Even before turning to instruments, we already have a technical-cultural body, since our body always keeps track of the action of technology and culture. It is indeed thanks to both technology and culture that our body had become what it is, that is a human body, meaning a sort of biological paradox - a body unfit for survival, unspecialized and unadapted, but extremely plastic. This does not imply that the action that current technologies have upon our bodies, with their extraordinary (...) capabilities of manipulation, does not have any consequences or cause concerns. We do nothing alien to our "nature" when we expose ourselves to the action of technology, as well as we do nothing alien to us when we set limits to technology, and not only to it. The continuous process of self-limitation is in fact a necessity for men. And setting limits to the possible is also the only way to safeguard it. (shrink)

An error that medicine has long shared is to attribute to a desire or an effect of the mother’s imagination during gestation, the deformities, growths or spots that a child bears at birth. The imagination would be capable of imprinting external modifications on a matter and would have an impact on the perceptions and sensory development of the fetus. Returning briefly to the genealogy and posterity of the topos, this article focuses on the successes and refutations of the Malebranchist paradigm (...) in the 18th century, through a corpus of medical popularization texts where the debates oppose the supporters of the imagination for whom emotion alters the organs of the fetus and the detractors of this thesis who only see it as prejudice. Mechanistic systems had in common that they avoided the soul to explain life. Although each era has its hermeneutic system of representations, and that medicine—closely dependent on the philosophical and moral conceptions of its time—is also a cultural production, it is nevertheless not uninteresting to question on the fortune of a motive and the scientific topicality of the question. What does the baby perceive in utero? Does he feel his mother’s pain? If so, what is the biological impact? To what extent can the maternal imagination and experience mark the child’s body? Informed by functional imaging technologies, recent research returns to the symbiotic link of mother-fetus interactions. Convergences appear between this 18th century and our 21st century. In no case did we want to contrast today’s scientists who are firmly in touch with reality and their predecessors who are prey to imagination. Science, whatever the era, always feeds on imagination. (shrink)

Cognitive technology is an umbrella term sometimes used to designate the realm of technologies that assist, augment or simulate cognitive processes or that can be used for the achievement of cognitive aims. This technological macro-domain encompasses both devices that directly interface the human brain as well as external systems that use artificial intelligence to simulate or assist (aspects of) human cognition. As they hold the promise of assisting and augmenting human cognitive capabilities both individually and collectively, cognitive technologies could produce, (...) in the next decades, a significant effect on human cultural evolution. At the same time, due to their dual-use potential, they are vulnerable to being coopted by State and non-State actors for non-benign purposes (e.g. cyberterrorism, cyberwarfare and mass surveillance) or in manners that violate democratic values and principles. Therefore, it is the responsibility of technology governance bodies to align the future of cognitive technology with democratic principles such as individual freedom, avoidance of centralized, equality of opportunity and open development. This paper provides a preliminary description of an approach to the democratization of cognitive technologies based on six normative ethical principles: avoidance of centralized control, openness, transparency, inclusiveness, user-centeredness and convergence. This approach is designed to universalize and evenly distribute the potential benefits of cognitive technology and mitigate the risk that such emerging technological trend could be coopted by State or non-State actors in ways that are inconsistent with the principles of liberal democracy or detrimental to individuals and groups. (shrink)

How has the globalization of technology contributed to the globalization of the war against the Enlightenment liberal humanism of Western civilization—in particular, to the globalization of the war between religion and science—and with what problematic moral, cultural, and spiritual consequences? Liberal-humanist and Heideggerian perspectives on this issue are considered. The latter is chosen because it constitutes an enduring philosophical and political challenge to liberal humanism. For Heidegger, liberal humanism, far from providing a solution to the problems of global technology, is (...) an inherent part of the problem. A case in point is liberal democracy’s use of technology to produce and purvey a humanly degrading mass culture which it also uses technology to export abroad, in effect, to globalize. The author sets forth a defense of liberal humanism against these criticisms. (shrink)

