Posts Tagged ‘EASST’

A focus on buildings.

Thursday, December 22nd, 2005

I am happy to announce that the session proposal that Michael Guggenheim and I wrote has been accepted for the 2006 conference of the EASST which will take place August 23rd–26th in Lausanne. Check out the call for papers on Buildings, Technology, Interaction.
It is great that Michael approached me on this subject. I am really looking forward to discuss the role of buildings with researchers who have an STS background and it will be interesting to see how different the discussion in such an environment will be compared to discussions with urban studies people. Usually, I know discussions of places or the role of space in general; this session, however, will focus on buildings and it will be exciting to see what details and what specific features will come to light if one concentrates on the material entity of the building, on its uses, and on its change through use.

Seeds becoming sprouts.

Wednesday, December 7th, 2005

Slowly, slowly the tender cultivating of this website produces the first tendrils of plants that are to grow in size, develop leaves, blossoms, and with a bit of luck, further seeds. Two new sprouts have been observed this week.

Yesterday, Michael Guggenheim contacted me asking if I would like to organize a workshop in next year’s easst conference together with him. Of course I do! Today, we wrote the call for papers on the topic Technology, buildings and interaction. (This was the first time that I used SubEthaEdit for scientific writing and I must say that it worked out really well. We completed the call in just about two hours, both writing in one text document at the same time, connected over the internet. Most excellent.) I really want to thank Michael for his initiative and for contacting me about this.
While I was editing around in the call, a mail arrived in my inbox, which I first ignored because we wanted to get the call done as soon as possible. When I finally read the mail I was taken by – pleasant – surprise. The editorial board for the 2nd edition of the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (Macmillan) contacted me, asking if I would contribute an entry on Ibn Khaldun. That I will very gladly do. It is excellent to see that Ibn Khaldun‘s contributions to the social sciences will be acknowledged in the encyclopedia.

The gardener is happy, I have to say. Caring for this website will continue in the hope that further germs develop into plants. I am excited about what kind of sprout we see popping through the surface next.