* (c) Copyright 1995 ISSN Pending ******************************************************************* -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Women in French Studies http://www.fln.vcu.edu/wif/foyerwif.html WOMEN IN FRENCH STUDIES is an annual publication of WOMEN IN FRENCH, open to all WIF members, with a special Women In French Graduate Essay Prize. Articles deal with women in literature and culture in France and Francophone countries. Info: chall@acad.ursinus.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Project MUSE Project MUSE is the fruit of Johns Hopkins University's effort to publish all forty-odd of its journals electronically. JHU's system boasts several interesting features: hypertext bibliographies, a search engine, a convenient and straightforward approach to subscriptions and licensing, and more. Last I checked MUSE offered three or four journals, with more anticipated soon. You can find out more at JHU's Web site [URL not provided with this notice]; look under the icon for the university's libraries. Geoffrey Paul Eaton World Bank Publications geaton@worldbank.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Desktop Publishing http://www.demon.co.uk/cyber/dp/dp.html A magazine for prepress and design professionals. Issues can be browsed onlined via WWW, or downloaded in .pdf (Adobe Acrobat) and enhanced text formats. Current Feature Articles o Operating Systems - Andy Hornsby gives an overview o Grid Expectations - The importance of the grid and its recent development o Print Futures - Is ink and paper publishing doomed? o Scanner Selection - Andy Hornsby on compromises that must be faced o Image enhancement - How to put life into pictures that fall below par o Points and picas - Why traditional measurements have their place Contact: webweaver@greened.demon.co.uk -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Directory of Electronic Journals DIRECTORY OF ELECTRONIC JOURNALS, NEWSLETTERS, AND ACADEMIC DICUSSION LISTS, 5th Edition, May 1995 (GOPHER EDITION) An abridged version of this resource is available on the ARL gopher as of June 30th, 1995. The URL is: gopher://arl.cni.org:70/11/scomm/edir Here is the path to the gopher version: yourprompt> gopher arl.cni.org Scholarly Communication Directory of Electronic . . . 1995 . . . This version contains a significant subset from the full database version available via the printed edition, including: Introduction, Foreword, a link to Charles Bailey's E-Publishing Bibliography, and the Titles/Descriptions/Contact information for nearly 700 Internet serials and 2500 discussion lists. The journal and newsletter entries were compiled by Lisabeth King, Research Assistant at ARL; the gopher version was compiled by Douglas Lay, Research Assistant at ARL. The e-lists are coordinated and maintained by Diane K. Kovacs and Team, Kent State University. The resource was made available on the ARL server by Dru Mogge, Electronic Services Coordinator. For those of you who link to our resource, the 1994 files have now been dropped and your links to us may no longer work. Please update them, and if you have questions, please contact Dru Mogge (dru@cni.org) For electronic information about the printed edition and how to order it, please contact: osap@cni.org Phone: 202-296-2296; Fax: 202-872-0884 Ask for Patricia Brennan, Communications Services Coordinator -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * NewJour Announcement List NewJour is an electronic announcement list that updates the ARL Directory of Electronic Journals and Newsletters between its annual, formal printed and networked editions. As of June 1995, it has 2,000 subscribers from all seven continents and posts on average ten new networked serials per day. "New" titles are either brand new creations or titles that are newly discovered for the ARL database of e-serials. NewJour welcomes your interest and announcements and hopes to offer enhanced services before the end of 1995. To subscribe to NewJour, send a message to: majordomo@ccat.sas.upenn.edu Leave the subject line blank and in the body of the message type: subscribe NewJour Direct postings of new serials should be directed to: NewJour@ccat.sas.upenn.edu NewJour was created in Summer 1993 and and provides a place for creators of new electronic journals to report their plans and announcements to potential subscribers. It is also updated by postings from the ARL staff as they routinely discover new Internet serial titles (journals, newsletters, magazines, zines, and other formats). This electronic conference began on server space provided by the American Mathematical Society. In January of 1995 it relocated to a site offered at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Computer Analysis of Texts, a group that offered service and support for our growing enterprise. The complete set of backfiles of NewJour postings is updated daily It is a fully searchable archive and can be found at: gopher://ccat.sas.upenn.edu:5070/11/journals/newjour The list is co-moderated by: Ann Okerson/Association of Research Libraries James O'Donnell/Professor of Classics, University of Pennsylvania Happy Serial Cyber-Hunting to you all, Ann Okerson/Association of Research Libraries Washington, DC ann@cni.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Public-Access Computer Systems Review ---------------------------------------------------------------- The Public-Access Computer Systems Review Volume 6, Number 3 (1995) ISSN 1048-6542 ----------------------------------------------------------------- COMMUNICATIONS Roderick D. Atkinson and Laurie E. Stackpole, TORPEDO: Networked Access to Full-Text and Page-Image Representations of Physics Journals and Technical Reports The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Library and the American Physical Society (APS) are experimenting with electronically disseminating journals and reports over NRL campus networks. The project is called TORPEDO (The Optical Retrieval Project: Electronic Documents Online). It involves storing and disseminating two APS journals (Physical Review Letters and Physical Review E) as well as the NRL collection of unclassified, unlimited distribution technical reports. These paper-format journals and reports are scanned at NRL to create CCITT Group IV image files, the image files are converted to ASCII files using OCR, both types of files are associated with bibliographic information, and they are imported into a client/server-based commercial imaging system. A variety of retrieval techniques are used: full-text searching using fuzzy logic, bibliographic searching, and hierarchy browsing. Client software is provided to display page images of journals and reports at workstations running Microsoft Windows, Macintosh OS, or the X Window System. o HTML file: http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/v6/n3/atki6n3.html o ASCII file: gopher://info.lib.uh.edu:70/00/articles/ e-journals/uhlibrary/pacsreview/v6/n3/atkinson.6n3 o List Server: Send the e-mail message GET ATKINSON PRV6N3 F=MAIL to listserv@uhupvm1.uh.edu. COLUMNS Public-Access Provocations: An Informal Column Walt Crawford, (for)Getting It: Toward Small Solutions Convergence is a crock. The virtual library is a real impossibility. Grand solutions don't work. The real future is one of many small solutions pointing in many different directions. o HTML file: http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/v6/n3/craw6n3.html o ASCII file: gopher://info.lib.uh.edu:70/00/articles/ e-journals/uhlibrary/pacsreview/v6/n3/crawford.6n3 o List Server: Send the e-mail message GET CRAWFORD PRV6N3 F=MAIL to listserv@uhupvm1.uh.edu. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Editor-in-Chief Charles W. Bailey, Jr. University Libraries University of Houston Houston, TX 77204-2091 (713) 743-9804 cbailey@uh.edu Associate Editor, Columns Leslie Dillon, OCLC Associate Editor, Communications Dana Rooks, University of Houston Associate Editor, Production Ann Thornton, University of Houston Editorial Board Ralph Alberico, University of Texas, Austin George H. Brett II, Clearinghouse for Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval Priscilla Caplan, University of Chicago Steve Cisler, Apple Computer, Inc. Walt Crawford, Research Libraries Group Lorcan Dempsey, University of Bath Pat Ensor, University of Houston Nancy Evans, Pennsylvania State University, Ogontz Charles Hildreth, University of Oklahoma Ronald Larsen, University of Maryland Clifford Lynch, Division of Library Automation, University of California David R. McDonald, Tufts University R. Bruce Miller, University of California, San Diego Paul Evan Peters, Coalition for Networked Information Mike Ridley, University of Waterloo Peggy Seiden, Skidmore College Peter Stone, University of Sussex John E. Ulmschneider, North Carolina State University List Server Technical Support List server technical support is provided by the Information Technology Division, University of Houston. Tahereh Jafari is the primary support person. Publication Information The Public-Access Computer Systems Review is an electronic journal that is distributed on the Internet and on other computer networks. It is published on an irregular basis by the University Libraries, University of Houston. There is no subscription fee. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to listserv@uhupvm1.uh.edu that says: SUBSCRIBE PACS-P First Name Last Name. Circulation PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU: 9,392 subscribers in 71 countries (PACS-L is estimated to have 10,000 additional USENET subscribers). PACS-P@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU: 3,287 subscribers in 58 countries. Electronic Distribution Each article is initially distributed in both ASCII and HTML formats. ASCII files are paginated. They are available from the following servers: o List Server: Send the e-mail message GET INDEX PR F=MAIL to listserv@uhupvm1.uh.edu. o ASCII: gopher://info.lib.uh.edu:70/11/articles/e-journals/ uhlibrary/pacsreview HTML files are not paginated. HTML files may have linked GIF files. HTML files may have internal links, external links, or both. The editors do not maintain external links. HTML files are available from the following server: http://info.lib.uh.edu/pacsrev.html In consultation with article authors, the editors determine whether an article is updated, whether both ASCII and HTML files are created for updated articles, and whether all prior versions of an article are retained. Print Distribution The first four volumes of The Public-Access Computer Systems Review are also available in book form from the American Library Association's Library and Information Technology Association (LITA). (Volume five is in process.) The price of each volume is $17 for LITA members and $20 for non-LITA members. All four volumes can be ordered as a set for $60. To order, contact: ALA Publishing Services, Order Department, 50 East Huron Street, Chicago, IL 60611-2729, (800) 545-2433. Copyright The Public-Access Computer Systems Review is Copyright (C) 1995 by the University Libraries, University of Houston. All Rights Reserved. Copying is permitted for noncommercial, educational use by academic computer centers, individual scholars, and libraries. This message must appear on all copied material. All commercial use requires permission. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Conferences and Events * Cultural Cartographies Conference Award Postmodern Culture is pleased to present the PMC Cultural Cartographies Award to Matt DeVoll (Tulane University) for his paper, "The New England Puritans and Post-colonial Crises of Faith." The paper was delivered at "Cultural Cartographies: Mapping the Postcolonial Moment," a graduate-student conference held on March 24-26, 1995, at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. The award carries an honorarium of $100. Presenters at the conference were invited to submit their papers for an essay competition, to be judged by the conference organizers and by the editors of Postmodern Culture. Work presented at the conference was considered overall to be very strong; indeed no one work can be considered the best offered for our consideration, so much so that wewould like to list all the finalists for the prize. They are: Jill Bradbury (Brown U), "Mapping Revisions: Postcolonial Studies and the Canon" Joel L. Coleman (U of Georgia), "One Hundred Years of Sand: Translation, Text and Marginality in L'Enfant de Sable and Cien Años de Soledad" Meredith Goldsmith, "Of Masks and Mimicry: The Making of a Black Male Subject in Bloke Modisane's Blame Me On History" Christian A. Gregory (Umiversity of Florida), "Rhythm and Algorithm: Seriality, Capital and the Post-Colonial Aura" Afshan Hussain (University of Virginia), "Salman Rushdie and Islamic Fundamentalism" Touria Khannous (Brown University), "Where Can We Find Her? The Beur Woman as a Postcolonial Fugitive in France" Matt DeVoll's essay shows particular inventiveness and original use of scholarship. It theorizes through the postcolonial instead of addressing recognized postcolonial subjects or reading postcolonial works. In this way it extends and reaffirms postcolonial theory as a discipline and a way of thought. -- Eyal Amiran The conference will be held again this academic year. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * NASIG Conference 11TH ANNUAL NASIG CONFERENCE (1996): CALL FOR PAPERS, WORKSHOPS, AND PRECONFERENCES "Pioneering New Serials Frontiers: From Petroglyphs to Cyberserials" The North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG), an organization that serves the interests of U.S., Canadian and Mexican members of the serials information chain, will make a stop on scenic Route 66 in 1996. Our eleventh annual conference to be held June 20-23, 1996 at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, a city which balances the prehistoric past with a high-tech present. NASIG's annual conference provides a forum in which librarians, publishers, vendors, educators, binders, systems developers, and other serials specialists exchange views, present new ideas, proactively seek solutions to common problems, and discuss matters of current interest. The proceedings are published in Serials Librarian and in electronic format on the NASIG gopher. NASIG's Program Planning Committee invites proposals for plenary papers and preconferences that deal with "big picture" aspects of the theme. We are especially interested in papers or pre- conference ideas that will explore the pioneering boundaries and relationships of NASIG's various constituencies. Examples: o a new generation of multi-media serials publications o can electronic serials be adequately preserved/archived? o the role of preprint databases in scholarly communication o emerging roles for libraries, publishers and vendors o the development of strategic alliances between commercial firms and non-profit institutions o how scholars and the academy view the serials frontier o is access in lieu of ownership really working? o the end-user as selector or "collection manager" o what kinds of serials do users want? o AACR2 and the information age: is the code still relevant? o will the World Wide Web replace the online catalog? The Committee also invites workshop and preconference proposals that will provide practical ideas and assistance in dealing with an information world which combines both print and electronic serial publications. Examples: o cooperative serials collection development projects o cataloging electronic/multimedia serials/the Internet o reorganizing to meet new customer expectations o educating/retraining serialists for emerging information roles o serials processing/cataloging resources found on the Internet o how to obtain customer feedback o new technologies/services/software packages/standards o writing successful grants o Internet use by publishers and vendors o techniques for preserving electronic/paper serials NASIG invites anyone in the information community to submit proposals and suggested topics/speakers. The Program Planning Committee reserves the right to combine, blend, or refocus proposals to maximize program breadth and relevance to our membership. As a result, only one presenter from proposals submitted by teams may be invited to participate. Since proposals are reviewed competitively, please include complete information for maximum consideration: o name, address, telephone/fax numbers, and e-address of the proposer(s) program title o a 200-300 word abstract clearly explaining the proposal and, if appropriate, its relevance to our theme o a prioritized preference for the proposal: plenary, workshop, or preconference Proposals should be submitted -- via e-mail if at all possible -- no later than August 1, 1995 to Susan Davis, NASIG Secretary, to receive consideration. Send proposals to: Susan Davis Head, Periodicals University at Buffalo Lockwood Library Bldg. Buffalo, NY 14260-2200 fax: 716-645-5955 email: UNLSDB@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Theories and Metaphors of Cyberspace CALL FOR PAPERS Symposium: THEORIES AND METAPHORS OF CYBERSPACE modelling the cognitive and social implications of global networking as part of the 13th European Meeting on Cybernetics and Systems Research EMCSR '96, Vienna, April 9-12, 1996 Symposium URL: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/cybspasy.html About the Symposium: A symposium organized by the Principia Cybernetica Project (PCP) will be held at EMCSR '96. Chairpersons are F. Heylighen and S. Umpleby. The objective is to better understand the implications of the present explosive growth in global computer networks, like the Internet or the World-Wide Web. We wish to develop models of how these networks will further develop and how they will affect individuals and society on all levels. Soon, the whole of human knowledge will be directly available to any person with access to a networked computer. Moreover, communication between individuals will become much easier, faster, and more transparent. "Smart" computer systems will allow novel applications (virtual reality, intelligent agents, distributed processing, automated indexing . . .) that no one ever would have dreamt of. These changes will affect and deeply transform all aspects of society: education (distance learning, electronic universities), work (telework, groupware), commerce (electronic cash and banking), the media, government (electronic democracy), health, science and technology . . . . It seems as though society's collective intelligence will increase and diversify, perhaps producing an evolutionary transition to a higher level of intelligence. As these developments are so fast, and so difficult to predict, precise models are usually not possible. In that case, comprehension may be helped by using analogies. Examples of such metaphors for global network functions are the "Information Superhighway," the network as a "Super-brain," which emphasizes the collective intelligence of all users and computers connected by the network, Jacques Vallee's notion of an "information singularity," which notes that networked information becomes instantaneously available everywhere, and "Cyberspace" itself, which visualizes networked information as an immense space through which one can "surf." Metaphors, however, only express a few aspects of a multidimensional phenomenon. Therefore, we should move to more detailed and comprehensive models, which can be tested by observation, implementation or simulation. Cybernetics, as a theory of communication, information and control, seems most directly applicable to such model-building, but valuable insights may come from the most diverse domains: sociology, futurology, AI, complex systems, man-machine interaction, cognitive psychology, etc. Our emphasis is on concepts, principles, and observations, rather than on technical protocols or implementations, although existing systems may provide a concrete illustration from which more general implications can be derived. The Conference: The European Meetings on Cybernetics and Systems Research are possibly the most important and best organized large congresses in their domain. Though they are called "European" by tradition, they really bring together researchers from all continents. Among the distinctive features are the high quality, well-distributed Proceedings, which are available at the start of the Conference. Therefore, papers should be submitted quite a while before the start of the conference. Submission of papers: Full papers on the above themes should be directly submitted to the Conference Secretariat (mentioning you wish to submit to Symposium L), not to the Symposium Chairs. However, we would like you to already send a 1 to 2 page abstract of your paper to F. Heylighen (fheyligh@vnet3.vub.ac.be), so that we can tell you quickly whether this topic is suitable for the symposium, and so that the abstract can be made available on the World-Wide Web for other participants to read. We would like to receive the abstract well enough in advance so that you would be able to get your full paper ready by the October 12, 1995 deadline. (Note that acceptance of the abstract does not necessarily imply acceptance of the full paper.) About Principia Cybernetica: The Principia Cybernetica Project (PCP) is a collaborative attempt to develop a complete cybernetic and evolutionary philosophy. Such a philosophical system should arise from a transdisciplinary unification and foundation of the domain of Systems Theory and Cybernetics. Similar to the metamathematical character of Whitehead and Russell's Principia Mathematica, PCP is meta-cybernetical in that we use cybernetic tools and methods to analyze and develop cybernetic theory. These include the computer-based tools of hypertext, electronic mail, electronic publishing, and knowledge structuring software. They are meant to support the process of collaborative theory-building by a variety of contributors, with different backgrounds and living in different parts of the world. PCP thus naturally develops in the "cyberspace" of interlinked documents on the World-Wide Web. PCP's web server can be found at http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/. PCP is being developed as a dynamic, multi-dimensional conceptual network. The basic architecture consists of nodes, containing expositions and definitions of concepts, connected by links, representing the associations that exist between the concepts. Both nodes and links can belong to different types, expressing different semantic and practical categories. As its name implies, PCP focuses on the clarification of fundamental concepts and principles of the broadly defined domain of cybernetics and systems, which includes related disciplines such as the "sciences of complexity," AI, ALife, Cognitive Science, Evolutionary Systems, etc. Concepts include: Complexity, Information, Entropy, System, Freedom, Control, Self-organization, Emergence, etc. The PCP philosophical system is to be seen as a clearly thought out and well-formulated, global "world view", integrating the different domains of knowledge and experience. It should provide an answer to the basic questions: "Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going to?". The PCP philosophy is systemic and evolutionary, based on the spontaneous emergence of higher levels of organization or control (metasystem transitions) through blind variation and natural selection. It includes: a) a metaphysics, based on processes or actions as ontological primitives, b) an epistemology, which understands knowledge as constructed by the subject or group, but undergoing selection by the environment; c) an ethics, with survival and the continuance of the process of evolution as supreme values. Philosophy and implementation of PCP are united by their common framework based on cybernetic and evolutionary principles: the computer-support system is intended to amplify the spontaneous development of knowledge which forms the main theme of the philosophy. PCP is managed by a board of editors, presently: V. Turchin [CUNY, New York], C. Joslyn [NASA and SUNY Binghamton] and F. Heylighen [Free Univ. of Brussels]. Contributors are kept informed through the PRNCYB-L electronic mailing list. Further activities of PCP are publications in journals or books, and the organization of meetings or symposia. More information about PCP is available at http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/, by anonymous ftp to is1.vub.ac.be, directory /pub/projects/Principia_Cybernetica, or by email request to PCP@vnet3.vub.ac.be. About EMCSR '96: Cybernetics - "the study of communication and control in the animal and the machine" (N.Wiener) - has recently returned to the forefront, not only in cyberpunk and cyberspace, but, even more important, contributing to the consolidation of various scientific theories. Additionally, an ever increasing number of research areas, including social and economic theories, theoretical biology, ecology, computer science, and robotics draw on ideas from second order cybernetics. Artificial intelligence, evolved directly from cybernetics, has not only technological and economic, but also important social impacts. With a marked trend towards interdisciplinary cooperation and global perspectives, this important role of cybernetics is expected to be further strengthened over the next years. Since 1972, the biennial European Meetings on Cybernetics and Systems Research (EMCSR) have served as a forum for discussion of converging ideas and new aspects of different scientific disciplines. As on previous occasions, a number of sessions providing wide coverage of the rapid developments will be arranged, complemented with daily meetings, where eminent speakers will present latest research results. SESSIONS + Chairpersons: A. General Systems Methodology G.J.Klir, USA B. New Developments in Mathematical Systems Theory Y. Rav, France, and F. Pichler, Austria C. Complex Systems Analysis and Design J.W. Rozenblit, USA, and H. Praehofer, Austria D. Fuzzy Systems, Approximate Reasoning and Knowledge-Based Systems C. Carlsson, Finland, K.P. Adlassnig, Austria, and E.P. Klement, Austria E. Designing and Systems, and Their Education B. Banathy, USA, W. Gasparski, Poland, and G. Goldschmidt, Israel F. Humanity, Architecture and Conceptualization G. Pask, UK, and E. Prem, Austria G. Biocybernetics and Mathematical Biology L.M. Ricciardi, Italy H. Cybernetics and Informatics in Medicine and Psychotherapy M. Okuyama, Japan, and G. Porenta, Austria I. Cybernetics of Socio-Economic Systems and of Country Development K.Balkus, USA, P.Ballonoff, USA, and S.A.Umpleby, USA J. Systems, Management and Organization G. Broekstra, Netherlands, and R. Hough, USA K. Communication and Computers A.M.Tjoa, Austria L. Theories and Metaphors of Cyberspace F. Heylighen, Belgium, and S.A. Umpleby, USA M. Knowledge Discovery in Databases Y. Kodratoff, France N. Artificial Neural Networks and Adaptive Systems G. Palm, Germany, and G. Dorffner, Austria O. Theory and Applications of Artificial Intelligence V. Marik, Czech Republic, and E. Buchberger, Austria SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: Acceptance of contributions will be determined on the basis of Draft Final Papers. These Papers must not exceed 10 single-spaced A4 pages (maximum 43 lines, max. line length 160 mm, 12 point), in English. They have to contain the final text to be submitted, including graphs and pictures. However, these need not be of reproducible quality. The Draft Final Paper must carry the title, author(s) name(s), and affiliation (incl. e-mail address, if possible) in this order. Please specify the symposium in which you would like to present your paper. Each scientist shall submit only one paper. Please send four hard copies of the Draft Final Paper to the Conference Secretariat (NOT to symposia chairpersons!) Electronic or fax submissions cannot be accepted. DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION: October 12, 1995. Submissions received after the deadline cannot be considered. NOTIFICATION OF ACCEPTANCE/REJECTION: Authors will be notified about acceptance or rejection no later than December 11, 1995. Successful authors will be provided by the conference secretariat at the same time with the instructions for the preparation of the final paper, which will also be available via ftp and World-Wide Web. FINAL PAPERS: The final paper will be limited to a maximum of 6 pages (10-point, double column). Camera-ready copies of the final paper will be due at the conference secretariat by January 29, 1996. Acceptance of the final paper will be based on compliance with the reviewers' comments. PRESENTATION: It is understood that each accepted paper is presented personally at the Meeting by one of its authors. CONFERENCE FEE: AS 2800 if received before January 31, 1996. AS 3300 if received later. AS 3800 if paid at the conference desk. The Conference Fee includes participation in the Thirteenth European Meeting, attendance at official receptions, and the volume of the proceedings available at the Meeting. Please send cheque, or transfer the amount free of charges for beneficiary to our account no. 0026-34400/00 at Creditanstalt-Bankverein Vienna. Please state your name clearly. HOTEL ACCOMMODATIONS will be handled by OESTERREICHISCHES VERKEHRSBUERO, Kongressabteilung, P.O.Box 30, A-1043 Vienna, phone +43-1-58925-118, fax +43-1-5867127. Reservation cards will be sent to all those returning the attached registration form. SCHOLARSHIPS: The International Federation for Systems Research and the Austrian Society for Cybernetic Studies are willing to provide a limited number of scholarships covering the registration fee for the conference and part of the accommodation costs for colleagues from weak currency countries. Applications should be sent to the Conference Secretariat before October 12, 1995. - The EMCSR organizers cannot handle applications for participants to obtain support from other sources. CHAIRMAN of the Meeting: Robert Trappl, President, Austrian Society for Cybernetic Studies SECRETARIAT: I. Ghobrial-Willmann and G. Helscher, Austrian Society for Cybernetic Studies A-1010 Vienna 1, Schottengasse 3 (Austria) Phone: +43-1-53532810 Fax: +43-1-5320652 E-mail: sec@ai.univie.ac.at ------------------------------------------------------------------------ EMCSR-96 THIRTEENTH EUROPEAN MEETING ON CYBERNETICS AND SYSTEMS RESEARCH Please return to: Austrian Society for Cybernetic Studies Schottengasse 3, A-1010 VIENNA, AUSTRIA (EUROPE) E-mail: sec@ai.univie.ac.at o I plan to attend the Meeting. o I intend to submit a paper to Session ..... o I enclose the Draft Final Paper. o My Draft Final Paper will arrive prior to October 12, 1995. o My cheque for AS ....... covering the Conference Fee is enclosed. o I have transferred AS ........ to your account 0026-34400/00 at Creditanstalt Vienna. o I shall not be at the Meeting but am interested to receive particulars of the Proceedings. Name : Address : City : Country : Email : If you wish to present your paper in the session L, "Theories and Metaphors of Cyberspace", please send a copy of this form AND a 1 to 2 page abstract in ASCII or HTML by email to fheyligh@vnet3.vub.ac.be. (The abstract should not be sent to the Vienna address above). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Evolving or Revolving EVOLVING or REVOLVING 25 years of Electronic Information The Eusidic Annual Conference 1995 October 17, 18, 19 Huis ter Duin Hotel, Noordwijk aan Zee The Netherlands On April 20th 1970 a small group of organisations set up an Association to "further the interests of operators of data tapes." Thus was founded EUSIDIC, the European Association of Information Services. Over the last 25 years Eusidic has grown to include a unique mixture of major players from all branches of Information, including major users, publishers and distributors from virtually every country in Europe - West and East, and beyond. Eusidic is the largest association of its kind in Europe and can claim to be the representative of the widest set of interests in what is prospected as the 21st century's major industry. The 25th Anniversary Conference will review the state of the art and introduce new ideas, a still valid formula which was at the heart of the founders requirements. - PROGRAMME & APPLICATION - Tuesday 17 October '95 a.m. The Keynote Speeches Robert Hall, former President, Thomson Information/Publishing Group Frau Ebe Ilmaier, Head of Information & Systems, Shell International, the Hague Hermann Pabbruwe, President, Wolters Kluwer. p.m. Barriers to information use Toby Chaum, Digicash, on the prospects for secure, anonymous, electronic payments Richard Black, Personal Library Software, will discuss interface strategies for different markets Douglas Armati, on the problems and possible solutions for Intellectual Property management Jak Boumans, on dealing with multiple 'document' types, medias and formats. Wednesday 18 October '95 a.m. Mass markets Patrick Gibbins, Maris Multimedia, UK Christian Bruck, Europe Online, Luxembourg Hans Dinklo, IT & Electronic Media, NL Eudald Domenech, Servicom, Barcelona. . . . will describe their experiences and analysis of the "mass market" for information products & services. p.m. Information managers Elisabeth Gayon, Elf Aquitaine and Professor Albert Angehrn from Insead will discuss - "Who manages information" in today's organisation." They will debate the issue with a distinguished panel of information managers. At the end of the afternoon there will a report and discussion on Eusidic's activities and work programme. Thursday 19 October '95 Mergers & Acquisitions The commercial development of the information sector, in particular the tendency to concentration, and the development of strategic alliances, will be the subject of papers by Rosalind Resnick, editor of Interactive Publishing Alert; Harry Collier, founder editor of Monitor, Liz Sharpe, well known as a 'company doctor' in the field and Max Henry of Information Access Corporation. The changes in roles On Thursday afternoon there will be a session entitled "The Information Chain - a paradigm lost?" It will include presentations by Bonnie Lawlor, formerly of ISI; Prof. Stevan Harnad author, and editor of electronic journals; Sally Morris, a Director of Wiley, on the publishers role and Prof. Charles Oppenheim, who will examine the new roles of the information professional. Location: The Conference will be held in the 5 star Grand Hotel Huis ter Duin, on the coast about 20 Km from Amsterdam and about 15 kms from Schipol Airport. Transport will be arranged for delegates, to and from Schipol and Amsterdam. Hotel Reservations: Eusidic can make reservations for delegates at the special conference rate of 141 ECU single; 155 double, per night. Reservations are firm and payable unless cancelled by 15 Sept. Substitution is permitted. - APPLICATION FORM - Name: Organisation: Address: Post Code: Country: Tel: Fax: wishes to register for the Eusidic Conference in Noordwijk, 17 - 19 October 1995. Fees: Eusidic Members: 350 ECU ($ 470) Non-members: 550 ECU ($ 670) Invoices will be issued; they are payable, at latest, by 1 October. Your VAT (TVA, Mwst, etc.) Number: Hotel Booking- Please reserve accommodation for: Saturday October 14 Sunday October 15 Monday October 16 Tuesday October 17 Wednesday October 18 Thursday October 19 Friday October 20 Other dates (specify): Hotel bills will be paid directly by delegates, on departure. Signed: Date: Send to: Eusidic, PO Box 1416, L-1014 Luxembourg Fax: (+352) 250 750 222 Email: nuala.mahon@dm.rs.ch -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Patheticism The patheticism conference is free and open to the public. All question and answer sessions will be recorded and included within the manuscript submitted for publication. ____________________________________________________________ Friday 18 Aug 1995 Trinity College Dublin Swift Lecture Hall A _____________________________ 2:00 p.m. -- Opening Remarks 2:15 p.m. -- Pathos, The Pathetic, 'Patheticism' Peter Heslin Classics Department, Trinity College Dublin "Pathos In Greek Drama And Its Nachleben In Latin Epic" J.E. Mahon Department of Philosophy, Duke University "Ruskin and the 'Pathetic Fallacy'" Fadi Abou-Rihan Philosophy Dept., University of Toronto "Silence x Scattered, (un)Finished Thoughts" 3:45 p.m. -- Pathetic Personae Gavin Budge English Dept., University of Central England "Affect and Impersonality: Hume's pathetic egoism and the dissolution of the author in sentimental narrative." Beth Elaine Wilson Art History Dept., SUNY College at New Paltz "Andy Warhol and the Pathetic Persona" Mark Shiel British Film Institute "The Sublime and the Pathetic: Godard's Pierrot le fou" 5:15 p.m. -- Pathetic Performers Pamela Thurschwell Cornell University/University of Cambridge "Coma As You Are" Kasey Hicks English Department, Stanford University "'I Don't Understand What You Did To My Dog': They Might Be Giants' Antironic Recuperation of the Pathetic" 6:15 p.m. -- Infantile Regression David Strauss English Dept., New York University "Sun Ra: Jazz And The Infantile Infinite" Maria Walsh Art History Dept., Chelsea College of Art and Design "From Empathy To Extimacy" 8:00 p.m. -- Conference Reception ___________________________________________________________ Saturday 19 Aug 1995 Trinity College Dublin Swift Lecture Hall A _______________________________ 10:30 a.m.-- Pathetic America Sally Jacob English Department, Cornell University "Anachronistic Humanism and Journalistic Voyeurism - Notes from the Margins of the Culture Industry" T. Hugh Crawford Dept. of English, Virginia Military Institute "Textual Anorexia: 'Bartleby,' Latour, and Deleuze" Michael Booth Department of English, Brandeis University "Patheticism, the Press, and the Right Wing Terrorist" 12:00 p.m. -- Mourning and Melancholia - part 1 Mary Bratton UWCC - Cardiff "Me or Not Me - the lost object?" Desmond Maurer Classics Department, Trinity College Dublin "Lucian and the Immorality of Funerals, or the Failure of the Late Greek Critique of Grief" 1:00 p.m. -- Lunch 2:30 p.m. -- Mourning and Melancholia - part 2 Brian Dillon School of English, Trinity College Dublin "The Attenuated Sublime: Pathos, Grief and Abandoned Being" Eva Heisler History of Art Dept., Ohio State University "Fragmentation in Kiki Smith" 3:30 p.m. -- Pathetic Resistance Joanna Rakoff English Dept., University College London "Unreality Bites: American Ideology and the So-Called 'Dirty Realists'" Edward M. Lorsbach School of English, Trinity College Dublin "'Bubble and scrape': lo-fi resistance" Simon Tilbury Darwin College Cambridge "'This Curious Obliteration': Failure, Hostility and Laura Riding's Abdication from the Canon" 5:00 p.m. -- Revenge of the Object Stuart Mclean Anthropology Dept., Columbia University "Some Explorations In The (Anti-) Social Life of Things" Alyce Mahon Courtauld Institute of Art, University Of London "Theory, Garbage, Stuffed Animals: Mike Kelley and Patheticism" David Wheatley School of English, Trinity College Dublin "'Mute Phenomena': Derek Mahon's Post-subjective Poetry" -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * French Feminism CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT There will be many great papers on French Feminism presented at the 1995 SPEP (Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy) Conference this year. The conference will be held at DePaul University in Chicago on October 12-14, 1995. If you are interested in any of the following topics, please plan to attend this exciting conference. Here is a list of the papers dealing specifically with French Feminism: 1. Special session on Tina Chanter's book, Ethics of Eros -- Thursday, Oct. 12 from 1:00-3:00pm (room will be announced at registration) 2. Kelly Oliver, "Defending Irigaray against Kofman's Freud: Freud's Fear of Birth" -- Saturday, Oct. 14 from 9:00-11:45 am 3. Ellen T. Armour, "Theorizing Desire Between Women" -- Saturday, Oct. 14 from 12:00-2:00pm 4. Anne Caldwell, "Fairy Tales for Politics: Un-working Derrida Through Irigaray" -- Saturday, Oct. 14 from 12:00-2:00pm 5. Michael J. Monti, "Nature and Poiesis in an Ecology of Sexual Difference: Irigaray and Ecofeminism" -- Saturday, Oct. 14 from 12:00-2:00pm 6. Morny M. Joy, "Passionate Involvements: Luce Irigaray and an Erotics of Ethics and Hermeneutics" -- Saturday, Oct. 14 from 12:00-2:00pm The Beauvoir Circle will also be holding a special session on Thursday, Oct. 12 from 9:00-12:00noon. The following papers will be presented: 1. Eleanore Holveck, "Beauvoir and Sartre: Novel Approaches to Ethics" 2. William McBride, "Philosophy, Literature, and Everyday Life in Beauvoir and Sartre" 3. Kristana Arp, "Willing Others Free: The Evolution of an Idea" 4. Thomas Anderson, "Beauvoir's Influence on Sartre's First Ethics -- and Vice Versa" The Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy will also hold a special session to discuss pragmatism, feminism, and continental thought on Thursday, Oct. 12 from 9:00-12:00noon. The following papers will be presented: 1. Lenore Langsdorf, "Common Sense and Possessed Sense: Dewey and Husserl on Knowing from the Inside" 2. Charlene Haddock Seigfried, "Re-weaving the Social Fabric" There will be many other papers on all subjects in Continental Philosophy presented at this conference. This is the annual conference of SPEP and is the largest conference on Continental Philosophy held in America. If you are interested in attending, or want to know how to join SPEP, please read the following. Registration for the 1995 SPEP conference will be inthe DePaul Center, beginning at 9:00 a.m. and ending at 5:00 p.m. each day of the conference. Full conference schedules, including room assignments, will be available at registration. Abstracts of all papers will also be provided. The official conference hotel is The Blackstone Hotel located on Michigan Avenue at Balboa Street, Chicago IL 60605. The conference rate is $99/single, $109/double, and other rates. Reservations must be made no later than September 14 to obtain these special rates. When making reservations, please mention that you are part of the SPEP conference. The telephone number is 1-800-622-6330. The hotel is located within a short walking distance of the DePaul Center, where the conference will take place. If you need any other information about the conference or about SPEP, please email Kristin Switala at kswitala@cecasun.utc.edu. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Queer Coalitions The 6th Annual National Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transidentified Graduate Student Conference Miami University, Oxford, Ohio April 4-7, 1996 CALL FOR PAPERS/PRESENTATIONS Through panel presentations, performances, conversations, and cultural events, QUEER COALITIONS offers a forum that builds bridges across disciplines. QUEER COALITIONS seeks to create communities across traditional barriers. In November 1992 in Cincinnati, Ohio, located 50 miles south of Miami University, Cincinnati City Council passed a Human Rights Ordinance prohibiting discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations. This Ordinance protected Cincinnati citizens on the basis of race, gender, age, handicap, marital status, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, or Appalachian identity. Exactly one year later a group known as "Equal Rights Not Special Rights" called into question the category of "sexual orientation" in the Human Rights Ordinance and brought it to Cincinnati voters on the November ballot. Sixty-two percent of the voters passed this charter amendment known as Issue 3 denying protection to anyone on the basis of sexual orientation. In addition to the defeat at the polls, Cincinnati City Council voted this past March to repeal "sexual orientation" from the Human Rights Ordinance that originally protected queer Cincinnatians. And on May 12th the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati upheld the anti-queer initiative, Issue 3. At present, Cincinnati's Issue 3 is waiting to be heard by the United States Supreme Court. What occurred in Cincinnati is by no means an isolated series of events. Other communities have been devastated by such legislation; for example, the passage of Proposition 187 in California. Communication across racial, class, and gendered barriers has been wounded by this series of defeats. QUEER COALITIONS invites students, activists, performers, and artists from a variety of disciplines to engage in collective discussion of new approaches to building bridges inside and outside of queer communities. The conference planning committee requests abstracts and/or proposals (1-2 pgs.) for papers and presentations that discuss, interrogate, and contest these and other issues in "queer" studies: o ACTIVISM/ACADEMICS o AIDS RELATED RESEARCH o GENDER REASSIGNMENT TECHNOLOGY o COLLECTIVE KINK POLITICS o BUILDING MOVEMENTS o TRANSGENDER o TRANSEXUALITY o SEXUALITY AND CULTURAL NATIONALISMS o QUEER POLITICS o HOMOPHOBIA IN HEALTH CARE o LESBIAN AND GAY PARENTING o ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION RESEARCH o CHICANO/A SEXUALITY o LESBIAN FEMINISM o SEXUALITY IN ETHNIC STUDIES o LEGALIZING SAME SEX MARRIAGES o BISEXUALITY o DOMESTIC PARTNER LEGISLATION o LESBIAN AND GAY SEXUALITY IN THE AFRICAN DIASPORA o POST COLONIALISM AND QUEER SEXUALITY o LESBIANS WITH AIDS o SAFE SEX o S/M o PLEASURE AND SEXUALITY o ASIAN AMERICAN SEXUALITY o LESBIAN AND GAY HISTORIES o ANTI-QUEER LEGISLATION o VIOLENCE/ABUSE IN SAME SEX RELATIONSHIPS o HEALTH CARE REFORM FOR QUEERS o POLITICS OF SEXUALITY IN ETHNIC STUDIES o PEDAGOGY o QUEER SEXUALITY IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES o QUEER GEOGRAPHIES o LESBIAN BEREAVEMENT o QUEER FILM o HETEROSEXISM o QUEER THEORY Please send submissions and queries to Queer Coalitions, c/o Marcy Knopf, Miami University, Department of English, Bachelor Hall, Oxford, Ohio 45056 DEADLINE: JANUARY 16, 1996 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * International Assoc. for Philosophy and Literature The International Association for Philosophy and LIterature (IAPL) is holding its 20th anniversary conference at George Mason University from May 8-11, 1996. Plenary Speaker: ROSI BRAIDOTTI, Univ. of Utrecht, "Figurations of Nomadism" Paper submissions are being accepted for the following sessions: 1. Agonistic Imagination: literature and philosophy in the postcommunist restructuring of Eastern Europe 2. Between Acts: Masculinity as Performance 3. The Claims of Culture 4. Culture as Agon, Culture as Ritual: East-West perspectives 5. The Cultural Drama of Madness: Descartes, Derrida, Foucault and the Appropriation of Mental Illness 6. The Cuture of the Theatrical/The Theatricality of culture: the early modern experience of the stage 7. Dark Horizons: recovering from Philistinism and consumerism 8. The Drama of Masochism 9. Dramatic/Traumatic Agon: poets and thinkers on Greek tragic art 10. Drastic Measures: staging law, agency, persons 11. The Echo of the Original: translation as arena for the drama of culture 12. Gifts and Goods: bodies of work 13. History and Repetition: the first time tragedy, the second time, farce 14. Jocasta, Mary, Madonna: otherdom, motherdom, eroticism 15. Media-Culture: on the verge of the drama 16. The performance of Nationhood: citizens in their (im)proper places 17. Postcolonial perspectives on Southern Africa 18. Provisional Theaters: becoming-other at the end of the millennium 19. Transculturalism in contemporary art If you would like to submit a paper on one of these topics or receive more information about the conference, please contact one of the conference directors: Wayne J. Froman wfroman@gmu.edu John Burt Foster, Jr. jfoster@gmu.