Predicting our future as individuals is a central to the role of much emerging technology, from hiring algorithms that predict our professional success (or failure) to biomarkers that predict how long (or short) our healthy (or unhealthy) life will be. Yet, much in western culture, from scripture to mythology to philosophy, suggests that knowing one's future may not be in the subject's best interests and might even lead to disaster. If predicting our future as individuals can be harmful as well (...) as beneficial, why are we so willing to engage in so much prediction, from cradle to grave? This book offers a philosophical answer, reflecting on seminal texts in western culture to argue that predicting our future renders much of our existence the automated effect of various causes, which, in turn, helps to alleviate the existential burden of autonomously making sense of our lives in a more competitive, demanding, accelerated society. An exploration of our tendency in a technological era to engineer and so rid ourselves of that which has hitherto been our primary reason for being - making life plans for a successful future, while faced with epistemological and ethical uncertainties - Predicted Humans will appeal to scholars of philosophy and social theory with interests in questions of moral responsibility and meaning in an increasingly technological world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Eva Alerby and Cecilia Ferm, “Learning Music: Embodied Experience in the Life-World”Christine A. BrownI was recently asked to settle a friendly debate between two college graduates. The first, my daughter's boyfriend, argued that someone with talent and motivation could become as creative a composer without formal musical training as with it. The other, my daughter, vigorously countered that while someone might compose well on one's own, the (...) result would not be as versatile or thoughtfully developed as it could be with good formal instruction. I saw the musical educations of the debaters reflected in their arguments. My daughter had accumulated fourteen years of formal instruction in violin, cello, voice, and dance and took part in high school choral, theatrical, and orchestral performances. Her studies continued into college and from time to time she performs in community theater. Her boyfriend was the only musically trained member of his family. At his own request he studied piano for five years, later channeling his musical energies into a rock group. Though he did not study music in college, he continues to play keyboard and guitar. Both agree that the ongoing debate between them illustrates the strong connection between musical training and musical valuing. The life-world of their experiences shaped their judgments of musical quality and left imprints on their views of what matters more, talent or training. I will return to this scenario later.I find solid points of agreement with Eva Alerby and Cecilia Ferm starting with their premise that music learning is most effective when taught within a context. While some students prefer learning in a linear, rule-oriented setting, more often than not a musical concept will be comprehended best if it is first experienced within a variety of works. Regarding extra-musical contexts, furthermore, recent evidence supporting the integration of subject areas at the elementary level appears to extend the boundaries of musical learning in a positive direction. Additionally, the authors' description of embodied musical learning holds great interest. Their argument that musical learning must be appropriated within the body resonates strongly within me as I reflect upon performing and teaching piano. Experience with beginning level adult pianists suggests to me that once the awkwardness of newly-learned movements fades with time and effort, students often discover a close interaction between their physical and conceptual knowledge of music. Of related interest is the authors' definition of musicality as taking embodied musical knowledge and making it one's own. This surpasses physical mastery of an instrument and describes a personal [End Page 208] and emotional investment in music. It is at this point in the essay that the recognizable link between mind, body, and emotion in music is most clear.Alongside these engaging ideas, however, are statements throughout the essay that invite further questions or comments. First among these is the statement that the knowledge resulting from learning is not always what was intended or planned. While this is often the case, elaboration upon modes of knowledge in question would help clarify the authors' ideas. Since knowledge takes a variety of forms, as the authors imply, these forms should be explored, defined, and applied to the process of teaching and learning music.Related to that suggestion is my response to the statement that the aim of music education is to produce musical knowledge. I am assuming that musical knowledge includes an age-appropriate blend of performance skill, reading ability, ear training, historical and cultural connections, basic theoretical and stylistic understanding, and acquaintance with creative processes. In many regions of our country, public arts education has been de-valued to the extent that we must convince administrators, parents, and sometimes students, of its importance. Until this situation improves, I must personally consider the aim of music education as producing, alongside musical knowledge, the desire for music as a lifelong pursuit, be it active or passive. Without this desire, musical knowledge gained often goes unused. Referring to my opening anecdote, my daughter is not participating in music while her less extensively trained boyfriend is. I know of several students like her who gained expertise on an instrument and who have now stopped playing for... (shrink)

