Permeable Boundaries:
Technology and the Natural World
Program
Thursday, 24 October 2002
5.00 Welcome Address (Robert Kahn Room)
Samuel Hulbert, President of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (Heritage Room)
Conference Theme
Heinz Luegenbiehl, Humanities and Social Sciences, Chair
5.30 Keynote Address (Robert Kahn Room)
Steven Vogel (Duke University)
"When Muscle Mattered Most: The Biomechanics of Ancient Tasks"
6.30 – 7.30 Reception (Louise Kahn Room)
7.30 – 9.00 Conference Welcome Dinner (Louise Kahn Room)
Friday, 25 October 2002
7.30 – 8.30 Continental Breakfast (Music Room)
8.30-10.00
I. Technology and the New Environmental Ethics (Performing Arts Room)
Moderator: Heidemarie Heeter (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology)
Maril Hazlett (University of Kansas)
“Ecological Bodies in the Legacy of Silent Spring”
George D. Catalano (SUNY Binghamton)
“Chaos and a New Environmental Ethic”
Per Sandin (Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden):
“Natural Hazards and the De minimis Rule”
II. Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto: Influence and Critique (Heritage Room)
Moderator: Richard House (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology)
Kali Tal (University of Arizona)
“The Politics of the Posthuman Body: Race, Gender, and Cyborgs”
Clancy Ratliff (University of Minnesota)
“The Populist Cyborg: Resituating Haraway in Activism”
Andrew Utterson (Canterbury Christ Church University College, UK)
“Metaphors of Perception and Prosthetics: Dziga Vertov's Cyborg Cinematics”
10.00 – 10.30 Coffee Break (Music Room)
10.30 – 12.00
III. Representations in Literature and Science (Performing Arts Room)
Moderator: George D. Catalano (SUNY Binghamton)
Nick Williams (Indiana University)
“Romantic Lunacy: The Poetics of Materiality in Shelley’s Moon Fragment”
Richard House (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology)
"Only Human After All: Information and Cognition in the Fiction of Richard Powers."
Robert G. Hudson (University of Saskatchewan)
“New Light on the Science Wars”
IV. Artifical Intelligence and the Posthuman (Heritage Room)
Moderator: Lance Hickey (Rose-Hulman Institue of Technology)
Dennis Weiss (York College)
“The Posthuman: Nature, Culture, Network”
Frederick Mills (Bowie State University)
“Memetic Theory and the Posthuman”
Sean Zdenek (University of Texas at San Antonio)
“Designing Artificial Humans: Discourse Studies in Software Agent Research”
12.00-1.30 Lunch (Louise Kahn Room)
1.30 – 3.00
V. Technology Management and its Challenges (Performing Arts Room)
Moderator: Kevin Christ (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology)
Gil Laware (Purdue University)
“Web Technology Management—Importance and Overall Impact”
Terry Schumacher (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology)
“Can We Find Sovereignty in a Globalized World? The Necessity, and the Inadequacy, of the Humanities in Technology Choice"
VI. Cyberspaces: The Interplay of Science and Art (Heritage Room)
Moderator: Frederick Mills (Bowie State University)
Pierette K. Jamison (Purdue University)
“Art for Biotechnological Times”
William McIver, Jr: (SUNY Albany)
“Cyberspace, Organizations, and Asynchrony”
Beth Kessler (University of Chicago)
“Display and Data: Images from the Hubble Space Telescope”
3.00 – 3.30 Coffee Break (Music Room)
3.3.0 – 5.00
VII. Engineering and the Humanities: Cross-fertilization? (Performing Arts Room)
Moderator: John Gardner (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology)
Domenico Grasso (Smith College)
“The Seductive Equation and Engineering Thought”
Angela H. Patton (University of Houston) and Richard B. Bannerot (University of Houston)
“Thinking Strategies for the 21st Century: Redefining the Boundary between Engineering and Art"
Julia M. Williams (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology)
"'How Dumb Do You Want Me To Write It?': Engineering Students, Civic Responsibility, and Technical Communication"
VIII. Literature (Heritage Room)
Moderator: Anneliese Watt (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology)
Trane DeVore (UC Berkeley)
“Handling The Ax: Technology and the Organization of Bodies in Thoreau’s The Maine Woods”
