Thursday, December 20, 2012

UC Irvine Visual Studies Graduate Student Conference


The PhD program in Visual Studies at UC, Irvine invites submissions for its annual graduate student conference: The Aesthetics of Austerity.

Conference Date: April 5, 2013

Deadline: Abstracts of no more than 350 words are due January 21, 2013 at 5:00 pm to vsconference2013@gmail.com. Presentations are to be 20 minutes in length. Please include a one-page CV that demonstrates your research interests.

The current historical moment is dominated by arguments over the continued aftermath and threat of recession, rising deficits and spending cuts. In a word, "austerity" governs the tenor of our times. Although the term is traditionally equated with economic policy, austerity is articulated in a multitude of different ways across culture. That is, austerity speaks to creative practices and forms of living that—while sometimes intimately connected to capital—constitute alternative approaches and theories within extreme economies.

This conference is concerned with austerity not only in its traditional economic sense, but also in terms of its other usages: What are the implications of shrinking budgets for art institutions and the humanities in general? How is the threat of debt mobilized in various venues (political, religious, aesthetic)? In what ways is economic uncertainty reflected in popular culture? How are "cuts"—both those from outside and/or those that are self-imposed—explored in the visual arts, as well as everyday practices? Do alternative techniques and strategies present substantive challenges to prevailing notions of austerity or do they function as the other side of the same coin? What shape(s) does opposition to state-led austerity measures take, both in the political and aesthetic spheres? Just as austerity is immediately representative of the contemporary moment, the notion of exploring possibilities within the limits of dwindling resources, of "doing something with nothing," has a longstanding history. This conference welcomes papers on present concerns, as well as works that address different historical moments and forms of austerity.

We hope to receive submissions from across the humanities, arts, social sciences, and natural and technological sciences which engage issues of vision, visibility, and visuality, including (but not limited to) gender and sexuality studies, critical theory, ethnic and cultural studies, history, anthropology, sociology, environmental studies, literature and language studies, information and technology studies, philosophy, political science, classics, art history, and film and media studies.

Suggested Themes
"End Times"/Dystopia
Communalism/Communization
Local Ecologies/Localization
Accumulation/Waste
Preservation/Decay
Self-Imposed Limitations
Currency
Romanticization of Poverty
Cultures of Lux
Amateurism/Do-It-Yourself Movement
Alternative Institutions

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

2013 Human Rights Fellowship IICAS


The Institute for International, Comparative and Area Studies (IICAS) is pleased to announce the 6th annual student competition for human rights fellowships.  Successful applicants for the 2013 UC Human Rights Fellowship will receive $4,500 for summer internships with a human rights organization of his or her choice.

Interested students are invited to attend an informational session on Monday, January 14th, at 12pm in the Eleanor Roosevelt Administration Building Conference Room (ERC 115 - first floor).

Information and application instructions may be found at the IICAS home page or at the following website:http://iicas.ucsd.edu/research-grants/student/human-rights-fellowship/index.html

Applications are due no later than 3pm Monday, March 4th, 2013.  

Friday, November 30, 2012

Call for Papers and Fellowship applications




Speakers this month are John Michael and Peter Godfrey-Smith. See the calendar for details.

CALL FOR PAPERS
Irvine-Pittsburgh-Princeton Conference on the  Mathematical and Conceptual Foundations of Physics 4 April 2013

CALL FOR PAPERS
Choosing the Future of Science: 
The Social Organization of Scientific Inquiry
20-21 April 2013

The Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh invites applications for Fellowships supporting visits in the Center for a term or a year. Deadlines approaching:

Postdoctoral Fellowship
Visiting Fellowship
Senior Visiting Fellowship
So, what's it like?

CFP: Economic Aspects of Science

Call for Papers - Spontaneous Generations: A Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science
http://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/SpontaneousGenerations/

Spontaneous Generations is an open, online, peer-reviewed academic journal published by graduate students at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, University of Toronto. It has produced six issues and is a well-respected journal in the history and philosophy of science and science studies.  We invite interested scholars to submit papers for our seventh issue.

We welcome submissions from scholars in all disciplines, including but not limited to HPS, STS, History, Philosophy, Women's Studies, Sociology, Anthropology, and Religious Studies. Papers in any period are welcome. 