Supermax prisons are often described as "high_tech." Observers seem to mean two things by this. The first is that these "prisons within prisons" are a technology in themselves: hard_edged and brightly lit, the fortress_like supermax clearly signals its specialized purpose of isolation and control. The second is that supermax prisons rely heavily on specialized, relatively new technologies: computerized systems produce new forms of intensive surveillance while special teams armed with electronic shields maintain control over prisoners.But as Leo Marx observed several (...) years ago in this journal, "technology is a hazardous concept" . We need to see the technology of the supermax prison in these terms if we are to understand its effects. My aim here is to consider three aspects of the technology of supermax. The first is the sense in which the supermax prison is itself a "machine" _ a specific invention with a purpose and meaning closely linked to its features as a technology. This aspect is important for understanding what makes the construction of these prisons so attractive to correctional professionals and so seemingly acceptable to the general public. The second aspect is the use of specialized tools of control inside the supermax prison. These internal solutions to problems of order _ I will discuss computerized surveillance, special response teams, and stun technology _ offer clues to how specific technologies intersect with intensive confinement to frame punishment as decisive "action" produced by prisoners' "choices" and analogous to "war." Finally, supermax technology imposes specific practices and ways of being on both prisoners and prison staff. These need to be understood not only for how they augment and intensify other negative aspects of these environments, but also for their potential to affect prisoners in quite different ways depending on individual vulnerabilities.A common theme running through my discussion of each of these aspects of supermax is that the appearance of specialized technology constitutes what Garland describes, for penal practices in general, as a "signifying practice" . Beyond its immediate effects during use, supermax technology offers the cultural gloss of a "high_tech solution" that helps to frame problems _ some of them caused by supermax confinement in the first place _ largely in terms of their susceptibility to technical intervention. In other contexts "technology" signifies a "clean," profitable, scientific, and masculine approach: direct action on manageable problems. The spillover of this imagery into prisons _ in association with other meanings of crime and punishment _ is one element serving to obscure the larger issues posed by mass incarceration. As Marx points out, the reification of technology has the effect of producing an aura of inevitability. I will return to this point at the end to consider briefly how a framing of supermax primarily in terms of technology can itself be seen as hazardous. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Eva Alerby and Cecilia Ferm, “Learning Music: Embodied Experience in the Life-World”Christine A. BrownI was recently asked to settle a friendly debate between two college graduates. The first, my daughter's boyfriend, argued that someone with talent and motivation could become as creative a composer without formal musical training as with it. The other, my daughter, vigorously countered that while someone might compose well on one's own, the (...) result would not be as versatile or thoughtfully developed as it could be with good formal instruction. I saw the musical educations of the debaters reflected in their arguments. My daughter had accumulated fourteen years of formal instruction in violin, cello, voice, and dance and took part in high school choral, theatrical, and orchestral performances. Her studies continued into college and from time to time she performs in community theater. Her boyfriend was the only musically trained member of his family. At his own request he studied piano for five years, later channeling his musical energies into a rock group. Though he did not study music in college, he continues to play keyboard and guitar. Both agree that the ongoing debate between them illustrates the strong connection between musical training and musical valuing. The life-world of their experiences shaped their judgments of musical quality and left imprints on their views of what matters more, talent or training. I will return to this scenario later.I find solid points of agreement with Eva Alerby and Cecilia Ferm starting with their premise that music learning is most effective when taught within a context. While some students prefer learning in a linear, rule-oriented setting, more often than not a musical concept will be comprehended best if it is first experienced within a variety of works. Regarding extra-musical contexts, furthermore, recent evidence supporting the integration of subject areas at the elementary level appears to extend the boundaries of musical learning in a positive direction. Additionally, the authors' description of embodied musical learning holds great interest. Their argument that musical learning must be appropriated within the body resonates strongly within me as I reflect upon performing and teaching piano. Experience with beginning level adult pianists suggests to me that once the awkwardness of newly-learned movements fades with time and effort, students often discover a close interaction between their physical and conceptual knowledge of music. Of related interest is the authors' definition of musicality as taking embodied musical knowledge and making it one's own. This surpasses physical mastery of an instrument and describes a personal [End Page 208] and emotional investment in music. It is at this point in the essay that the recognizable link between mind, body, and emotion in music is most clear.Alongside these engaging ideas, however, are statements throughout the essay that invite further questions or comments. First among these is the statement that the knowledge resulting from learning is not always what was intended or planned. While this is often the case, elaboration upon modes of knowledge in question would help clarify the authors' ideas. Since knowledge takes a variety of forms, as the authors imply, these forms should be explored, defined, and applied to the process of teaching and learning music.Related to that suggestion is my response to the statement that the aim of music education is to produce musical knowledge. I am assuming that musical knowledge includes an age-appropriate blend of performance skill, reading ability, ear training, historical and cultural connections, basic theoretical and stylistic understanding, and acquaintance with creative processes. In many regions of our country, public arts education has been de-valued to the extent that we must convince administrators, parents, and sometimes students, of its importance. Until this situation improves, I must personally consider the aim of music education as producing, alongside musical knowledge, the desire for music as a lifelong pursuit, be it active or passive. Without this desire, musical knowledge gained often goes unused. Referring to my opening anecdote, my daughter is not participating in music while her less extensively trained boyfriend is. I know of several students like her who gained expertise on an instrument and who have now stopped playing for... (shrink)