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * The Good, the Bad, and the Internet A Conference on Critical Issues in Information Technology October 7 & 8, 1995 Chicago Circle Center, University of Illinois - Chicago 750 South Halsted Chicago, Illinois http://www.cs.uchicago.edu/discussions/cpsr/annual/index.html New technologies have been appearing at a dizzying pace. The use of these technologies affect all of us, and the questions about what technologies get developed and how they are deployed are too important to leave to the government or to the private sector. Periodically we need to step back and take stock of where we are. Are the "right" technologies being developed? Are they achieving what we want? What are we gaining, and what are we losing? And on the eve of a major election year, what issues should be raised in upcoming national and local debates? These are the questions that will be explored at "The Good, the Bad, and the Internet" in Chicago this fall. The goals of the conference are: o To educate the broad public, especially in the Midwest, about what is at stake today in the major debates around computers and information technology. o To provide a forum where the people concerned about the impact of computer and information technologies can assess the current state of affairs and discuss strategies for democratizing technology, especially in light of the upcoming 1996 elections. o To share experiences and skills in making computers and access to digital information available to the broad public, and especially to communities that have historically been blocked from these new technologies. To accomplish these goals, the first day of the conference will include four panel discussions that highlight what is at stake, what is the current state of affairs, and different ways that people at the community level are taking the initiative to make the technology live up to its potential. The titles of the panels are o Democratizing the Internet o Privacy and civil liberties: What's happened? What's next? o Technology and jobs: What's happened? What's next? o The good news is: Local initiatives in democratizing technology Day two of the conference begins with a plenary discussion on election year 1996 and will feature representatives from various technology fields identifying the key technology issues for the 1996 election year. Various workshops, including hands-on demonstrations and how-to discussions will help conference attendees acquire the skills to put the ideas from the panel discussions into practice. The conference will conclude with the CPSR Annual Meeting, at which CPSR members can discuss how Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility can and should move forward on the issues raised at the conference. The conference combines discussion of national issues with a look especially at efforts in the Midwest to broaden access to new technologies. Anyone with an interest in access to the future -- whether it be access to jobs, access to information, access to audience, or access to community -- is encouraged to attend. CONFERENCE PROGRAM SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7 8:30a.m. Registration, coffee 9:00a.m. Welcome 9:15a.m. - 10:45a.m. Panel I -- Democratizing the Internet The Internet has come a long way from its beginnings as a network for scientists working on military projects. Today, with the number of worldwide users estimated at up to 30 million, the Internet has been construed, alternatively, as a means for providing universal access to the world's knowledge, as a powerful new marketing and retailing tool, as pluralistic information commons, and a pipeline for pornography into the playroom. While the net is still a vibrant, multifaceted and continually evolving new medium, its future shape is far from certain. The rapid growth of commercial activity on the Internet, and recent legislative attempts to control its content will change its shape. The soul of a democratic net is still up for grabs. This panel will survey the state of net, and help us to map out its evolution as we movetowards the 21st century. 10:45a.m. - 11:00a.m. Break 11:00a.m. - 12:30p.m. Panel II -- Privacy and civil liberties: What's happened? What's next? New technologies have made possible new and frighteningly efficient means of data collection, surveillance, and control. More and more interactions in daily life leave a data trail. That data is accumulated in various databases and the information in those databases is passed around. Given this enormous collection of data by both government and corporate marketers, is "private life" becoming an anachronism? In the new technological arena, the concept of "civil liberties" is also being redefined. This panel will bring conference attendees up to date on the state of privacy and civil liberties and offer a look at what options lie ahead. 12:30p.m. - 1:30p.m. Lunch 2:00p.m.- 3:30p.m. Panel III -- Technology and jobs: What's happened? What's next? Along with technology revolution came an economic revolution. The application of the new technologies of computers, digital communications, biotechnology, and smart materials in an economic climate of competition and cost-cutting has led to "downsizing" and "restructuring" -- euphemisms for eliminating jobs in traditional industries. The full-time worker is being replaced by the part-timer, the temp, and the contractor, and overall wages are falling. At the same time, new industries are emerging. Will they absorb the displaced workers, or are other steps needed. The relationship of computer technologies to jobs is a complex issue that reaches into the heart of our assumptions about society. What are the responsibilities of the people who design these new technologies? This panel will continue this critical discussion, both from the point of view of case studies in particular industries, and an overview of the overall process. 3:30p.m. - 3:45p.m. Break 3:45p.m. - 5:15p.m. Panel IV -- The good news is: Local initiatives in democratizing technology Far from the corporate board rooms and halls of Congress, hundreds of local projects around the country are pushing the envelope of access to information and computer technology. These innovative projects are forging new uses for the technology, uses that generally have little or no commercial potential, but meet the special needs of different communities. Out of these efforts, the real potential of the new technologies is being realized. This panel looks at local efforts underway in the Midwest that demonstrate creative, human-scale use of information technology. 5:15p.m. Announcements and recess 8:00p.m. The Guild Complex presents CyberCabaret (tentative) SUNDAY, OCTOBER 8 8:30a.m. Coffee 9:00a.m. - 10:30a.m. Panel V -- Election year 1996: Towards a technology platform The 1996 election promises to be an especially important election year. This panel assembles representatives of various areas of technology to discuss the current state of affairs on their respective fronts, vis-a- vis technology policy, and add a plank or two to an ideal technology platform for 1996 candidates. 10:30a.m. - 10:45a.m. Break 10:45a.m. - 11:30a.m. Workshop session I 11:45a.m. - 12:30p.m. Workshop session II Two workshop periods will allow conference participants to look at how the ideas developed in the preceding plenary sessions can be put into action. These are intended to be hands-on, practical, skills-oriented sessions. Proposed workshop topics include o Hands-on WWW o Hands-on PGP o Grassroots organizing around technology issues o Community networks o Follow-up on the local projects o Legal issues o How to set up a technology & jobs conference o Raising money for computer projects o Participating in the electoral process 12:30p.m. - 1:30p.m. Lunch 2:00p.m. - 3:30p.m. CPSR Annual Meeting This conference is being held in conjunction with the CPSR Annual Meeting. This session will build on the information presented in the plenaries and workshops and help to guide the work of CPSR over the coming year. 3:30p.m. Closing remarks 4:00p.m. Adjournment Conference sponsors: Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, Chicago Coalition for Information Access, Center for Research in Information Management at the University of Illinois - Chicago, ACM Chicago Chapter, ACM - University of Illinois Student Chapter, Library and Information Technology Association (LITA),(others to be announced). THE VIRTUAL CONFERENCE The discussion starts early. Participate in the Virtual Conference in the weeks leading up to October 7 and 8 via the World Wide Web. Tune your browser to: http://www.cs.uchicago.edu/discussions/cpsr/annual/virtual.html to participate in online discussions of the issues being raised at the conference, and also to find the latest information about the conference. And if you can't make it in person to Chicago, participate virtually -- discussion on the issues surrounding the conference will be accessible from the page before, during and after the conference. REGISTRATION FORM Please pre-register as soon as possible to ensure a space at this exciting meeting. Registrations at the door will be accepted as space allows. Please send in a separate registration form for each individual attending the meeting. And please note that the Saturday night banquet is not included in the price of the meeting. Name ____________________________________________________________ Address _________________________________________________________ City ______________________________ State ________ Zip ________ Telephone ____________________ E-mail __________________________ CPSR or CCIA member: $55 _____ Postmarked after September 20th: $65 _____ Nonmember: $75 _____ Postmarked after September 20th: $85 _____ New CPSR membership ($50 value) + registration: $95 _____ Postmarked after September 20th: $105 _____ Low income/student: $25 _____ Postmarked after September 20th: $35 _____ Additional donation to further CPSR's work: _____ Total enclosed: _____ If paying by VISA or MasterCard please include the following information: _____ Visa _____ MasterCard Card number: ________________________________ Expires __________ Scholarships are available. For more information contact CPSR at (415) 322-3778 or cpsr@cpsr.org. Send the completed registration form with your check to: CPSR, PO Box 717, Palo Alto, CA 94302. OTHER CONFERENCE DETAILS Directions to the conference can be found on the conference web page (its URL is at the top of this document). The Chicago Circle Center is easily reached by public transportation, but parking is also available on Halsted, across the street from the center. HOTELS: The Quality Inn (800-221-2222) at Halsted and Madison is about 5 blocks from the conference. The Inn at University Village (800-662-5233), at 625 South Ashland at Harrison, is on the campus of UIC, and runs a shuttle service between the hotel and other campus facilities (it's about a mile away from the conference). Downtown Chicago is a short cab ride away, and is served by most major hotelchains. AIRLINE: United Air Lines is the official airline of the conference. When making your plane reservation, mention code 561ZP to get the conference discount. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Society for Literature and Science TENTATIVE PROGRAM 1995 MEETING OF THE SOCIETY FOR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA NOVEMBER 2-5, 1995 PLENARY SPEAKERS: Sharon Traweek, Associate Professor in the History Department and Director of the Center for Cultural Studies of Science, Technology, and Medicine at UCLA, studies variations in the international high energy physics community's craft knowledge, research styles, learning and pedagogic practices, disputing processes, social structures, and political economy; she also explores their strategic uses of national, regional, class, and gender differences. Her work is situated at the intersection of cultural, feminist, and rhetorical studies. Her first book is Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The World of High Energy Physicists (Harvard Univesity Press, 1988, paperback 1992). Steven Pinker, Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, conducts research on visual cognition and on the acquisition and structure of language. He has won several scientific prizes, and his book The Language Instinct was named one of the 10 best books of 1994 by The New York Times. Currently he is on sabbatical at UC Santa Barbara, writing a new book called How the Mind Works. Thursday, November 2, 4:00-8:00 PM Registration (through Sunday) Thursday, November 2, 6:00-7:00 PM Plenary Session (Followed by Reception) Sharon Traweek: "Crafting Cultural Studies of Science" Friday, November 3, 8:30-10:00 AM A. Metaphor and Science I Amir Alexander: "The Imperialist Space of Elizabethan Mathematics" Paul V. Anderson: "Thomas De Quincey, Immanuel Kant, and Lord Rosse's Telescope: Optics as Metaphor and Metaphor as Optics" Marianthe Karanakis: "On Metaphor and Measurement" Julie A. Reahard: "A Particularly Pleasing Model: Mathematics as Shaper of Scientific Metaphor" B. The Technological Invasion of the Living Space Charles Bazerman, organizer Charles Bazerman: "The Turned-On Home: Incandescent Lighting and Changing Domestic Imagery in the Early Edison Years" Laura Holliday Butcher: "Techno-Culture in the Kitchen" Patrick B. Sharp: "Post-Atomic Home/Lands: Representations of the Bomb in North American Minority Literatures" C. Autobiographies and Biographies of Scientists Carolyn A. Barros, organizer Diana B. Alteger: "The Scientist as Text: The Sense of Self in