The journal consists of four sections:

A focused discussion section consisting of short peer-reviewed and invited articles devoted to a particular theme. The theme for our seventh issue is "Economic aspects of science"* (see a brief description below).  Recommended length for submissions: 1000-3000 words.

A peer-reviewed section of research papers on various topics in the field of HPS. Recommended length for submissions: 5000-8000 words.

A book review section for books published in the last 5 years. Recommended length for submissions: up to 1000 words.

An opinions section that may include a commentary on or a response to current concerns, trends, and issues in HPS. Recommended length for submissions: up to 500 words.

* Economic Aspects of Science
Nearly every discipline in science studies has considered the economics of science in some fashion. Philosophers have long looked to economics as a resource for understanding science. They have considered how individual scientists might economize time and resources in pursuing a variety of epistemic goals, and have considered how competing scientists might spontaneously organize in ways reminiscent of Adam Smith’s invisible hand. More recently philosophers have begun to consider how science’s changing economic context might be affecting scientific norms. Historians have deconstructed the “linear model” whereby scientific progress leads to technological progress, which in turn drives economic prosperity. They have also considered how science's changing economic circumstances, from the patronage relations of the Middle Ages, to the government-driven funding of the Cold War, to the recent trend toward commercial funding, have affected its operation.  Economists have considered how science might be important for the economy and what  that might imply for science policy.

We welcome short papers that explore these and other economic aspects of science, and especially welcome papers looking to make interdisciplinary connections within the economics of science. Case studies that speak to these issues are also welcome. The questions below might help in further guiding potential submissions:

·      Do philosophers, sociologists, historians, and economists interested in economic aspects of science have anything useful to say to each other?

·      What should science studies learn from the history, philosophy, or practice of economics? For example, should we be applying the results of behavioral economics to our accounts of how scientists operate? Can these lessons be applied to discussions of, for instance, the value of intellectual property as a motivating factor in scientific fields such as genomics?

·      Do, must, or should, scientific methods depend on the economic context of scientific research? For example, does the high cost of randomized controlled trials affect the expectation of repeatability in scientific experiments?

·      What role does Intellectual Property play in science and how has it changed through science's history? Is Intellectual Property just a metaphor, or is it a significant component of an economic system of science?

·      To the extent that they were ever descriptively accurate, are Mertonian norms under threat? What does this mean for the nature of science?

·      Is it illuminating to think about science as an economic enterprise? What do we learn about science in doing so?

·      What does it mean to "commodify" scientific research? Is there a qualitative change underway in what scientists produce?

The seventh issue of Spontaneous Generations will appear in September 2013.

Submissions for the seventh issue should be sent no later than March 15, 2013.

For more details, please visit the journal homepage at http://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/SpontaneousGenerations/

Please distribute freely.  Apologies for cross-postings.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Max Planck Institute Postdoctoral Fellowships


The Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin,
Department II (Lorraine Daston), announces two
Postdoctoral Fellowships for up to two years,
starting date September 1, 2013. Outstanding junior scholars are invited
to apply.

The fellowship will be awarded in conjunction with the following two
Working Group research projects:
Historicizing Big Data
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Candidates should hold a doctorate in the history of science or a related
field at the time the fellowship begins; the Ph.D. degree should have been
awarded in 2010 or later.

The Max Planck Institute for the History of Science is an international
and interdisciplinary research institute (http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/en/index.html).
It is expected that candidates will be able to present their own work and
discuss that of others fluently in English. Applications may however be
submitted in German, English, or French.

Fellowships are endowed with a monthly stipend between 2.100  and 2.500
(fellows from abroad) or between 1.468  and 1.621  (fellows from Germany).

Candidates of all nationalities are welcome to apply; applications from
women are especially welcomed. The Max Planck Society is committed to
promoting more handicapped individuals and encourages them to apply.

Postdoctoral fellows are expected to participate in the research
activities at the Institute.

