Sign-in at 9 am
      Conference begins at 9:15 am      
Conference concludes at 4 pm

Co-Sponsored by the Camden Public Library
With generous support from the Maine Humanities Council

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The Camden Philosophical Society's Philosophy at the Edge conference on Thinking Technology -- Crossing and Creating Boundaries will pose and debate questions of immediate, day-to-day interest to us all: What exactly is technology? Does technology rule us or do we rule it? How does technology alter the experience of being human?

The day will start with a consideration of what constitutes technology, or as Val Dusek, a philosophy professor at the University of New Hampshire poses it in the title for his talk: "Technology: Human Relations or Hardware?" Prof. Dusek, author of a leading textbook on philosophy of technology, will start from the perspective that, while most people think of hardware when they think of technology, the social system in which the hardware is embedded is equally crucial to understanding the nature of and problems about technology. The sense people frequently have that technology is out of control is often due to the social organizations that propagate a technology, not the hardware itself, he suggests.

Prof. Dusek studied chemistry, zoology and philosophy at Yale and received his philosophy doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin. Besides his textbook Philosophy of Technology: An Introduction, he has co-edited an anthology on this still relatively new topic. He has contributed to the journal Techne and co-sponsored university symposia on space travel, biotechnology and women, and endocrine disrupters and ecology. More recently, Dusek gave a talk at a South African Creativity Conference on creativity in technology and plans to deliver a similar talk in Singapore later this summer.

The focus of the Thinking Technology conference will then shift to the tendency many people have to view 21st technological innovations ranging from the internet to cloning as paths to a utopian future, and examine this against an historical background in which utopianism was commonly equated with authoritarianism. In a talk entitled "Beyond Huxley, Orwell, and other 20th-Century Dystopians: The Revival of Technological Utopianism in the 21st Century," Howard Segal, a professor of history at the University of Maine at Orono, will relate his own "healthy skepticism about all utopian aspirations but also a great respect for those who, as committed visionaries presumably without evil intentions, force us to rethink the present and the future alike."

Howard Segal has taught at UMaine since 1986. His particular focus is on visions of the allegedly perfect society based on science and technology. His Syracuse University Press book Technological Utopianism in American Culture is now out in a Twentieth Anniversary Edition. His latest book, Utopias: A Brief History from Ancient Writings to Cyberspace Communities, was published this spring by Blackwell.

Duke University professor Mark Hansen will shift the focus of the conference back to the future by asking, "Can Consciousness Think 21st Century Media?" This talk will examine the challenges posed by what he sees as a shift in the media from being a recording of the past to being "an anticipation of the future." His guiding question will be: What happens when data gathering substitutes for consciousness in the process of “presenting” experience?

Prof. Hansen teaches cultural theory and comparative media studies at Duke University, with a particular focus on digital media. He is author of Embodying Technesis: Technology Beyond Writing, New Philosophy for New Media, and Bodies in Code. Hansen’s current research addresses the experiential challenges posed by 21st century media, with particular emphasis on the expansion of sensibility and the future orientation of data-driven media forms.


Each speaker will talk for about 50 minutes, followed by 25 minutes of open discussion, with more questions and discussion accompanying an hour-long panel in the afternoon that will bring all three speakers together. A contribution of $20 is requested to help cover costs, and people are asked to register in advance by emailing info@PhilosophyEdge.com.