the Writings of Robert Boyle" Johanna M. Smith: "Discourses of Exploration and Colonization in Francis Galton's Memories of My Life" Carolyn A. Barros: "Chain Reactions: Science as Politics and the Recollections of Eugene P. Wigner" Livia Polanyi: "Constructing the Scientist as Figure: Constructing All Others as Ground" D. Science and 19th Century Literature Lawrence Frank: "'Mr. Vestiges': Bleak House and a Crisis in Narrative" Donald M. Hassler: "Anthony Trollope and Philosophic Radicalism: A Case for Newness" Martin Kevorkian: "Nineteenth-Century Particle Metaphysics: Hawthorne's Puritan Lucretius" Goldie Morgentaler: "Preformation and Other Theories of Heredity in the Novels of Charles Dickens" E. Visions of the Feminine Body Nancy Cervetti: "Rewriting the Rest Cure: Medical Discourse, Female Bodies, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Response" Ellen Esrock: "Is the Mental Gaze of the Reader Male? Francis Galton vs. Luce Irigaray" Rebecca Merrens: "Bodies of Evidence: Theater, the Feminine, and the Production of Anatomical Knowledge in Jacobean Culture" Teresa Winterhalter: "Le corps lesbien and the Politics of Love under a Microscope" F. The Human Genome Project I: Re-Thinking the Genetic Paradigm Alan Wasserstein, organizer Alan Wasserstein: "Molecular Biology and the Notion of Self" Richard Strohman: "Limits of a Genetic Paradigm in Biology and Medicine" John Wells: "Non-Darwinian Evolutionary Biology" Friday, November 3, 10:30-12:00 Noon A. Reproduction and Gender Kristina Busse: "Mothering Medusa: Desiring the Other in Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis" Leonard R. Koos: "For Medical Use Only? The Rhetoric of Abortion in Turn-of-the-Century France" Lili Porten: "A Dream of Parthenogenesis, An Equation of Two Unknowns: The Metaphor of Artistic Parenthood in the Nineteenth Century" Susan Squier: "Reproductive Technologies and the New Fetal/Maternal Relation" B. Science and the Romantic Sensorium Carl Stahmer, organizer Katharine M. Hawks: "The Separation of the Senses: Visual Technologies and Romantic Poetry" Carl Stahmer: "Scientific Humanism: Cognitive Modeling and the Romantic Conception of Human Subjectivity" Vince Willoughby: "Romantic Writers and Poetic Automation" C. Charles Lyell Lee Sterrenburg, organizer Lee Sterrenburg: "Processing Information: Darwin's Galapagos Archipelago Revisited" Anka Ryall: "Agents of Change: Charles Lyell, Harriet Martineau and the Niagara Falls" Elizabeth Green: "Visualizing the Interior in Pre-Darwinian Scientific Narratives" D. Diagrams and Discourse: Reading Maps of Knowledge Paul A. Harris, organizer Paul A. Harris: "Diagrams, Houses and Cities: Between Arche-Text and Architecture" Sydney Levy: "Pictorial Knowledge" Philip Kuberski: "Hieroglyphics and Cinematics: Before the Beginning and After the End of the Letter" Brian Rotman: "Grams, Graphics and Other Thinking Machines" E. The New Pedagogy Robert Chianese: "Ecological Seeing and the Interdisciplinary Field Trip" Laurel Brodsley: "Student Poetry-Video as Tool for Social and Scientific Consciousness" Michelle Kendrick: "Playing with Fire!!: Hypertext and the Harlem Renaissance" F. Chaos and Complexity I Emily Zants, organizer; Thomas Weissert, moderator Randy Fertel: "Strange Relation: The Rhetoric of Literary Improvisation/The Rhetoric of Chaos Science" Julie C. Hayes: "Chaotic Enlightenment: Automata, Weather Systems, and the Europe-Machine in L. Norfolk's Lempriere's Dictionary" James Leigh: "Four Figures for a Future Reading of Perec's _Laife, a User's Manual_" Emily Zants: "Proust, Poincare, Chaos, and Complexity" Friday, November 3, 1:00-2:30 PM A. Theory W. John Coletta: "The Food Chain of Signification: Postmodern Evolutionary Ecology and the Question of Disciplinarity" Helen Denham: "The Frankfurt School and Critical Theory: Exploring Themes of Science, Nature, Domination, and Emancipation" Samantha Fenno: "Changing the Object: (Post)Structuralism, Scientism and Disciplinary Validation" Van Piercy: "Raymond Williams on Culture, Nature and the 'Transcendental Social'" B. The Cultures of Thermodynamics Bruce Clarke, organizer Bruce Clarke: "The Selected Poetic Works of James Clerk Maxwell" John G. Hatch: "Images of the Evolution of the Universe: Thermodynamics in the Art of Kazimir Malevich" Stephen J. Weininger: "Thinking Big, Thinking Small: The Introduction of Entropy into Chemistry" Martin Rosenberg: "Complicity and the Counter-Culture of Thermodynamics: Ostwald, Spengler, and Pynchon" C. AIDS in Nonfiction and Film Carol Colatrella, "The Other as Savior: Race and AIDS in Lorenzo's Oil" James W. Jones: "Brother, Lover, Patient, Friend: Gay Men with AIDS in Non-Fiction by Care Givers" Deborah Lovely: "The Novel is the Most Subversive Form: Leprosy as AIDS in Time to Kill" Carol Reeves: "French vs. American: Contrastive Rhetorics of Science in the AIDS Virus Hunt" D. Singing in the Brain and the Body Electric Paul Harris, organizer Richard Doyle, "Cryonics, Comas and the Promised Body" Alan E. Rapp: "Forgoing Friction: Digital Words and the New Entropy" Vivian Sobchak: "Beating the Meat: Baudrillard's Body" E. Science & Faith Thomas L. Cooksey: "A Voyage to the World of Cartesius: Descartes, Science, and Censorship" Stuart Peterfreund: "Bacon's Puritan Epistemology, the Crisis of Representation, and the Way of Natural Theology Dale J. Pratt: "Science, Faith and Reference: Cajal's Cuentos de vacaciones and Palacio Valdes's La fe" Friday, November 3, 2:45-4:15 PM A. Science Fiction and Ethical Speculation David E. Armstrong, organizer Marilyn Gottschall: "Ethics without Gender" David E. Armstrong: "Brave New Waves: The Ethical Rhetoric of Constructivist Postmodernism and Science Fiction" Aditi Gowri: "'Not Doing' as Ethical Social Policy: Null-A and Alexander Technique in Science Fiction" Sara L. Miskevich: "Where None Have Gone Before: Ethics and Science Fiction in Popular Culture" B. Visual Images I: Photography and Painting Anne Frances Collins: "Digital Photography and Visual Paradigms: A New Look" Hugh Culik: "A Womb of His Own: Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and the Collaborative Body Shop" Stephen Hartnett: "'The Truth Itself': How Whitman, Hawthorne and Agassiz Employed the Daguerrotype as Scientific Proof" Karl F. Volkmar: "The Crystal, Character, and Culture: Essentialist Structures as Informational Structures and the Representation of Gender and Class in the Impressionist Paintings of Camille Pissaro" C. Responses to Darwin Greg Foster: "The Ape-Man in the Mirror: T. S. Eliot's Sweeney Poems as a Satire of Human Evolution" Cyndy Hendershot: "Masculinity and the Darwinian Feminine" Alan Rauch: "'See How the Fates, Their Gifts Allot': The Emergence of Darwinian Sensibility in Gilbert and Sullivan" Gary Willingham-McLain: "Darwinian Space" D. Medicine and Illness I: The Body and the Mind Kerry M. Brooks: "Free to Be You and Me?: The Prozac Debate" Leslie Dupont: "Oliver Sacks as Rhetorician: Metaphors for Neurological Disorders" Marilyn Chandler McEntyre: "What's Borne in the Body: William, Henry and Alice James and the Mystery of Psychosomatic Illness" Christine Skolnik: "Gender, Neuropsychology, and Aesthetics" E. Technology, Pathology and the Cultural Politics of the Emotions Kathleen Woodward, organizer Kathleen Woodward: "Prosthetic Emotion" David Crane: "Plotting the Paranoid Text: Conspiracy and Communication in _Sorry, Wrong Number_" Amelie Hastie: "Revolution on the Border Between Emotion and Cognition: Freud's 'Rat Man' and The X-Files" Angela Wall: "'First, You Cry': Coming Out Stories and the Emotional Politics of Breast Cancer" F. The Art of Reflective Science Sidney Perkowitz & Jeffrey Sturges, organizers Peter Brown (guest speaker): "Writing about Science for Non-Scientists: An Overview" K. C. Cole: "Science Writing and Complementarity" Jeffrey Sturges: "Reflective Science Writing" Sidney Perkowitz: "Changing Quantum Physics into an Essay: Can It Be Done?" Friday, November 3, 4:45-6:15 PM A. The Normative Discourse of Health Andrew McMurry, organizer David Cassuto: "Healing the Land: Mary Austin and the Logic of Reclamation" Andrew McMurry: "'The Health of Human Culture': Wendell Berry's Agro-poetic Revision of Robert Frost" William Major: "Challenging the Discourse of Biomedicine: Anatole Broyard and Audre Lorde" Roddey Reid: "Healthy Families, Healthy Bodies: The Politics of Speech and Expertise in the California Anti-Second Hand Smoke Campaign" B. Technology and Narrative Joe Tabbi, organizer Joe Tabbi & Michael Wutz: "Technology and 20th-Century Narrative" Geoffrey Winthrop-Young: "Mann's Magic Media: A Case Study in Literature and Media Change" Linda Brigham: "Our Bodies, Our Selves: Activating the Percept in Virilio and Robbe-Grillet" John Johnston: "Mediality in Vineland and Neuromancer" C. Internet Communities Paolo A. Gardinali, organizer; Bob Nideffer, commentator Paolo A. Gardinali: "Discipline and Punish in the Cyberspace: Usenet Sanctioning and Social Control" Joann Eisberg: "High Energy and Hypertext: or If Electronic Publication Brings Democracy to Physics, What Else Comes Too?" Wayne Miller: "Professional Exchange in the Age of Chaos" D. The Birds and the Bees Stephen Germic: "Early Ornithology and Racial Mobility: Anxieties of Becoming Ethnic in 19th Century Science and Literature" Yvonne Noble: "Rex, the Microscope, and the Construction of the Female Body: Honeybees in the 17th and 18th Centuries" Susan Sterne: "Anthropomorphism in a Feminist Collection of Entomologists" E. S-F and Fantasy Subhash C. Kak: "Strange Echoes: Parallel Imaginations in Old Indian Literature and Modern Physics" Donald J. McGraw: "Where Men and Microbes Met: Tale the First: 'Plot'" (a short story) Frances D. Louis: "Acknowledging the Tiger: Savaging Science and Society in Gulliver's Travels, The Stars My Destination and Roderick" Elmar Schenkel: "Anti-Gravity: Matter and the Imagination at the End of the 19th Century" F. The Future of Literature and Science--A Presidential Forum Lance Schachterle, moderator Lance Schachterle: "How We Got to Ten Years (Plus) at SLS" Stephen J. Weininger: "Where Do Scientists Fit Into SLS" Mark Greenberg: "Reorienting the Practice of Literature and Science" James J. Bono: "History of Science and the Future of Literature and Science" N. Katherine Hayles: "Cultural Studies and the Future of Literature and Science" Friday, November 3, 7:30-8:30 PM Plenary Session (Followed by Reception) Steven Pinker: "The Language Instinct" Saturday, November 4, 8:30-10:00 AM A. Narratives of Non-Human Others I: Narratives of Great Apes Nicholas Gessler, organizer Francine Patterson (guest speaker): "The Evolving Narratives of Koko and Michael: Generative Language Use in an 'Emergent Literature'" Joanne E. Tanner: "Responding to Necessity: Invented Narratives of the Great Apes" Patricia Greenfield: "Language, Tools and Brain: The Ontogeny and Phylogeny of Hierarchically Organized Sequential Activity" B. Science and Society I: Fictional and Real Dystopias Luke Carson: "Veblen's Idle Cause" Barbara Hyams: "Entropy, Dystopia and Nostalgia: Zamyatin's We, Musil's The Man Without Qualities, and the Spirit of Mephistopheles in Modern Fiction" Alvin C. Kibel: "The Machine Stops: Forster's Virtual Reality" Richard S. Wallach: "Captain Ahab, Judge Holden, and the Iconography of Science in 19th Century American Nation Building" C. Cyberplaces: Engendering Space for a Place/Time Continuum Nancy A. Barta-Smith, organizer Nancy A. Barta-Smith & Sarah Stein: "Cyberspace/Cyberplace: Making Sense of Information Technology" Jaishree Kak Odin, "Hypertextuality and Postmodern Subjectivity" D. Medicine and Illness II Susan Connell, "The Champion Athlete: When Rare Personal Achievement and Modern Science Collide" Laura Otis: "Bleeding for Health: Gide and Freud" Downing A. Thomas: "Corps Sonores: Music and Medicine in Eighteenth-Century France" Kate Nickel: "The Company We Keep" E. Chaos and Complexity II Emily Zants, organizer; Thomas Weissert, moderator Yves Abrioux: "Foucault, Chaos, Complexity" F. Paul Cilliers: "Complexity and Postmodern Knowledge" Richard D. Davis: "Model Metaphors: Mimicking Chaos Theory in the Humanities" Torin Monahan: "The Labyrinth of Jealousy: The Chaotics of Robbe-Grillet's Postmodern Novel" F. Delivering the Male: Biological Determinism and the Institution of Masculinity Geoffrey Sharpless: "Making Bodies, Making History" Stuart Glennon: "Why Johnny Likes Guns: Assessing Recent Work on the Biological Determinants of Masculine Behavior" Hilene Flanzbaum: "The Incredible Shrinking Man: Sexual Dysfunction in Modern Literature" Ross Shideler: "Darwinism and Displacing the Father in Scandinavian Literature" Blake Allmendinger: "Mother Lode: Technology, Male Midwifery, and Gold-Mining Literature" Saturday, November 4, 10:30-12:00 Noon A. Medicine, Gender and Virtual Technologies Robert Markley, organizer; Laura Sullivan, chair Anne Balsamo: "Monsters and Heroes, Mothers and Fathers, Children and the State" Timothy R. Manning: "Computer Mediated Understanding of Health Threats" Molly Rothenberg: "Virtual Body, Virtual Mind" Robert Markley: "The Patient's Two Bodies: Medicine, Simulation, and Productivity" B. Knowledge and Power Cynthia Appl: "Heinrich Schirmbeck: Literature and the Ethical Use of Scientific Knowledge" David Brande: "General Equivalents and Contingent Knowledge: Ideology and the Desire for Sense in Literature and Science" Gene Fendt: "The Purposes of Literature in the Culture of Science" Terrance King: "Writing and Knowledge as Historical Correlates" C. Sustainability: Postmodern Neo-Ecology (Panel Discussion) Robert Chianese, organizer Robert Chianese, W. John Coletta, Laura Dassow Walls, Carl Maida and Christine Skolnik, panelists D. Metaphor and Science II Stephen Ogden: "Outflanking Gross and Levitt on the Right: How a Robust Approach to Radical Metaphor by the Literary Culture Can Debunk the Scientists' Own Higher Superstitions" Teri Reynolds: "Just Metaphors: Why We Shouldn't Ask for a Literal Use of Science in Interdisciplinary Studies" Elliot Visconsi: "A Prophecy Of Escape: Science and Metaphor in Pynchon's _Gravity's Rainbow_" Andrew Russ, "Killing, Dying, and Surviving in the Mathematical Jungle of Physics: Some Examples of Metaphorical Terms in the Culture of a Science" E. Embodied Discourse: The Role of Narratives and Visual Images in Scientific Talk and Theories I N. Katherine Hayles, organizer; Brian Rotman, respondent Timothy Lenoir: "Machines to Think By: Visualization, Theory, and the Second Computer Revolution" Stefan Helmreich: "Artificial Life on the Edge of Inevitability" N. Katherine Hayles: "Gender and Game Theory" F. Technology and Utopia Crystal Bartolovich, organizer Crystal Bartolovich: "Cartopia" Paula Geyh: "Women on the Edge of Technology" Camilla Griggers: "Women and the War Machine" Saturday, November 4, 2:00-3:30 PM A. Visual Images II: Rhetoric in Visual Format Julian Bleecker: "Morphs, Matrices, Mixings: Visual Analytics and the Computer Graphics Special Effect" Raymond Harris: "Archimedes' Mirror: Cinema as Sensual Assault" Miranda Paton: "Seeing How to Listen: Constructing a Form of Listening in Early Phonography" B. Entropy, Information, Misinformation and Noise James R. Saucerman: "Entropy as a Source of Terror in the Tales of Edgar Allan Poe" Lance Schachterle: "Low Entropy and Worse Communications in Pynchon's Vineland" Eric