John Reep (Saint Louis University)
“Re: The Fact that I am Fiction: The Avatars of Mary-Anne Breeze”
5.30 – 7.00 Conference Dinner (Louise Kahn Room)
7.30 – 9.00 Keynote Address (Robert Kahn Room)
Maureen McHugh (Science Fiction Author)
"The Dao of Design: Dachshunds and CAD Systems"
Saturday, 26. October 2002
7.30 – 8.30 Continental Breakfast (Music Room)
8.30 - 10.00
IX. Literary Studies and Modern Technology (Heritage Room)
Moderator: Norma Rivera-Hernández (Millersville University)
Stuart Noble-Goodman (University of Redlands)
“Geographic Information Systems and Literary Analysis”
David Chisholm (University of Arizona)
“Prosodic Feature Analysis and German Literary Prose”
X. The Virtual Natures of the Movies (Performing Arts Room)
Moderator: Catherine Mammola (DeVry Institute of Technology)
Marton Marko (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
“Wim Wenders’ End of Violence: At the End of Nature’s Horizon”
H. Lewis Ulman (Ohio State University)
“Thresholds of the Real: Virtual Landscapes in Popular Film”
Louise Green (University of Cape Town, South Africa)
“Natural and Unnatural Bodies in the Films of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jean-Claude van Damme”
10.00 – 10.30 Coffee Break (Music Room)
10.30 – 12.00
XI. Technology and the Human Dimension (Performing Arts Room)
Moderator: Scott Clark (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology)
Jacalyn D. Harden (Seattle University)
“What Could be More Natural? The Technology and Ideology of Trans-racial Adoptive Breastfeeding”
Heinz Luegenbiehl (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology)
"Human Purpose: The Interplay of Nature and Technology"
Howard S. Meltzer (Lock Haven University)
“Riemann’s “Undertone Series”
XII. How Much Technology? Negotiating Boundaries in Contemporary Culture (Heritage Room)
Moderator: Maggie Wallace (Dowling College)
Sarah E. Leach (Purdue University)
“Negotating Boundaries: What can we Learn from the Hutterites and the Amish?
Kathryn Neeley (University of Virginia)
“Ambivalent About Boundaries: Using Robert Frost and Arnold Pacey to “Read” the Boundary between Technology and Culture"
Wayne Hanewicz (Eastern Michigan University)
“Technology as Autobiography: How We Are in Our Technology”
12.00 – 1.30 Lunch (Louise Kahn Room)
1.30 – 3.00
XIII. Administering Technology (Heritage Room)
Moderator: Michael Kukral (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology)
Paul Cesarini (Bowling Green State University)
“When Fair Use becomes Fair Game. Digital Rights Management Pitfalls in the 21st century”
Eugene Mellican (University of Massachusetts Lowell)
“Tinkering with Nature: A Clash of Values and the Shaping of Public Policy “
XIV. Philosophy of Technology: Heidegger and Beyond (Performing Arts Room)
Moderator: Heinz Luegenbiehl (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology)
Leon Niemoczynski (East Stroudsburg University)
“How to Affirm Technology: Meta-technology and Nihilism”
Jeff Post (Rider University)
“Reconnecting the Arts and Sciences in Modern Technological Development”
Lance Hickey (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology)
“Cyberspace and the Reimagining of Nature”
3.00 – 3.30 Afternoon Coffee (Music Room)
3.30 – 5.00
XV. Technology and Nature: Artificial Divide? (Performing Arts Room)
Moderator: Marton Marko (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
Patrick Hopkins (Millsaps College)
“Is there any point to the Natural-Artificial Divide?”
Pieter Vermaas (Delft University of Technology)
“Natural Technology and Artificial Nature: An Analysis of the Flexible Natural-Artificial Boundary in terms of Exotics”
Twyla Gibson (University of Michigan)
“Technology Imitates Nature: The Genesis of the Boundary between Art and Life”
XVI. Virtual and Traditional Education: Is there a Problem? (Heritage Room)
Moderator: Julia Williams (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology)
Maggie Wallace (Dowling College)
‘Videoconference and the Integration of Technology in the Presentation of the Humanities”
Amy E. C. Linnemann (Southeast Missouri State)
“Ethics, Technology, and the Contemporary Classroom”