The paper investigates Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of body and space and Gilles Deleuze’s reading of Francis Bacon’s work, in order to derive a renegotiated interrelation between habitual body, phenomenal space, preferential plane and constructive line. The resulting system is ap- plied as a filter to understand the sartorial fashion of Rei Kawakubo and Hussein Chalayan and their potential as a spatial prosthesis: the operative third skin. If the evolutionary nature of culture demands a constant change, how does the surface of (...) a third skin, which embodies the generative of stable/ unstable, respond to changes of context? The fleeting, shifting conditions of contemporary culture/ lifestyle rely upon, result in, and reflect one constant, change: change of working conditions, family structures, modes of inhabitation, relation networks, of userprofile and identity, of social and territorial boundaries. We occupy the shift- ing spatial parameters of a transitional supermodern environment. Culture, as enacted or embodied through each of these fields, is regulated by a number of abstract and factual variables that interplay constantly: time, space, movement, surface, individual, and data. Elizabeth Grosz argues that culture is an evolutionary effect: it regenerates itself in order to ensure the survival of the species. Each “prosthetic” expression of culture – language, fashion, architecture, etc. – changes repeatedly. Here change is not an end in itself, but a means. And the most successful prosthesis may not be the one that is able to answer the largest number of challenges, but one which itself undergoes a process of learning, self-modification, and differentiation – in short, a process of evolution. Any prosthesis is by nature an extension of the body. In the case of architecture and fashion the prosthesis addressing change is most often external to the body – a “cultural fur” or a surface phenomenon, that is, a highly profiled supplementary skin. As with all prostheses, their respective life-span depends on their ability to reflect a change in context and value systems. They are adapted or updated, if not, they vanish. Any situation of change is processed as a differentiation between the actual and the virtual of a given context. Grosz identifies distinctions between the actual and virtual, the real and the possible: the possible is a preformed real that has not yet received its final materiality, and thus delineates a range of options of becoming. The real is the blueprint of the possible, negotiated by factual limitations, and it is conjoint with the actual through a process of differentiation and divergence. The virtual comprises alternate variations of the actual, it defines a realm of deviation from the blueprint. In order to be responsive to change, the balance between the actual and virtual thus must be rendered unstable: “The virtual requires the actual to diverge, to differentiate itself, to proceed by way of division and disruption, forging modes of actualisation that will transform this virtual into others unforeseen or uncontained within it.” 4 The integration of the virtual allows a re-ordering of the blueprint, a return to the crossroad of possibilities, unlimiting and processing an alternative real, and establishing a state of continual change. A repeated change – not as a choice between a number of options but as a gradual process – marks the moment of evolution, and requires a dynamic system. Such a dynamic can be rendered as an adaptable, flexible, modular, mobile, or morphing system of change. The key lies with the fluency and ability of adaptation for the proposed differentiation between actual and virtual – thus it is an elastic change that is required. The nature of this elasticity is encoded in a repeated repositioning of the variables: a constant fine-tuning of a maximum number of parameters that engineer, alter and define the blueprint. When looking for a dynamic system that incorporates a transformation of skin or space, we are in search of dynamics through an operative surface, controlled by means of the constructive line. Both operative surface and constructive line are generative methods for the formation and form finding of the second and third skin of sartorial fashion and architecture respectively, as they both produce inhabitable or wearable envelopes with a specific responsiveness. Both professions share communication, coding and signage, form information programs, pattern charts, volume outlines, texture fields, surface operations, and implement electronic or digital extensions. In both, the constructive line shapes the surface twice: before production and in operation. The surface demarcates space, spatial envelope, enclosing garment, field of action. In which way can an operative system of the surface with stable/ unstable conditioning generate a phenomenological or evolutionary change in the reconstruction of body and context? How do time, space, movement, surface, individual and data interact in this framework? What is the impact of surface strategies and constructive line on that system? (shrink)

