Labnet: CfP: Globalization revisited: World-embracing technologies in a historical perspective, Darmstadt, 30-31/10

[labnet at lists.labourhistory.net]

[Cross-posted, with thanks, from EH-Net. AB]

From: Karsten Uhl <karsten_uhl at gmx.de>

Call for Papers

Technologies of Globalization
Technische Universitaet Darmstadt, October 30-31, 2008 (deadline for
proposals: April, 15th, 2008)

Presently (re-)shaping social life as well as economics and science, the
effects of globalization are in their turn - and in manifold ways -
related to and in fact highly dependent on technology. The first
International Conference of the DFG-Research Group "Topologies of
Technology" seeks to explore in greater detail and from a delibarately
interdisciplinary angle the role(s) and function(s) of world-embracing
information and communication technologies, transport and computing
facilities in the global age. In one of the conference's five streams,
space will be given to historical and literary studies-related
considerations aiming at the disclosure of precursors of
technology-enhanced globalizing tendencies:

Globalization revisited: World-embracing technologies in a historical
perspective

The stream or session seeks to cast light on narratives and historical
developments that pre-figure what is now buzz worded globalization: the
factual emergence and ultimate rise of world-embracing, transnational
tendencies in the fields of trade and commerce, communication and labor
organization, and their effects on local or regional society formations
in the late 20th and early 21st century. Numerous socio- and
economic-historical approaches have in the last few years tackled the
precursors of today's phenomenon of globalization; initiatives of this
kind include the implementation of Global History M.A. degree courses
and extensive research activities.

Our focus will more specifically be on the role and function (as well as
description and appropriation) of technology, ranging from the
construction of a finally world-embracing telegraphic network in the
early years of the 20th century and the rise of cargo ships and
standardized container as well as harbor equipments beginning in the
mid-1950s to fictional representations predicting the arrival of a
supra-national world society and economy based on gadgets like pneumatic
tubes: an early version of the worldwide web that plays a pre-eminent
role in Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward of 1887.

We invite contributions from historians of technology, researchers of
business history or from literary and cultural studies that effectively
and innovatively investigate past developments of this kind by picking
up the thesis of a globalization "before the letter" and grafting these
more particularly on the respective historical state of the arts in
technological progress. This explicitly includes comparative approaches
- e.g., how does the pre-history of globalization materialize in
economically and politically different systems such as capitalism as
opposed to communist regimes? - as well as investigations organized by
parameters such as race, class and gender or generic considerations
(sci-fi, (anti-)utopian literature etc.). Topics include, but are not
restricted to:

- Americanization prolonged and expanded: continuities and differences
from early 20th century technology-enhanced production modes (Fordism,
Taylorism) to present-day labor organization, including the comparison
with non-American modes of production (Toyotism etc.)
- Craftsmanship in a global(ized) context: Change of knowledge and
skills in the process of globalization, the development of multinational
companies and their capabilities
- Skills and knowledge in a global(ized) context: From embodied skills
to formalized knowledge, capabilities as an important technical factor
for multinational companies
- Human resources and the cultural and economic history of global
workforce mobility: brain drain (respectively gain)
- Changing technologies of financial distribution and their impact on
producing economy: global markets for futures, options and derivates
effecting the standardization of production (and lives)
- "Global(ization) literature": emergence of a novel literary
category/genre, or just another case of old wine in new bottles? 
Probing the limits of current technology-related genres (sci-fi,
(anti-)utopian narratives) against the backdrop of 21st century "world
(citizen) literature

Keynote speakers and respondents:
- Thomas Sattelberger, Chief Human Resources Officer and Labor Director
Deutsche Telekom AG (confirmed)
- Reinhard Blomert, Chief Editor "Leviathan" and associate at the Social
Science Research Center Berlin (t.b.c.)
- Jyoti Hosagrahar, Adjunct Professor at the Graduate School of
Architecture Planning and Preservation, Columbia University (t.b.c.)
- Johann-Dietrich Woerner, Chairman of the DLR (German Aerospace Center)
Executive Board (confirmed)

Timeline for proposals
Abstract proposals (max. 500 words) must be sent by email  to
<stream4 at tog08.org> or via upload on our website: 
http://www.tog08.org before April, 15th, 2008  Notification of
acceptance or refusal of abstracts will be given before May, 15th, 2008
Complete papers (max. 8.000 words) should be sent before September 30th,
2008

Conference Proceedings
The most outstanding conference contributions will be published after
the conference.

Contact
For all conference issues visit our website at http://www.tog08.org.

Post-Graduate School Topology of Technology/ Graduiertenkolleg
"Topologie der Technik"
Technische Universitaet Darmstadt
Karolinenplatz 5 (P.O. Box 1404), D-64289 Darmstadt, Germany
http://www.ifs.tu-darmstadt.de/gradkoll-tdt

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