White: "Signifying Noise: The Crop Circle Phenomenon" Jay A. Labinger, "The Reader at Absolute Zero: Entropy as Time's (Double-Headed) Arrow in Stoppard's Arcadia" C. The Human Genome Project II Karyn Valerius: "Genetic Consciousness? Sequencing the Genome and Reconstructing Ourselves" Paula Haines: "Popular Science: Controlling the Truth in the Human Genome Project" Val Dusek: "DNA as Language: Essence vs. Deconstruction" D. Narratives of Non-Human Others II: Narratives of Artificial Intellects and Cultures Nicholas Gessler, organizer Michael Dyer: "Computer Understanding and Invention of Textual Narratives" Marc Damashek: "Implications of Ignorance Based Processing: A Language-Independent Means of Gauging Topical Similarity in Unrestricted Text" Ken Karakotsios: "Making New Friends: The Impending Exocommunication Conundrum" Nicholas Gessler: "Generating Automatic Narratives in Artificial Cultures" E. A Guest Session with Octavia Butler Frances Louis, organizer and respondent Octavia Butler (guest speaker): "Furor Scribendi" F. Symmetries: Teaching, Writing, Literature, Science Robert Franke, organizer Robert Franke: "Changed Outcomes in Science-Based Courses when Using Literature and Writing" Larry Coleman: "Writing in Science Courses" Mary Ellen Pitts: "Writing Process and the Teaching of Science: Two Theoretical Points of Convergence" Clive Sutton: "Awareness of the Figurative in Science" Saturday, November 4, 3:45-5:15 PM A. "Make It New": Modernist Artistic and Literary Responses to Early 20th Century Science Linda Dalrymple Henderson, organizer Barbara J. Reeves: "Scientific Modernism--Modernist Science Linda Dalrymple Henderson: "Representing the Invisible: The 'Playful Physics' of Marcel Duchamp's 'Large Glass'" K. Porter Aichele: "Jean Perrin and Paul Klee's 'Atomistic' Cubism" Allen Thiher: "Proust and Poincare" B. Languages of Early Modern Science: Children and Childbirth Richard Nash, organizer Eve Keller: "Representing Reproduction in Seventeenth-Century England" Debra Silverman: "Mary Toft's Hoax: Narrative Desire, Medical Genius and Female Imagination" Richard Nash: "Feral Children and 18th Century Language Instruction for the Deaf" C. Popularizing Science Jennifer Swift Kramer: "Infotainment a la Gobineau: Notes on A Gentleman in the Outports" Mark Schlenz: "The Greening of 'Gray Literature': Instrumental Rationality and Communicative Action in Writing for Environmental Studies" Laura Dassow Walls: "'Where There is Light, There Will Be Eyes': The Theater of Popular Science" Jeffrey V. Yule: "Critiquing Science and Its Transmission: Information as Noise in Don de Lillo's White Noise" D. AI and Cybernetics Ronald Schleifer, "Norbert Wiener, Information, and Postmodernism" Phoebe Sengers, "The Implicit Subjects of Artificial Intelligence" Elizabeth Wilson: "'Loving the Computer': Cognition, Embodiment and the Influencing Machine" E. Embodied Discourse: The Role of Narratives and Visual Images in Scientific Talk and Theories II N. Katherine Hayles, organizer; Brian Rotman, respondent Kenneth Knoespel: "Diagrammatics in Mathematical Discourse" Sally Jacoby: "Co-Constructing Visual Narratives in Scientific Practice" Barbara M. Stafford: "The New Imagist: Visual Expertise in a Transdisciplinary Multimedia Society" F. Theory, History and Narrative Patrick W. O'Kelley: "Gilman and the Creation of a New Empiricism" Lucia Palmer: "What is New in the New Historicism of Comtemporary Literature, Philosophy and Science?" F. Irving Elichirigoity: "Historical Narrative in the Age of Machinic Vision and Computer Simulation: The Emergence of Planet Management as a Case Study" Scott M. Sprenger: "Balzac, Archaeologist of Consciousness: The Case of Louis Lambert" Saturday, November 4, 5:30-7:00 PM A. Language, Epistemology, and the Cognitive Sciences I F. Elizabeth Hart, organizer F. Elizabeth Hart: "The Chaos of Language: Orderly Disorder in the System of Language and Its Implications for Literary Analysis" Phillips Salman: "Cognition, Poetics, and the Nous Poetikos" David Porush: "TELEPATHIES: The Advent of the Alphabet as a Model for the Transformation of Communication Promised by VR" B. The Old New Physics: Quantum Mechanics and Relativity Henry McDonald: "Narrative Uncertainty: Wittgenstein, Heisenberg, and Narrative Theory" Timothy S. Murphy: "Beneath Relativity: Bergson and Bohm on Absolute Time" Stephen Potts: "The Muse of Uncertainty: Empirical Psychology and Scientific Modernism" David L. Rozema: "Representation in Science and Literature" C. The Ontology of Science and the Arts Koen DePryck, organizer Koen DePryck: "Art as Interdisciplinary Discipline" Karel Boullart: "Ontology, Triviality and Metaphorization" Ilse Wambacq: "The Arts and Sciences in Education: Bridging Partial Ontologies" D. Machine Visions, Body Slices and Video Memory Ramunas Kondratas, organizer Ramunas Kondratas: "Imaging the Human Body: The Case of CT Scanning" Joseph Dumit: "Functional Brain Imaging, Personhood and the Many Literatures of Neuroscience" Barry Saunders: "Rituals of Diagnosis in the Age of Noninvasive Cutting" E. Feminist Theories of Biology in Fact and Fiction (Panel Discussion) Susan A. Hagedorn, organizer Roger Persell, Shoshana Milgram and Susan Hagedorn, panelists F. Nature, Landscapes, and Voyages Vranna Hinck: "Chaos and Christo" Janet Bell Garber, "For Fear of Increasing the Confusion: Early 19th Century Attempts to Make Sense of the Natural World" Alice Jenkins: "Landscapes of Ignorance: Metaphors, Narrativity and the Organization of Knowledge" Philip K. Wilson: "Mechanistic and Vitalistic Perspectives of the Body in Enlightment Voyages to New Worlds" Sunday, November 5, 8:30-10:00 AM A. Cybernetics in Literature: Subjects and Subjectivities Kevin LaGrandeur, organizer Kevin LaGrandeur: "Who Sounds the Thunder?: Prospero's 'Machine' and the Anxiety of Agency" Vivianne Casimir: "Pascal and Frankenstein: A New Subjectivity" Sarah Higley: "Scientists and their Androids in Science Fiction: Edison, Dennet and Hawking" B. The Role of Anecdote in Science (Panel Discussion) Frank Durham, organizer and moderator Marcella Greening, Thomas J. High, Kathryn Montgomery Hunter and Linda Layne, panelists C. The Female Body in Medical Discourse and Literature Carol Colatrella, organizer and respondent Tanya Augsburg, "Resisting Diagnosis: Staging the Female Medical Subject in Contemporary Women's Performance" Johanna X. K. Garvey: "'And She Had Made Herself!': (Re)generation of 'Woman' in Acker, Weldon, and Carter" Roger Persell: "Human Eating Disorders: The Drama of Clinical and Literary Discourse" Linda Saladin: "The Rhetoric of Surgery: Narratives for Patient Well-Being" D. Bruno Latour: Pre-Modern, Modern and Non-Modern T. Hugh Crawford: "Mapping Migration: Some Thoughts on Moby-Dick, Matthew Fontaine Maury, and Bruno Latour" Philip Lewin: "Latour and the Image of the Human" Ned Muhovich: "Bringing Pym Home: Structure in Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym" E. Science and Society II: Ethics, Conscience, Ideals Thomas Martin, "Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor's Vision of Science as the Necessary Source of Miracle and Mystery for the Subjection of Man" John Bragin, "Scientific Witness and Moral Visionary: Primo Levi and the Culture of the Nazi Holocaust" Raphael Sassower: "Post World War II Technoscience" Yvan Silva: "Mahatma Gandhi: The Armamentarium of Non-Violence" Sunday, November 5, 10:15-11:45 AM A. Poetry and Science Beth Browning: "'There is Neither Up nor Down to It': Anti-Organicism in the Poetry of Marianne Moore" William Crisman: "Humphry Davy and John Keats: Romantic Redefinitions of Matter and Mind" Cynthia Guidici: "'Hand in Hand with Science': The Frame of Tennyson's The Princess" Donna McBride: "Incantory Magic: Female Images of Alchemy and the Sacramental in the Poetry of Lucille Clifton and Jane Kenyon" B. Language, Epistemology, and the Cognitive Sciences II Jefferson Faye, "The Birth and Growth of the Cognitive Novel: Joseph McElroy's Plus" Maria L. Assad: "Poetic Obscurity and Dynamical Discourse Theory: The Case of Mallarme" Joseph Carroll: "An Evolutionary Theory of Literary Figuration" C. Constructing and Deconstructing the Body Jacqueline M. Foertsch: Illness as Metaphor Metaphor as Illness: A Critique of Susan Sontag's Influential Theory" Barbara A. Heifferon: "Deconstructing Colonial America's First Medical Compendium: A Surprising Heteroglossia" Jamil M. Mustafa, "Constructing Degeneration: Dracula, Henry Maudsley, and the Lunatic Asylum" D. 17th Century Science Sylvia Bowerbank: "Science and the Self-Technologies of Early Modern Women" Tom Kealy: "The Poetics of Life: Natural History and Literary Traditions in the Seventeenth Century" Robert E. Stillman: "Metaphors, Monsters, and Natural Philosophy in 17th Century England" Douglas L. Hollinger, "The New Enfeoffees: Staking Claims to Nature in Early Modern English Science" E. "Worth A Thousand Words": Documentary Photography and the Problem of Proof Positive Stanley Orr, organizer Stanley Orr: "Documentation and Detection in Antonioni's Blow Up" Beth Rayfield: "Documentation and Desire: Popular Anthropology and the Stereographic Representation of the Sexualized Racial Other" James Goodwin: "Documentation in Black and White: The American South and the Depression" Michael L. Merrill: "Jacob Riis vs. Eugenicists: A Visual Rhetoric of Biological Reductionism" F. "You Just Don't Understand": Talking Across the Boundary at SLS (Panel Discussion) Thomas P. Weissert, organizer Thomas P. Weissert, David Porush, Artie Rodgers and Jay A. Labinger, panelists Sunday, November 5, 12:00-1:30 PM SLS Wrap-up Session: The Future of SLS -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Technical and Skills Training Conference Update to Technical and Skills Training Conference American Society for Training and Development ASTD has released an update of scheduled activities for the 1995 Technical and Skills Training Conference & Exposition, September 13-15, 1995, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. o Joe H. Harless has been added to the program as opening general session speaker. His latest book, The Performance Improvement Process, is the first complete curriculum for Performance Technologists. Attendees will gain from his insight into the current movement from training to performance, and examine an organization model that addresses such a transition. Dave Ulrich will be the closing general session speaker, addressing the impact of human resources on organizational change. o A third technical tour has also been added. Participants wishing to tour Lukens Steel on Thursday, September 14, in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, may purchase tickets on site (the tour is limited to forty participants). Other Conference topics for 1995 include: o instructional design and delivery o self-directed work teams o using technology to improve performance o designing multimedia training o distance learning technologies o accelerated learning in regulatory and technical training o CBT and EPSS A videoconference on "Interactive Training for Enhanced Learning and Performance Improvement," with speaker Pamela Robbins, will be broadcast via satellite from the conference on September 13. To participate in the conference or to receive the videoconference, please call 703/683-8100. American Society for Training & Development astdic@capcon.net Information Center 703/6838100 1640 King Street, Box 1443 Alexandria, VA 223132043 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Access '95 WWW Conference WEB CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT ACCESS '95 - World Wide Web Conference on Gateways and Publishing DATES: Monday, Oct. 23 - Wednesday, Oct. 25, 1995 A single stream conference for 170 participants hosted by the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada Wu Conference Centre, University of New Brunswick CONFERENCE HOME PAGE: http://www.hil.unb.ca/library/conference/ CONFERENCE FOCUS: The Web is opening up to an increasing number of people looking for information, and Web browsers are becoming the clients of choice for accessing a variety of resources. Library related vendors, such as Sirsi and SilverPlatter are developing Web gateways to their products. Gateways based on standards, such as Z39.50, are in the public domain and are starting to be used by libraries to access local and commercial data bases. There are exciting developments with Web browsers, such as Sun's HotJava. In 1993 the University of Manitoba hosted the International Conference on Refereed Electronic Journals. The development of the Web and browsers during the past two years have redefined issues of design, production and distribution. What will the next two years bring? The University of New Brunswick is hosting this conference to explore these issues. SOME OF THE SPEAKERS: Keynote Speaker: Clifford Lynch, University of California Electronic Publishing: David Seaman, University of Virginia; Todd Kelley, Johns Hopkins University; Terry R. Noreault, OCLC; John Teskey University of New Brunswick; John Black, University of Guelph; Aldyth Holmes, National Research Council. Gateways and Web Browsers: Harold Finkbeiner, Stanford University; Slavko Manojlovich, Memorial University; Art Rhyno, University of Windsor; Steve Sloan, University of New Brunswick; Mark Leggott, St. Francis Xavier; Neophytos Iacovou, University of Minnesota. Government and Data: Walter Piovesan, Simon Fraser University; Tyson Macaulay, Consultant, Canadian Cybercasting Company / Industry Canada; Chris Leowski, University of Toronto. Commerical: SIRSI Corporation; SilverPlatter, Sun Microsystems - HotJava. COST: $145 (Canadian) or $115 (US), including 3 lunches. HOW TO GET HERE: The Fredericton airport services flights from Toronto, Montreal, Boston and Halifax. We are a three hour drive from Bangor, Maine. TO REGISTER AND FOR MORE CONFERENCE INFORMATION, see our Web conference page: http://www.hil.unb.ca/library/conference/. or contactAlan Burk: 506-453-4740 voice 506-453-4595 fax Burk@unb.ca Funding generously provided by TeleEducation N.B., the Emerging Technologies Interest Group, Canadian Library Association, and CACUL, Canadian Library Association. Alan Burk, Associate Director of Libraries University of New Brunswick / Box 7500 / Fredericton, N.B./ E3B 5H5 Voice 506-453-4740 Fax 506-453-4595 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Calls for Contributions * Hypermedia Work for Postmodern Culture With the recent surge of interest in the World Wide Web and other distributed information systems, hypermedia projects are becoming both more numerous and more sophisticated. Postmodern Culture will continue to publish important offerings in hypertext and hypermedia, presenting works that extend and redefine electronic expression. At this point we would especially like to see conceptually challenging projects: texts that are genuinely multiple and whose multiplicity of discourse constitutes more than an auxiliary for traditional language and forms. We welcome both aesthetic and discursive approaches. This call goes out to philosophers, historians, ethnographers as well as artists of word and image. Projects in HTML and other Web environments are preferable, but we will consider other media as appropriate. Submissions must not have been featured in other electronic publications and should have had minimal exposure to date. Copyright if any must be held by the author(s). To offer your work for consideration, please send a letter or e-mail containing a brief description of your project. Please include a URL if your text is accessible through the World Wide Web. For further information please contact Stuart Moulthrop, samoulthrop@ubmail.ubalt.edu. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Assault: Radicalism in Aesthetics and Politics CALL for PAPERS ASSAULT: Radicalism in Aesthetics and Politics A conference at Duke University March 22nd-24th 1996 What is "radical" in the contemporary cultural, political and aesthetic situation? "ASSAULT" will focus on radical aesthetics and politics in an international frame since World War II, though recognizing earlier models and genealogies. Particularly, we intend to look at radicalism as a confrontation with the problematics of violence and representation. On the one hand, we invite analyses, theorizations (and performances) of specific aesthetic practices that enact a radical politics through disruption of representational containment. On the other hand, we encourage papers on social and cultural movements that seek to challenge representational or "formal" political systems by asserting "real" participation and the immanence of autonomous self-constituency. Throughout we wish to maintain our dual emphasis on both aesthetic and political radicalisms, in so far as they engage with the question of violence and the "crisis" of representation -- without taking such a crisis for granted, and without assuming that the question of violence is not perhaps suffused with a nostalgia for the material. Topics might include: the possibility of desirability of the avant-garde; the legacy of the New Left and movements of '68: autonomia, situationism . . . ; representation, violence and self-determination in the Third World or Postcolonialism; the possibility of disturbance in late-capitalist cultural absorption; aesthetic terrorism and anarchist aesthetics; transgressive sexuality, gender, and radical political action; postmodern avant-garde shock and cyberspace, surrealism, dada . . . ; terrorism and civil rights; the power of non-violence . . . We welcome suggestions for alternative areas of interest and for individual panel topics. We encourage interdisciplinary approaches and proposals from comparative literature, languages, gender studies, postcolonial and ethnic studies, political science, literature, philosophy, history, anthropology, the social sciences, media and communication studies, cultural studies. . . We are further interested in proposals for performances or other experimental presentations (video, hypertext and so on). Possible speakers include: Kathy Acker, Franco Beradi, Hakim Bey, Judith Butler, Harry Cleaver, Jim Fleming, Donna Haraway, bell hooks, Sylvere Lotringer, Sadie Plant, Avital Ronell, Michael Ryan, Richard Slotkin, Werner Sollers, Gayatri Spivak, Ronald Sukenick, Susan Suleiman. . . Please send one-page abstracts by November 15th, 1995. For further information, please contact: Jon Beasley-Murray or Svetlana Mintcheva The Literature Program Art Museum 104 Box 90670 Duke University Durham, NC 27708-0670 USA (919) 688 5059 jpb8@acpub.duke.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Conduites A Journal of Contemporary Interdisciplinary Studies Conduites is an interdisciplinary journal on postmodern cultural theory, literary studies, feminist theory, politics and identity, multi-disciplinary studies in the sciences, postmodern aesthetics, art, and architechture. Conduites is an attempt to provide a forum for critical reflection on these contemporary issues. Conduites is accepting papers for the Fall 1995 issue. We invite papers on topics in aesthetics, feminist theory, technology, cultural studies, post-colonial theory, and literary criticism. The theme of the next issue will focus on APOCALYPTIC TROPES in philosophy, the arts and sciences,and social sciences, as we approach the fin de millennium. All interested in having their papers considered for publication should sen a typewritten copy to the address listed below. Also, papers and abstracts may be sent via e-mail to the address below. Papers should not exceed 4000 words and should be double-spaced. Manuscripts should be accompanied by 3 1/2 inch computer disk. Macintosh, Microsoft Word is preferred, but other popular word processing applications are also acceptable. All submissions should also include a one page abstract, name, address, and phone number. All those who have submitted to our earlier post should know that we have received their material and are greatful for wide participation and interest in this edition. We have extended the deadline to Oct. 15, 1995 in order to include more submissions from those who couldn't make our last deadline. Conduites P. O. BOX 642568 San Francisco, CA 94164-2568 nai@sfsu.edu DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION: OCT 15, 1995 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Computers and Writing XII THE TWELFTH COMPUTERS AND WRITING CONFERENCE MAY 30-JUNE 2, 1996 UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY LOGAN, UTAH 84322-3200 The Twelfth Computers and Writing Conference: Technology & Change (to be held May 30- June 2, 1996, at Utah State University in Logan, Utah) invites proposals that pertain in some way to the uses of computers at any level of writing education. Theme: Technology and Change The rapid acceleration of change in the area of computers and writing causes some consternation -- but also considerable exhilaration -- among educators at all levels. The conference will highlight our attempts to cope and to stay current with the potential for technology in the writing field. This unique conference brings together educators from all levels and types of educational institutions who have a common interest in the uses of computer technology for writing instruction. Invitation: Send in your Proposals We invite proposals that pertain in some way to the uses of computers at any level of writing education: K-12 to all types of post-secondary educational institutions. We especially welcome proposals for hands-on sessions, demonstrations, or any other interactive format. Concurrent sessions will accommodate individual 20-minute "talks," panels with three to four speakers, or one-and-a-half hour interactive presentations or demonstrations. Ongoing "poster" sessions for demonstrations throughout the conference are also possible. Furthermore, we are looking for half-day workshop proposals, to be offered both pre- and post-conference. Standard networked PC and MAC equipment will be provided. Suggested Topics: classroom uses, collaboration, distance education, networks, hypertext & hypermedia, virtual classrooms, impacts of the internet. Proposals must be postmarked or dated October 1, 1995. Notification of acceptance will be by January 1, 1996. Mail three copies of a two-page (double-spaced) abstract for a paper, panel, poster session, demonstration, or workshop (Or e-mail one copy to the address below.) Please include the name, affiliation, address, e-mail, and phone number of all presenters. Please note: abstracts become the property of CWC96 and may be published in other venues, including a web site. Send e-mail proposals to: computerwritingconference@writectr.usu.edu Send print proposals to: Christine Hult CWC96 Program Chair Department of English Utah State University Logan, UT 84322-3200. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * trans/forms trans/forms: Insurgent Voices in Education The Spring 1996 issue of trans/forms, "Constructions of Knowledge/Activations of Desires will consider the knowledges that get produced in institutional sites such as the family, law, academia, medicine, popular culture. We are interested in submissions that explore the social, historical, economic, political conditions under which knowledge gets produced; who and what influence these conditions; the effects of subject location(s) on knowledge production, how knowledge production informs/constructs different subject positions; how and why bodies have been theorized in the aforementioned sites; how knowledge about bodies is organized, authorized, and marginalized; how cultural and institutional sites construct and regulate articulations of bodily desire; how desire is silenced/punished in knowledge production, the kinds of investments and desires that mobilize, and are mobilized in the production of knowledge. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to, the following: o knowledge as a site of resistance o embodying desire/representing desire o 'experience' as a site of knowledge o the politics of (re)presentation (eg. as related to AIDS) o marginalized sites of knowledge (eg. queer studies, postcolonial theory, anti-racist pedagogy) o desiring education/(re)educating desire o subaltern bodies/ social spaces We welcome essays, short fiction, poetry, book/art reviews, autobiography, (maximum 2000 words) and visual works. Please submit 4 copies of work (including one on disk) in APA format for peer review to: trans/forms Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) University of Toronto Suite 8-105, 252 Bloor St. W. Toronto, Ont., Canada M5R 1V5 e-mail inquiries to: kobrien@oise.on.ca DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: OCTOBER 15, 1995 trans/forms, a graduate student journal issued out of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, publishes original, refereed works on a broad range of issues in the area of transformative education. It provides a forum for addressing relations of so cial difference as they inform educational theory and practice. trans/forms welcomes submissions dealing with all areas of education for social and global justice including First Nations politics, feminism, post-colonialism, anti-racism, Afrocentrism, anti-ableism, class politics, lesbian and gay politics, community activism, popular education, media and cultural studies, critical global education, and critical pedagogy. ¥ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture CALL FOR ARTICLES Special Issue: Diversity in Virtual Cultures Issue Editor: Nina Wakeford Department of Sociological Studies Sheffield University Great Britain N.Wakeford@sheffield.ac.uk The December 1995 issue of the EJVC will be devoted to diversity in virtual culture. Following a special issue of the EJVC on gender, at this time articles would be of interest which document or theorise differences, which might include those of race, sexuality, religion, age or region, for example. What kind of presences are emerging which are notstraight/white/male? Where are these presences found? How are they linked to activism within feminism, anti-racism, queer and radical politics, or elsewhere? How is the oppression or empowerment of diverse peoples managed in virtual culture either by individuals or institutions? Articles concerning experiences of diversity in an international context would also be welcomed, as would theoretical concepts around diversity, such as issuesof identity, community, and boundary. N.B.: The issue editor encourages correspondence about proposed contributions before submission by sending electronic mail with the subject line EJVC Issue to N.Wakeford@sheffield.ac.uk. Deadline for submission of articles: October 15, 1995 Deadline for revisions: November 15, 1995 Publication of Special Issue: December, 1995 Contributions will be peer-reviewed by the journal's normal editorial process before final acceptance for publication. Articles may be submitted by email or send/file to: Diane K. Kovacs, Editor-in-Chief, Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture ejvcedit@kentvm.kent.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * The Missing as Cultural Discourse Submissions are sought for a collection of essays on the missing as cultural discourse. The editors are interested in a range of approaches to a variety of texts and media, but would particularly like to receive essays that focus on how lost or absent individuals function as sites for negotiations of desire, difference, material history, representation, and social power in contemporary American culture. Essays might address, but are not limited to, the following topics: missing children (in the news, on milk cartons, in suburbia); missing mothers (or fathers or children) in made-for-television movies; missing media stars; missing fathers in neo-conservative representations of the welfare state; missing fathers and the men's movement. Please send two copies of abstracts with bibliography or completed essays by 15 October 1995 to either Amanda Howell, Dept. of English, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627 (aho2@uhura.cc.rochester.edu), or Andrew Schopp, Dept. of English, Rhodes College, 2000 North Parkway, Memphis TN 38112 (schopp@rhodes.edu). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Comparative Drama Scandinavian Issue Comparative Drama is planning a special issue on Scandinavian Drama for Spring 1996. Articles may be submitted to The Editors, Comparative Drama, English Department, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Visual Behaviors/Digital Productions Call for Work The Little Magazine Vol. 21B, an extension of the Volume 21 CD-Rom Project, is now accepting work suitable for electronic publication on The World Wide Web. We are looking particularly for writing (poetry, fiction, criticism, theory or multi-genre work), visual and sound art conceived as multi-media: visual/verbal/aural/textual and hypertextual collaborations. The proposed theme of the up-coming magazine is VISUAL BEHAVIORS. Please feel free to stretch and manipulate this theme to suit your purposes. send work from September 1, 1995 through February 1996. Sooner is better. For Info: bg1640@cnsvax.albany.edu or litmag@cnsunix.albany.edu. These comments are from: WWW Editorial Collective. The email address for WWW Editorial Collective is: litmag@cnsunix.albany.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Other Announcements * The Black Poetic Society Greetings and respect, The Black Poetic Society has gained recognition as a cultural student organization at Cleveland State University in Cleveland, Ohio. The Black Poetic Society is an African American troupe who verbalize black life and culture through a poetic medium. We are a grassroots organization responding to the need for youthful, honest, black expression in the university setting. BPS is a mixture of men and women who are college students and community leaders. Our purpose is to spread positive messages to our contemporaries. Our intention is to motivate and guide those who experience us towards positive paths in life. We would like to visit your campus and deliver the Heavy Black Poetic Experience . We generally require an honorarium and expenses to assist us in "spreading the word". Our honorarium is negotiable, but keep in mind that fees are necessary to continue our work. If you are interested in having The Black Poetic Society perform at your university, please contact: The Black Poetic Society, African American Cultural Center U.C. #103, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio 44115, (216) 590-1440, d.hoston@CSUOHIO.EDU. We hope to hear from you soon. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Steven A. Coons Award The 1995 Steven A. Coons Award will be presented to Prof. Jose Encarnacao for research in Computer Graphics, for his leadership in the international graphics standards efforts, and for his leadership in projects applying Computer Graphics to a broad range of industrial and medical applications. This prize, which is the highest awarded in the important field of Information Technology, will be presented to Prof. Jose Encarnacao in Los Angeles, USA, during the SIGGRAPH conference for Computer Graphics on Wednesday, the 9th of August, by ACM SIGGRAPH. You will find more detailed and timely information at the WWW-Server: http://www.igd.fhg.de/www/pr/index.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Gypsy Lore Society The Gypsy Lore Society has a home page, on which information about the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society is included. The URL is http://metro.turnpike.net/R/rtracy/index.html Sheila Salo Phone/fax: 301-341-1261 Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society E-mail: ssalo@capaccess.org 5607 Greenleaf Road Cheverly, MD 20785 USA -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * E-Zine Survey As editor of In Vivo literary magazine on the World Wide Web, and as a writer trying to get published on the Internet, I've found a dearth of information relating to which publications are really looking for work, and what they want. John Labowitz has the most comprehensive listing of e-zines available, but his is geared more toward the readership, rather than the "writership." To help writers find publishers, and to help on-line publishers increase the number of appropriate submissions, I'm developing an on-line writer's guide for submission. I encourage any on-line publishers -- fiction, poetry, and non-fiction -- to add their submission information using the on-line form I've created at URL: http://www-wane-leon.scri.fsu.edu/~jtillman/DEV/ZDMS/ You can add extra information, such as artwork guidelines in the extra information section. Links are welcome within the multiline entries, but please refrain from graphic references to avoid overworking the server. If you don't have web access, just use the form at the end of this message and return it. Please use the Web if you can! **Please, only the people who actually do the publishing should fill out these forms!** Your entry will be added to a datafile that can be browsed and searched. I will be verifying the entries as best I can, but the main advantage to this method will be that *you* control your listing. The listing is and will always be free to everyone. The search engines aren't fleshed out yet, but anyone is welcome to drop in and browse the listing. I will be notifying most editors and publishers by e-mail individually. If anyone knows of another service like this, save me some trouble and let me know. Otherwise, stay tuned! James Tillman, editor In Vivo Magazine ---------------------------------------- -- E-mail form -- Fill out and return -- ---------------------------------------- Magazine Name: Description of Magazine: Editor or Contact: URL: HTTP:// GOPHER: GOPHER:// FTP: FTP:// E-mail (for subscription): E-mail (for submissions): Percentage of freelance material: Number of submissions received per month: Pays (on acceptance, on publication, not at all): Replies within: --Fiction-- Accepts?: Type accepted: Length requirements: # Manuscripts accepted per month: Pay: --Poetry-- Accepts?: Type accepted: Length requirements: # Manuscripts accepted per month: Pay: --Non-Fiction-- Accepts?: Type accepted: Length requirements: # Manuscripts accepted per month: Pay: Best way to submit: Tips on getting into your magazine: James Tillman Editor, In Vivo Magazine In Vivo Magazine: http://freenet3.scri.fsu.edu:81/users/jtillman/titlepage.html Homepage: http://www-wane-leon.scri.fsu.edu/~jtillman -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Asian American Media Mall This new mall has more than just Media. It is meant to help empower the Asian American presence on the internet's world wide web. The Asian American Yellow Pages which are available from the Mall is part of that agenda. Strictly for entertainment sites are available from the mall as well. http://www.stw.com/amm/amm.htm Asian American Media Mall Stephen Quinn Web Master srq@stw.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Teen Smoking PMC Reader's Report on Teen Smoking - What we can do.: TEEN SMOKING -- SELLING OUR CHILDREN TO THE TOBACCO COMPANIES The Simmons Market Research Bureau's booklet, TARGETING TODAY'S TEENS, and its accompanying report on 60 national magazines indicates that many publications, purportedly targeted for adults, are also read by millions of teenagers. What's disturbing about this report is that magazines such as Cosmopolitan and LIFE, which exclude these figures from their public promotional materials, are privately quite aware of this collateral drawing power and exploit it to deliver an eager and impressionable young audience to major advertisers -- the Cigarette Companies! They are quietly, insidiously touting this "hidden" market so not to draw attention. Cosmopolitan's advertising and press kits are filled with self-appraisals of their friendliness and benevolence to their young, mostly female, readers (ages 18-34) with phrases such as "We are the young woman's Best Friend." They deliver, according to their audit figures (average paid circulation) 2.6 million subscribers, 85% women. But, in private their ad reps are selling an additional audience (quoting the Simmon's report) of 1.3 million teenagers, mostly girls, ages 12-17! You can bet the Tobacco companies are acutely aware of this. Even if a magazine didn't intentionally encourage Tobacco companies to consider these demographics, you'd think the staff of Cosmo, those "Best Friends," would recognize their moral responsibility toward children (their future readers) and stop assisting the Tobacco companies in selling their deadly products to innocent youngsters. Don't we all agree that the Tobacco Industry needs to reach young people in order to effectively create new smokers? Isn't this where we should launch a vigorous counter program of education and expose the reality of these hidden youth markets? Research shows that if a child doesn't smoke before age 20, she will never smoke! The Tobacco Companies know this all too well. Why would they be so interested in Cosmopolitan magazine? Non-smokers over 20 aren't going to start. And research shows that brand-switching is rare, otherwise, why would Phillip-Morris pitch three of its major brands against themselves in the same issues: Benson & Hedges, Parliament, and Marlboro? Let me reiterate: Cosmopolitan magazine is deliberately selling their teenage readers - over two million girls aged 12-19 - to the Tobacco companies. They are delivering our children into the hands of the Tobacco Industry to satisfy their greed for advertising dollars! And Cosmopolitan staff members are predominately women! Where are their ethics, their concern for their young sisters? Doesn't anybody care? It's time we realize this is exactly where future habitual smokers are recruited. Right under our noses! These are innocent teenage girls being shown that beautiful women can smoke and be healthy and successful. It's no surprise we find ourselves asking why kids start smoking. The Tobacco Companies, with the unconscionable, selfish, and willing help of magazines like Cosmopolitan, are reaching our children where we aren't looking! The teen market helps support the Ad Rates; the Ad managers may not wish to admit it, but everyone in the Industry knows the undeniable truth. The Tobacco Lobbyists are telling the press and the President that they don't place ads in magazines which have an readership consisting of more than 15% teenagers. If true, these well-researched figures by the Simmons Research Bureau, which shows that up to 44% of Cosmo's readers are under 20, demand that the Tobacco Companies be held accountable to their own claims and remove Cigarette Ads from Cosmopolitan magazine! The tragedy is that Cosmopolitan magazine is fully aware of these facts and aggressively seek Tobacco Advertisers -- in fact, they are actively selling this impressionable demographic group to all their advertisers! Millions of young girls and young mothers are being shown that smoking is part of the glamorous, healthy, successful, beautiful, modern woman's lifestyle. We may not be surprised, but appalled, that Cosmopolitan has never written a critical article about smoking; and by their own editor's admissions edit articles to reject references linking smoking to health problems. In Cosmo's health reports, they will list numerous factors contributing to heart disease and breast cancer but not one word about smoking ever appears. How do you think Cosmo's readers (who are mostly women, 40% with children) would react to these figures -- that they are helping the Tobacco companies deliver their deadly message to our children and not even warning them? How can Cosmopolitan dare claim to be the young woman's best friend? Would readers continue to buy Cosmo if they knew the truth? Congressman Charles Rose (who is defending the tobacco companies) on a NIGHTLINE program, said he and the President are united with the tobacco industry "to do everything humanly possible to keep children from being exposed to tobacco". Let's hope he and the tobacco interests are sincere and challenge them to start by taking notice of these important statistics. I'm fearful that the Tobacco Industry is hoping this issue remains quiet and underground (discussed in closed marketing meetings with their ad agencies and prospective publications' reps). Have you been aware of the Simmons Reports and the efforts of magazines to covertly sell products to children that would otherwise embarrass the magazine if the truth were known? Can you do anything to help? Two other magazines which are delivering a teen audience to Tobacco companies are Sports Illustrated and LIFE. LIFE's ad & media kits make the magazine out to be a national treasure for the American Family. How many children use LIFE in school and education projects we can only guess, but the Tobacco companies realize an Ad in LIFE magazine is going to reach millions of children -- future new smokers, if they continue to have their way. Sports Illustrated has been asked by several Congressmen to voluntarily pull their cigarette ads. Norman Pearlstine, editor-in-chief of Time Inc., which publishes Sports Illustrated has been urged to put"the health of our children ahead of . . . corporate profits." George Gross of the Magazine Publishers Association said "No one tracks teen readership of magazines." He and Pearlstine are obviously unaware or ignoring Simmon's comprehensive study which also reports that 6.7 million teens read Sports Illustrated. Does SI have more than 45 million readers to give them their arbitrary 15% cushion? For many Americans, to whom the ubiquitous Ads selling SI subscriptions on TV during the Christmas Holidays suggests the magazine wishes to be considered a wholesome product designed to enrich the entire family, the percentage of teens reading such a widely read publication is a lesser point -- nearly SEVEN MILLION TEENS in America alone are being exposed to these sophisticated and highly effective cigarette ads! Millions of teen-agers who read Sports Illustrated to follow "the lives and achievements of their sports heroes . . ." are literally bombarded by advertising promoting the virtues of smoking. Consider the ads for Camel cigarettes featuring the infamous cartoon character "Camel Joe" urging readers to "collect all 10" Camel cigarette collectors' packs. Is this R.J. Reynold's (maker of Camels) idea of an ad designed to get current adult smokers to switch brands, as the Tobacco companies continue to claim? Who's kidding who? WHAT CAN WE DO? What can the 78% of adults in America who do not smoke do when the Industry continues to outspend and out-lobby opponents at every turn? Non-smokers can simply stop supporting these magazines! The publishing companies have been evading the issue by absolving their hands of responsibility, not willing to acknowledge the key role they play in the whole process of delivering a deadly product to consumers. They hide behind their concept of "market principles" but in reality they are confident that either their readers are unaware of the connections, or believe themselves helpless and powerless, or wouldn't act out of conscience. What would happen if the subscribers and stand buyers realized they, themselves, are the most important and potentially the most effective force that can be wielded against the Tobacco/Advertising Industries' considerable power and their legions of lawyers and lobbyists? If, for example, only 15%, one in seven, of Cosmopolitan's women readers canceled or refused to renew their subscriptions, returning the renewal offers with an counter-offer to resubscribe only when Tobacco Ads are removed, Cosmopolitan would lose more revenue from lost readership and a lower Ad Rate base than all the money they reap from accepting Cigarettes Ads! Guess what their next move would be? Would they continue to insist Tobacco Companies have a right to advertise to anyone? Would they be so "principled" to sacrifice for the rights of Tobacco interests? Hardly. This example underscores the truth: Magazines such as Cosmopolitan are only motivated by the money; if it's profitable, children's lives and our nation's health care costs must not be considered. The solution may be right in our hands! Couldn't some of the enormous resources and funding, now being thrown futilely into court costs and legislation, be better spent informing the non-smoking public of the one tactic they can use immediately to break the frustrating, costly impasse and help win this battle? We needn't wish to hurt the publications, just help people understand the collateral damage of which they unwittingly are a part. Ultimately, its the consumers who power the market's engines. But the Tobacco interests are driving the cars! Readers need to understand how they can wrestle the steering wheel away by simply turning off the gas. Remember the Tuna boycotts to save Dolphins? The analogy is similar. We recognized how we contribute to a problem when we buy products that hurt animals. Americans were able to get moral action from a reluctant Industry by showing their resolve. We proved we can act as individuals and help save the dolphins. Can't we do the same to Save Our Children? Of course, all this pain could be avoided if the magazines can be persuaded to stop accepting Tobacco Ads. Are there any real, compassionate, ethical, caring people working at these companies? We can only hope so. Please reply, if you can, and advise me of any other groups or individuals I should contact. Or please forward this message to anyone you think can help. I'll appreciate any assistance to help our young people. Though I'm single and childless myself, Im certain we have no greater duty in life. I'm organizing an action group, interested parties please E-mail mlobato@ix.netcom.com. Thank you, Matt LoBato. These comments are from: Matt LoBato The email address for Matt LoBato is: mlobato@ix.netcom.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- End of Notices for September, 1995