February 14, 2007
Re- Problematizing Terrorism: an epidemic approach
I was in Stanford yesterday and heard a fascinating lecture on “counter terrorism” by Paul Stares. The lecturer (who presented a USIP plan) suggested implementing the classic epidemiological model for defining and confronting the “future terror threat”.
I found this lecture crucial for many subjects:
- the bio-security configuration/ remediation (by the way he used terms “remedy” and “reform” in order to describe the “remediation” of terrorism)
- the application of “a bio model” and thinking through bio models about the social. (even though this new perspective was presented as a way to reduce uncertainty, is seems the bio model is generalizing the problem)
- the epidemic rationale suggested sounds like a rhizomic rationale (for both the problem and the solution), what does it mean in terms of preparedness “apparatus”?
- the changing definition of the threat from ”terrorism” to “militancy”, a much wider category like we have seen in with “risk” and “preparedness”.
- is it an emerging counter terror approach? re- problematizing terrorism?
I would love to hear your comments about: Rethinking the Global war on Terror: Counter Epidemic Approach
Across Media at the de Young
A few days ago, I visited the de Young in San Francisco to see “Charles Sheeler: Across Media,” a new exhibition of Sheeler’s work. “Across Media” is not a traditional retrospective. Instead, it focuses on the relationships between the different media central to Sheeler’s art—photography, film, drawing, printmaking, and painting. I find the exhibition fascinating not only because it offers an exciting approach to Sheeler’s art, but also because it constitutes an interesting starting-point for thinking about the contemporary.
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Adrian McIntyre February 26 @ Noon
The AGORA-sponsored graduate student brown bag series is starting up again this spring. It is a series of informal presentations in which post-field graduate students who are writing up present their projects to other graduate students.
Adrian McIntyre is going first, on February 26, Monday, from 12 to 1:30 in the Gifford Room.
Jerome Whitington will be speaking later in the term, on April 9, same time, but I’ll send out another reminder about his presentation close to the date.
Dominic Boyer to Speak April 18
Dominic Boyer author of Spirit and System , on German intellectuals, will be speaking on East Germany and “the future” in Stephens Hall (either room 260 or 270, depending on which notice you read), April 18 at 12 noon. Sponsored by ISEEES and the Institute of European Studies.
I’ll also post this on the “current events” page on the ARC wiki.
A 290 Lecture Worth the Catering
The 290 series earned back a bit of respect this week with the lecture on Monday by Julian Richards, who is a specialist on digital archaeology (the subject of his talk) at Archaeology Data Service (ADS). ADS is a service in the UK that makes available, in various forms and via various portals, archaeological data on the Web. OK, it might sound boring, but the guy struck me as exceptionally knowledgeable, and he’s thoughtfully engaged in one aspect of what I would call the institutionalization of digital knowledge production. A specific intellectual. So I asked him if he thought these new digitial resources and capabilities were doing more than making life easier for archaeological researchers: Were they also allowing them to ask different questions? He gave me his “short answer”: Yes, because graduate students would save so much time being able to reuse previous data, and wouldn’t have to spend so much time laboriously amassing new data, they would be freed up to take on different questions. Now, Richards didn’t give me the long answer, but this much made me reflect back on fieldwork in socio-cultural. If we could reuse earlier researchers fieldnotes, where would that get us? If our time were freed up–whether the time we’d spend getting access or learning a language, what would that free us to do? Could we even imagine anthropologists sharing fieldnotes? Digital technology invites collaborations but, again, does contemporary knowledge production invite collaboration? Read more »
Collaborative Anthropology
Cambridge has established a Professorship of Collaborative Anthropology. Here is what it is about: Read more »