Candidates are requested to send a curriculum vitae, publication list,
copies of certificates (PhD), research prospectus (maximum 750 words), a
sample text, and two reference letters (which may be submitted separately)
no later than February 18, 2013 to:
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
Administration, Postdoc Dept. II
Boltzmannstrae 22, 14195 Berlin, Germany
(Electronic submission is also possible: rheld@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de)

For questions concerning the research project and Department II, please
contact Dr. David Sepkoski (dsepkoski@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de); for
administrative questions concerning the position and the Institute, please
contact Claudia Paa (paass@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de), Head of Administration,
or Jochen Schneider (jsr@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de), Research Coordinator.

Candidates may expect a decision by March 18, 2013.

STS Southern California Winter Retreat

STS Southern California Winter Retreat

Dates: Friday February 22, Saturday February 23, and Sunday February 24
Location: Borrego Springs, Anza-Borrego Desert (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anza-Borrego_Desert), exact location TBA

Doctoral students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty from across California are invited to the inaugural Southern California Winter STS retreat.

This retreat is designed for a select group of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty advance their research projects in the field of STS, broadly defined, and in so doing to advance an emergent set of problematics and topical foci in STS itself. The emphasis will be on intellectual play. It is not intended to be a training workshop, and graduate students will be expected to participate in the same manner as other participants. Collectively, we will explore each others’ topics through a series of focused discussions as well as small-group engagements with the Anza-Borrego environment. It is not expected that participants necessarily be interested in the study of desert ecosystems, etc.; we will use the local context to stimulate new ways of thinking that we can apply to our own research projects.

STS is to be taken here as an umbrella rather than a fence: work in cognate disciplines (informatics, anthropology, design, etc.) that deploys and engages with STS work is considered part of the mix. We will bring together up to 30 graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty for this three-day retreat. There will be two foci: (1) identifying and exploring common interests through two “spotlight” sessions; and (2) exploring these themes through teams exploring the local area. Accommodation for all will be covered; travel will be covered in exceptional circumstances for students. A registration fee of $100 is required. Since space is limited, there will be a selection process: please send a CV and a one-page statement of interest tosteveslota@gmail.com by December 15, 2012. The statement of interest should briefly address the research in progress that you would like to further through participation in the workshop. Those selected to participate in the workshop will be notified by January 1. They will be expected to circulate a two-page description of a current or prospective project by February 1.

Friday, 22 February

12:00pm    Registration begins

2:00pm    Introductions to workshop and participants

4:00pm    Sunset desert walk (continue introductory discussion)

6:00pm    Dinner

8:00pm    Optional film



Saturday, 23 February

7:00am    Optional sunrise desert walk


9:00am    Spotlight 1 (groups of three discuss projects of mutual interest (groups designated based on pre-circulated one-pagers)

10:30am    Break

11:30am    Spotlight 2

1.00pm    Lunch

2:00pm    Joint activity (split into interest groups and engage with the Anza-Borrego locale
to explore how current research interests are reflected in the local environment). Possible foci:
1) Traces (Peteroglyphs, ruins (Borrego hotel), Marshal South and the
Ghost Mountain experiment, mines)
2) Extreme environments (desert ecosystems, spring oases, invasive plants, scientific experiments)
3) Habitations & infrastructures (Borrego Springs, political economy of land use, stores, jurisdictions)
4) the Salton Sea

6:00pm    Dinner in small groups, depending on location

8:00pm    Optional games/discussions



Sunday, 24 February

7:00am    Optional sunrise desert walk

9:00am    Reports on joint activities, including links to participant research projects and emerging themes in STS
   
10:30am    Break

11:00am    Continued: Reports on joint activities, including links to participant research projects and emerging themes in STS

12:30pm    Lunch

2:00pm    Closing discussion, including future plans

Monday, October 15, 2012

UMSI Faculty search


The School of Information at the University of Michigan (UMSI) seeks a tenure-track professor at any rank with expertise in interpretivist methods and theory who advances knowledge about the interactions between people, information and information technology.
While we encourage applications from both foundational and applied interpretivist researchers, we are particularly interested in candidates who are not merely consumers of ethnographically based methods, but who have deep expertise in at least one relevant theoretical literature as well as methods. For a brief background statement of the interpretivist perspective see http://www.qualres.org/HomeInte-3516.html, but we encourage candidates from other interpretivist traditions as well.