This introduction charts several of rhythm's various returns as a way of laying out the theoretical and methodological field in which the articles of this special issue find their place. While Henri Lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis is perhaps familiar to many, rhythm has appeared in a wide repertoire of guises, in many disciplines over the decades and indeed the centuries. This introduction attends to the particular roles of rhythm in the formation of modernity ranging from the processes of industrialization and the proliferation (...) of new media technologies to film and literary aesthetics as well as conceptualizations of human psychology, social behaviour and physiology. These are some of the historical antecedents to the contemporary understandings of rhythm within body studies to which most of the contributions to this issue are devoted. In this respect, the introduction outlines recent approaches to rhythm as vibration, a force of the virtual, and an intensive excess outside consciousness. (shrink)

Cultured meat is a lab grown product that aims to tackle the cravings of omnivores who struggle to switch to a plant-based diet, while still being friendly to animals and the environment. Possibly, in time, the curiosity to apply this technology towards human meat production will emerge. However, when presented with the thought of eating cultured human meat potential consumers’ reaction greatly varies from pure disgust to indifference to excitement. This instinctive response indicates a lack of preformed judgements towards the (...) topic. Without a clear vision on the possibility of cultured human meat, scattered and uncertain regulations will fail to uphold paramount moral values. The risk is that we would either dig into this option out of excitement, or ban it without convincing motivations. The ethical theories of deontology and consequentialism can be followed to investigate this divisive issue. With an evaluation based on disgust I argue that the deontological perspective is mostly concerned with values of identity and humanness, while with a chain-reaction reasoning I argue that consequentialism would be concerned with health safety, privacy and equality. I conclude that cultured human meat is not acceptable. (shrink)

This paper aims to identify the decision support systems and their role on the strategic management development in the Universities- Case Study: Islamic University of Gaza. The descriptive approach was used where a questionnaire was developed and distributed to a stratified random sample. (230) questionnaires were distributed and (204) were returned with response rate (88.7%). The most important findings of the study: The presence of a statistically significant positive correlation between the decision support systems and strategic management in the Islamic (...) University in Gaza, and this shows that there is a role for decision support systems in strategic management development. The senior management is convinced of the importance of strategic management of the organization, and this conviction paid to clearly understand the process of the development of strategic management and thus led to a commitment to this process to improve its performance. There is an impact on the strategic management of the capabilities available for the use of decision support systems, and the type of decision support systems used, while there is little effect of top management support for the use of decision support systems. Also, the results showed that there were no statistically significant differences between the averages of the respondents answers attributed to personal data. The research also concluded a series of recommendations: The Islamic University of Gaza need to develop its infrastructure of decision support systems when it develops the strategic management. It should increase its interest in organizational potential through the necessity of a separate unit for decision support systems. As well as increased interest in the physical and technical capabilities available to decision support systems through continuity in keeping pace with technological means and techniques, continued support of senior management in the organization of strategic management for its positive role on decision support systems, that senior management will continue in the organization in creating a culture of strategic management, and it should encourage employees to participate in the strategic management process. (shrink)

We conduct an experiment with 459 nonprofessional investors to examine whether they evaluate companies differently based on management’s stated purpose for undertaking corporate social responsibility activities in the presence versus absence of a company-specific negative event. Specifically, we vary whether or not management intends to achieve financial returns from CSR activities in addition to promoting social good. We address investors’ decision processes by investigating whether their judgments are mediated by perceptions of future cash flows and/or the underlying ethical culture (...) of the company. Results show that absent a negative event, investment judgments are stronger when CSR activities are intended to achieve financial returns, through expectations of higher future cash flows. However, when a negative event occurs, we find a moderating effect of independent assurance of CSR disclosures. When disclosures are not assured, investors prefer CSR undertaken only for societal benefit, mediated by perceptions of a stronger ethical culture. However, when disclosures are assured, ethical culture is viewed similarly regardless of management’s intention to achieve financial returns from CSR activities. This suggests that management’s willingness to obtain independent assurance on disclosures is viewed as a positive ethical signal. Thus, assurance complements disclosure of CSR activities by contributing to protection against the impact of negative events. (shrink)

Purpose This paper aims to uncover the assumptions and concerns driving public debates about Google Glass and police body cameras. In doing so, it shows how debates about wearable cameras reflect broader cultural tensions surrounding race and privilege. Design/methodology/approach The paper employs a form of critical discourse analysis to discover patterns in journalistic coverage of these two technologies. Findings Public response to Glass has been overwhelmingly negative, while response to body cameras has been positive. Analysis indicates that this contrasting response (...) reflects a consistent public concern about the dynamics of power and privilege in the digital economy. While this concern is well-founded, news coverage indicates that technologists, policy makers and citizens each hold assumptions about the inevitability and unvarnished beneficence of technology. Research limitations/implications Since this qualitative approach seeks to discern broad emergent patterns, it does not employ a quantifiable and reproducible coding schema. Practical implications The article concludes by arguing that grassroots action, appropriate regulatory policy and revitalized systems of professional journalism are indispensable as the struggle for social justice unfolds in the emerging digital economy. Social implications These debates represent a struggle over what and how people see. Yet public discourse often glosses over the disadvantages of technological change, which impacts who is able to amass social power. Originality/value This comparative approach yields unique conceptual insight into debates about technologies that augment ways of seeing. (shrink)

