[AG-TECH] April Liquid Seeds

[Allison Clark <aclark@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Seedbed Initiative for Transdomain Creativity and CHASS invite you to attend a talk presented by Research Fellow Ron Eglash on Thursday, April 27 at 4:30 PM, at NCSA’s auditorium. This event will be broadcast on the access grid. A reception will follow.

Cultural Cybernetics: Using Informatics to Bridge the Universal/Local Knowledge Divide

Abstract

Many of the threats to sustainability and social justice are grounded in claims for the universality of science and technology. The claims for genetic inferiority of non-whites, the focus on oil and uranium for our national energy strategy, the over-use of pesticides and other disastrous decisions derived their legitimacy from scientific authority. Yet diminishing the authority of science by applying relativist social construction is equally disastrous, as it invites religious authority and other “closed society” knowledge claims to fill the gap. Cultural cybernetics is one way to allow an anti-relativist constructivism, using informatics to bridge the universal/local knowledge gap.

Ron Eglash holds a B.S. in Cybernetics, an M.S. in Systems Engineering, and PhD in History of Consciousness, all from the University of California. A Fulbright postdoctoral fellowship enabled his field research on African ethnomathematics, which was published by Rutgers University Press in 1999 as African Fractals: modern computing and indigenous design. He is now an associate professor of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He recently co-edited Appropriating Technology: Vernacular Science and Social power (UM Press 2004). His current project, funded by the NSF, HUD, and Dept. of Education, translates the mathematical concepts embedded in cultural designs of African, African American, Native American, and Latino communities into software design tools for secondary school education. The software is available online at http://www.rpi.edu/~eglash/csdt.html


This event is co-sponsored by Seedbed and CHASS


Allison Clark, Ph.D.
Associate Director, Seedbed Initiative for Transdomain Creativity
Krannert Center for the Performing Arts - Office of the Director
500 South Goodwin Avenue
University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
Urbana IL 61801-3788
MC 072
http://www.seedbed-initiative.uiuc.edu/
Cell: 217-493-8935
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Vernon Burton,  Director, Center for Computing in Humanities, Arts, and Social Science (UIUC)
217- 333-4327;   http://vburton.ncsa.uiuc.edu;   http://www.uiuc.edu/overview/explore/faculty.html
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