Applications submitted by November 1 receive fullest consideration

Research support in Japan


The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science offers various opportunities to conduct research in Japan.
The JSPS Summer Program is for graduate students and postdocs.  It provides a round-trip plane ticket, travel insurance, maintenance allowance, research travel allowance, and research allowance for a 10-week summer program. In the US, you apply for this through the NSF’s EAPSI program.  Consequently, only research in NSF-funded disciplines is eligible.  This program has about a 33% success rate.  Application deadline: November 8, 2012
The JSPS Short-Term Postdoctoral Fellowship Program offers grad students and post-doctoral researchers in any field, including the humanities, the chance to spend 1-12 months conducting research in Japan.  (Since grad students are eligible, the name of the program is something of a misnomer.)  The program offers a round-trip plane ticket, travel insurance, a maintenance allowance, a settling-in allowance, and research support allowance.  To apply, either have your host researcher in Japan submit an application for you, or apply through JSPS’s Washington, DC, office. Those in appropriate disciplines can apply through the NIH or the SSRC.  This program has about a 30% success rate.  Application deadline: varies, but as early as November 16, 2012
The JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship Program offers postdoctoral scholars in any field, including the humanities, the chance to spend 12-24 months conducting research in Japan.  The fellowship includes a round-trip plane ticket, travel insurance, a maintenance allowance, a settling-in allowance, and a grant-in-aid for scientific research.  To apply, have your host research in Japan submit an application for you, or those in appropriate disciplines can apply through the NIH or the SSRC.  This program has about a 15% success rate.  Application deadline: varies, but as early as December 1, 2012
Although it is not required, JSPS suggests that applicants first complete a summer program, then do the short-term postdoc program, and finally apply for the full postdoc fellowship, so that in the end, they have a strong working relationship with Japanese researchers.

Tenure-track Faculty search, Drexel University


Science, Technology, and Society [STS] Program, Drexel University

The following job description is posted at:

The Science, Technology, and Society [STS] Program in collaboration
with the Department of History and Politics at Drexel University
expects to hire a tenure-track Assistant Professor. We invite
applications for this expected position at this time. The successful
applicant would begin September 1, 2013. This position continues the
re-invigoration of the research potential of the STS Program at Drexel
University, which included the successful recruitment in 2011 of both
a new Director and an Assistant Professor.

Although the particular sub-field is open, we are primarily interested
in candidates who investigate connections between health, science, and
society, with attention to how social, political, and economic
structures, policies, and/or cultural contexts inform medical
practice, medical technology, or medical knowledge. We are especially
interested in applicants with knowledge of research methods and strong
methodological skills (e.g., in-depth interviews, focus groups,
archival research, fieldwork, or statistical skills). We expect that
this person’s research and teaching, at both undergraduate and
graduate levels, will contribute to the STS Program, and that our new
colleague will participate in and initiate collaborations across the
Schools, Colleges, and Centers at Drexel.

Located in Philadelphia, Drexel is a privately endowed university
founded in 1891. With approximately 20,000 students, it has one of the
largest undergraduate cooperative education programs in the nation.
The University offers an attractive benefits package including tuition
remission, a generous retirement package with matching funds (up to
11%) and an opportunity to join an exceptional University, achieving
record growth and quality reputation. Drexel University is an Equal
Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. For more information about
Drexel University, please visit www.drexel.edu.

Please apply online at: www.drexeljobs.com. Only applications
submitted via the online system can be considered. The Department of
History and Politics is #3649 and this position is listed under it.
(The Department is simultaneously hiring in Political Science for an
Assistant Professor – this position is also listed in the online
application system.)

Candidates should include: 1) a cover letter; 2) curriculum vitae; 3)
up to three samples of your scholarly writing; and 4) the names,
institutional affiliation, and email addresses only of at least three
references. Please do not submit reference letters at this time as
such letters will be requested at a later date for short-listed
applicants. The successful applicant must have completed all
requirements for their PhD by August 15, 2013.

Review of applications will begin November 15, 2012 and continue until
filled. Please address all queries to Prof. Kelly Joyce at

Drexel University
ATTN: Search Committee
STS Program
3250-60 Chestnut Street
3025 MacAlister Hall