Artificial Culture" is an examination of the articulation, construction, and representation of "the artificial" in contemporary popular cultural texts, especially science fiction films and novels. The book argues that today we live in an artificial culture due to the deep and inextricable relationship between people, our bodies, and technology at large. While the artificial is often imagined as outside of the natural order and thus also beyond the realm of humanity, paradoxically, artificial concepts are simultaneously produced and constructed by human (...) ideas and labor. The artificial can thus act as a boundary point against which we as a culture can measure what it means to be human. Science fiction feature films and novels, and other related media, frequently and provocatively deploy ideas of the artificial in ways which the lines between people, our bodies, spaces and culture more broadly blur and, at times, dissolve. Building on the rich foundational work on the figures of the cyborg and posthuman, this book situates the artificial in similar terms, but from a nevertheless distinctly different viewpoint. After examining ideas of the artificial as deployed in film, novels and other digital contexts, this study concludes that we are now part of an artificial culture entailing a matrix which, rather than separating minds and bodies, or humanity and the digital, reinforces the symbiotic connection between identities, bodies, and technologies. "--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

This essay develops its idiosyncrasy by concentrating primarily on the trend of body hacking. The practitioners, self-defined as body hackers, self-made cyborgs or grinders, work in different ways to develop functional and physiological modifications through the contributions of technology. Their goal is to develop by themselves an empirically man-technique fusion. These dynamic “scientific” subcultures are producing astonishing innovations. From pocket-sized kits that sample human DNA, microchip implants that keep tabs on our internal organs, blood sugar levels or moods, and even (...) 3D printers that produce tailored hip replacements, the technical innovations of the body hacking trend are beginning to filter into mainstream use, and the repertoire increases every day. These physical transformations with intersecting techniques actively challenge long-held normative beliefs about what bodies do, what they should look like and how they should behave. They provide an alternative discourse on man’s correlation with the world and its biocenosis. Sculpting oneself has become an existential data. Medical technoscience crystallizes the effectiveness of new powers over the organism. Scientific temptation to recreate and enhance the human according to its normative principles has brought up experimental practices that have become the edge of a radical activism operating in the core of western societies, which will be the theme of this paper. (shrink)

Straw burning is one of the important causes of environmental pollution in rural China. As an important green production technology, straw returning is beneficial to the improvement of rural environment and the sustainable development of agriculture. Based on the improved planned behavior theory, taking the survey data of 788 farmers in Shandong, Henan, Hubei, and Hunan provinces as samples, this paper uses a multi-group structural equation model to explore the driving mechanism of subjective cognition on the adoption behavior of farmers’ (...) straw returning technology. The results show that behavioral attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control, which represent subjective cognition, all have significant driving effects on farmers’ intention to adopt straw returning technology. Behavioral intention plays a mediating role in the process of subjective cognition driving farmers’ adoption behavior of straw returning technology. Government support has a moderating role in the path from farmers’ behavioral intention to behavioral response. The subjective cognition of different types of farmers has a significant driving effect on the adoption intention of straw returning technology, but the driving strength weakens with the increase of the degree of farmers’ concurrent occupation. This study provides guidance for improving the government’s straw returning policy and regulating straw returning behavior. (shrink)

This study intended to examine the effect of information technology (IT) investment and corporate governance mechanism on the performance of the Saudi telecommunication sector with mediating role of corporate social responsibility (CSR). A survey method was used to collect data from the targeted Saudi telecom firm. Results show that corporate governance practices, i.e., internal audit, internal audit committee, and internal board size, have a significant and positive relationship with firm performance. Furthermore, IT investment positively affects the performance of Saudi (...) telecommunication firms. Moreover, CSR mediates the relationship among internal audit, internal audit committee, internal board size, IT investment, and firm performance. This study contributes to the body of knowledge regarding IT investment, corporate governance mechanism, corporate social responsibilities, and firm performance of telecommunication firms in emerging markets. Furthermore, this study will help the top management of the telecom firms to improve corporate governance and IT investment, which will be beneficial to enhance firm performance. (shrink)

