From owner-announce@net.bio.net Mon Nov 02 22:00:00 1998 Path: biosci!biosci!not-for-mail From: li10@cornell.edu (Lillian Isacks) Newsgroups: bionet.announce Subject: S&TS Conference at Cornell Date: 2 Nov 1998 18:00:18 -0800 Organization: Science & Technology Studies Lines: 38 Sender: daemon@net.bio.net Approved: kristoff@net.bio.net Distribution: world Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: net.bio.net Technology & Identity A Conference at Cornell University April 16-18, 1999 As a theoretical term, identity is being increasingly invoked by analysts in science and technology studies (S&TS) and other fields to order and explain actors' values, interests, practices, and more generally, world-views. As social constructs, heterogeneous assemblages can form, maintain, fragment, and completely transform the identities of collectivities and actors. The graduate students of the Science & Technology Studies Department at Cornell University announce a conference to explore the boundaries of identity, to be held April 16-18, 1999. How are identities constructed and defined? What work do actors achieve by drawing on identity as a resource? In our analyses, what work do we accomplish by using the term "identity" as compared to other theoretical resources? By focusing on the constructed boundaries of identity, including those between other identities, we hope to investigate core questions in S&TS such as how some identities are maintained or how a particular sociotechnical system can support multiple identities. Ken Gergen, Professor of Psychology at Swarthmore College, will deliver the keynote address. Although conference participants may study these questions at multiple levels, such as the nation-state or the laboratory, and with diverse empirical concerns, we expect papers to engage with theoretical questions raised by the intersection of technology and identity. Abstracts of no more than 250 words and a one-page curriculum vitae should be sent to the postal or e-mail address listed below by December 15, 1998. Abstracts from graduate students in all fields are encouraged. Conference information is posted as available at http://www.sts.cornell.edu/TI.html, or contact: Dan Plafcan Abstract Coordinator Science & Technology Studies 726 University Ave., 2nd floor Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14850 E-mail: djp2@cornell.edu .