The ↓next biannual conference of the German Anthropological Association (↑GAA) will take place exactly one year from today, from 2nd to 5th October 2013, in Mainz, Germany. I am organizing a workshop there, called ‘Technology, society, and the scope of anthropology.’ The official call for papers will be sent out by the GAA around end of this month, but here you already have it:

Technologies like—for example, but not exclusively—digital electronics in all its guises, on the one hand permeate everyday life on a global scale and at an accelerating pace. On the other hand, hardly surprising, those are omnipresent in societal, political, economic, and artistic discourses. Anthropology has not been blind to this. In recent years more and more work is done wherein technologies play decisive roles, the genre media anthropology meanwhile is consolidated, and so on. In spite of that the anthropological voice still does not thunder in public discourses (exceptions like e.g. David Graeber granted), which is lamented by the profession. Inconsistently an anthropological spill-over into larger and public circles seems to be contained and repressed by the anthropologists themselves. At the same time there are proponents who wholeheartedly embrace our discipline and push it to the forefront. It is significant that Bruno Latour, whose voice definitely is heard widely, not only clearly communicates to be tremendously fond of anthropology, but even suggests a fusion of anthropology and science and technology studies. This way, he hopes, the dichotomy of nature and culture/society, and differentiations between pre-modern, modern, and postmodern, can be transcended. Ultimately interpretations of our world could be gained which are highly uncontaminated by all kinds of -centrisms, and thus would be of the highest value for discourses outside of academia. With the nexus technology, society, and culture as a point of origin the workshop’s aim is to discuss the unique potentials of anthropology to 1) help to understand our technology-drenched world in global, local, and historical dimensions, 2) to communicate this knowledge and to feed it into public discourses, and 3) to prepare students for jobs in this very world—within and without anthropology.

Those interested to present there are hereby invited to send me a proposal (200 words max.) by email, to alexander[dot]knorr[at]lmu[dot]de, before the end of January 2013.