However much the Catholic Church may wish to free the peoples of the world from the excessive atheistic rationalism of the Englihtenment that has pitted science against religion, it is still in most other ways solidly on the side of modernity.Centesimus Annus endorses aform of democracy, akind of capitalism, asort of technological development, all of which are strongly undergirded by a resolute belief in human beings as rights-bearing individuals possessed of individual autonomy and a legitimate appetite for private property. The (...) themes of liberal democracy, capitalist free enterprise, and the proliferation of rational technologies form the common focus of both the Enlightenment and Anti-Enlightenment sensibilities.From a Chinese perspective, these culturally alien themes are viewed with suspicion. The Chinese are increasingly troubled by the corrosive effects upon their culture and social fabric associated with and embedded in the modernizing impulse. But, for a variety of reasons, it certainly seems that China will have little choice but to accommodate modernity in some sense, whatever the risks. The serious question is: Will China remainChinese under the conditions of modernization? (shrink)

The development of nuclear energy technologies in the second half of the 20th century came with great hopes of rebuilding nations recovering from the devasta-tion of the Second World War or recently released from colonial rule. In coun-tries like France, India, the USA, Canada, Russia, and the United Kingdom, nuclear energy became the symbol of development towards a modern and technologically advanced future. However, after more than six decades of experi-ence with nuclear energy production, and in the aftermath of the (...) Fukushima nuclear disaster, it is safe to say that nuclear energy production is not without its problems.Some of these problems have their origins in the very materiality of the technolo-gies involved. For example, not only does the use of highly radioactive materials give rise to risks for the current generation (e.g., in the potential for disaster when reactors melt down) but high-level radioactive waste from nuclear energy production presents a serious intergenerational problem for which an acceptable final solution or its implementation remains elusive. Moreover, nuclear energy technologies have specific social and political consequences. For example, they have been said to be authoritarian technologies (Winner, 1980), requiring cen-tralized authority, secrecy, and technocratic decision-making. While some of these problems could have been foreseen before nuclear energy technologies were introduced, others only arose after these technologies were already integrated into the social and infrastructural fabric of our lives. Addition-ally, new technologies (e.g., Generation III, III+ and IV reactors) are still being developed, bringing with them new and uncertain hazards and risks. Ignorance and uncertainty about the possible deleterious effects of introducing a new technology are inevitable, especially if the technology is complex, large time-scales are involved, or risks depend on social or political factors unforeseen in the design stage. However, this should not deter us from developing and intro-ducing new technologies. Rather, it should motivate us to organize these ‘exper-iments’ with new technologies in society in such a way that we can learn about their possible hazards and risks as effectively and responsibly as possible (van de Poel, 2011, 2015). In this way, it is possible to minimize risks and avoid unwant-ed moral, social or political developments. However, organizing such experi-ments responsibly also means that one could come to the conclusion that continuing an experiment is no longer responsible or desirable. Should we be prepared for such a scenario, and if so, how could we do that? One possible strategy to tackle this issue is that the technology and its introduction should be reversible. The aim of this thesis is to further explore this strategy by answering the following main research question (RQ) and accompanying subquestions (SQ):RQ: What are the implications of reversibility for the responsible develop-ment and implementation of nuclear energy technologies?SQ1: Under what conditions can nuclear energy technologies be considered reversible?SQ2: Why should nuclear energy technologies be reversible?SQ3: If so, how could the reversibility of nuclear energy technologies be achieved?After the introductory chapter 1, the chapters that form the main body of this dissertation each provide a distinct contribution to answering the three subques-tions and, by extension, the main research question. Guided by three historical case studies of nuclear energy technology development (i.e., India, France and the USA), chapter 2 answers the first subquestion by formulating the two condi-tions under which it can be considered reversible, i.e., 1) the ability to stop the further development and deployment of a that technology in society, and 2) the ability to undo the undesirable outcomes (material, institutional or symbolic) of the development and deployment of the technology. Chapter 3 subsequently tackles the second subquestion by establishing the general desirability of technological reversibility by virtue of its relation to responsibility in Emmanuel Levinas’ ethical phenomenology. It argues that technology development is a legitimate response to responsibility but inevitably falls short of the responsibility that inspires it, incessantly calling for technological and political change in the process. Having thus argued that nuclear energy technologies should ideally be reversible, chap-ters 4 and 5 work towards specific strategies to achieve technological reversibil-ity. Chapter 4 first investigates the processes that make it difficult to stop the further development and implementation of a nuclear energy technology in society, thus provid-ing input on how to fulfill the first condition for the reversibility of nuclear energy technologies. To do so, it presents a phenomenological perspective on technology and its adoption based on the work of Alfred Schutz. It also explores different ways in which technology adoption drives the processes of path depend-ence towards technological lock-in. Chapter 5 examines the history of geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste in the USA. It identifies a number of concrete policy pitfalls that could lead to lock-in and that should consequently be avoided. It also presents a number of general design strategies that could facilitate the undoing of undesirable consequences of a technology, thus providing input on how to fulfill the second condition for the reversibility of nuclear energy technol-ogies.Chapter 6 summarizes the central findings of the thesis and explains how these help to answer the research questions. On top of this, it reflects on a number of complications connected to reversibility considerations. Based on this, it is concluded that the question of irreversibility and reversibility is context- and technology-specific and a matter of degree. The chapter concludes with a reflec-tion on generalizations and limitations of the results. Finally, chapter 7 discusses the implications of this dissertation’s results for responsibly experimenting with nuclear energy technologies in society. (shrink)

