Computer
Cultures
March 1-3, 2001
In less than a half-century, computer technology has transformed almost
every aspect of modern life, from the way we do business to the way
we teach, make art, and participate in politics. Computers have provided
new means for creating, processing, communicating, and preserving information,
and promise to play a still greater role in the future. Now, at a time
when the possibilities for computers seem practically endless, our seminar
will take this opportunity to discuss the past, present, and probable
futures of computer technology.
As technological advances are made with increasing rapidity, scholars
are exploring how computers do and might further transform the ways
that we receive, organize, create, and communicate knowledge. How are
computer scientists determining the immediate uses, practical ramifications,
and even limits of computer technology? What advances have been made
possible through computerization, and what technical developments lie
further ahead? Such questions have begun to receive close attention
in all divisions and departments within the academy, where technological
developments are rapidly changing the tools of the trade, from the texts
we read to the ways we teach, publish, and learn. There is no doubt
that we are witnessing a dramatic transformation both in the way that
academic disciplines are organized and the way that educational institutions
operate. For this reason it is especially important to open up a dialogue
between the so-called "two cultures" of the sciences and the humanities.
In addition to raising questions about the technological possibilities
or scientific applications of computerization, scholars have begun to
address the broader cultural implications of this innovative technology.
Computers and computing technologies convey ideologies about freedom
of speech and censorship; rights to privacy and habits of hospitality;
practices of intellectual property, labor, and entrepreneurship; and
about technologies themselves. For better or worse, computer technologies
are ambassadors and advertisements mainly for American Ð or broadly
speaking, Western Ð values and beliefs. Despite the seeming hegemony
of the West in various areas of information technology, however, the
increasing use of computers in non-Western countries raises questions
about the future of national identity and citizenship when information
as well as capital flows freely across boundaries which are no longer
geographical but virtual.
How has computer technology altered culture, and conversely, how do
cultural values shape the development of computer technologies? What
trends can we project into the future concerning the role of computers
in science, the arts, education, and politics? Our program will address
these and other questions central to computer scientists, social scientists,
and humanists. Topics to be discussed may include cybertext and its
early 20th-century precursors; video game technology and the reorganization
of the real; the effects of computerization on globalization and vice-versa;
and the challenges facing democracy in an age of computer-assisted "personalization."
Speakers will include Michael O'Donnell (Computer Science), Lawrence
Rothfield (English & Comparative Literature), Saskia Sassen (Sociology),
Rick Stevens (Computer Science), Cass Sunstein (Law & Political Science),
and Yuri Tsivian (Art History & Cinema and Media Studies).
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University of Chicago