A Critical Theory of Technology
Every year, WTMC organizes a week-long summer school, focused around the work of an internationally-renowned, senior scholar in the STS community. This year, we are very pleased to announce that Andrew Feenberg will be our guest teacher. Andrew is Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Technology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver where he directs the Applied Communication and Technology Lab (ACT Lab www.actlab.org). Fuller details and extracts from some publications can be found on Professor Feenberg’s homepage: http://www.sfu.ca/~andrewf/
Andrew Feenberg is one of the most prominent philosophers of technology of his generation. He has developed a powerful and lucid philosophy of technology which argues for broader democratic participation in technological choices and which takes seriously contexts of use. These ideas are developed in his books, Critical Theory of Technology (1991), Alternative Modernity (1995), Questioning Technology (1999) and Transforming Technology (2002). He has also published widely on the sources of critical theory, including Marx, Heidegger, Lukacs and Marcuse (the latter supervised Feenberg’s own PhD). His ideas have been the subject of anthologies and special issues of journals, and he is one of the six philosophers discussed in Hans Achterhuis’ edited collection, American Philosophy of Technology (2001).
Andrew was also an early pioneer of online education, beginning work in the area in 1982. The ACT Lab is engaged in research on the intersection between communication technology and cultural creation, bringing together graduate students, practitioners and researchers to study a wide variety of applications of advanced technology to education, community, entertainment, and the arts. ACT researchers have studied issues in philosophy of technology, public participation in design, revolutionary propaganda, photography, online games and online community, learning objects and online education, surveillance studies, media art, and human communication on computer networks. Prior to moving to Simon Fraser University in 2003, Andrew has held positions at the Philosophy Department at San Diego State University, and at Duke University, the State University of New York at Buffalo, the Universities of California, San Diego and Irvine, the Sorbonne, the University of Paris-Dauphine, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, and the University of Tokyo.
During the 2008 WTMC Summer School, many aspects of Andrew Feenberg’s work will be covered, focusing particularly on the historical-philosophical context of his approach, rationality, dystopia and agency. In addition to lectures by Andrew, other STS scholars will present and discuss their own ideas. The Summer School will include sessions on close reading of key texts and other activities, some of which will involve the software he has developed for online educaiton. The Summer School will be held in the beautiful and peaceful location of Soeterbeeck (www.ru.nl/soeterbeeck).
The programme and reader will be sent to registered participants four to six weeks prior to the start of the workshop. We will be making use of three of Andrew Feenberg’s books: Alternative Modernity (1995), Questioning Technology (1999) and Transforming Technology (2002). It is recommended that you buy one of these and have access to the other two, through a fellow participant, colleague or a library. Further information can be obtained from Marjatta Kemppainen (u.m.kemppainen@utwente.nl) or Sally Wyatt (sally.wyatt@vks.knaw.nl).