Airline pilots are attributed ultimate responsibility and final authority over their aircraft to ensure the safety and well-being of all its occupants. Yet, with the advent of automation technologies, a dissonance has emerged in that pilots have lost their actual decision-making authority as well as their ability to act in an adequate fashion towards meeting their responsibilities when unexpected circumstances or emergencies occur. Across the literature in human factor studies, we show how automated algorithmic technologies have wrestled control away (...) from airline pilots. The inter-related ethical and pragmatic consequences resulting from such a dissonance are presented. This includes pilots serving as ‘legal sponges’, being caught in ‘moral crumple zones’, as well as real impacts on safety and well-being of passengers and crew. One potential avenue presented in the literature involves a redistribution of responsibility towards all agential entities within the cockpit system. We discuss the possible pitfalls to this approach, including the reinforcement of pilot skills erosion as well as technology’s own limitations in adaptively dealing with unexpected circumstances. We justify our position by showing how algorithmic technology’s representational frames mask or severely limit the pilots’ natural reflex to ‘practically cope’ and gain an ‘optimal grip’ with a given context/situation at hand. Here, we present the concept of relevant or meaningful control, which pilots, when allowed to develop their natural brain-body reflexes, gain across gradual mastery of the aircraft. Finally, we propose a socio-technical design approach in which pilots can re-appropriate full human meaningful control of the aircraft, thus allowing them to meet their attributed responsibilities. (shrink)

Social distancing has entered our bodies and changed our behaviour. The fight against COVID-19 leaves people with a different feeling of what it means to be together in the flesh. In this article, I will tackle the tension between virtualization of communication, social distancing and the basic human need for bodily contact. Sigmund Freud used the term ‘oceanic feeling’ to express human yearning for becoming one with others and the sense of fluidity of the self. This concept goes beyond basic (...) intercorporeality. It represents experiences in meditation and cultural practices of immersion. Both the maximum intensity of intercorporeal behaviour and the dissolution of the bodily boundaries belong to this experience. The literature in the pandemic covers mainly new rituals and bodily practices of distance but there is not much reflection on what has gone missing and its relation to current and future cultural practices. In this article, I will discuss hedonist embodied rituals like dance, eating and celebrating in public as vital parts of human cultures. Being abolished as contagious sites of infection, their return to the social sphere is, now more than ever, viewed as problematic and potentially subversive in the face of an atmosphere of anxiety. My aim is to argue against cultural tendencies of social control and the emphasis of disembodied virtual forms of togetherness in favour of a posthuman hedonist culture incorporating new technologies and old rituals. (shrink)

Coronavirus disease is having an unprecedented and unpredictable impact on the world's economy. The pandemic has driven the world toward adapting to the current circumstances regardless of the business, sector, or industry. The coronavirus epidemic has affected the global economy and service sector. The purpose of the current study is to assess the effect of COVID-19 on service sector growth and sustainability. Global sectors and industries are trying to anchor themselves amidst the pandemic. The study focuses on the sectors that (...) are badly hit by the outbreak and discussed the strategies and responses different countries are taking to sustain their economies. This study concludes that the vital role of Information Technology and digitization supports the economies in their fight against the pandemic and helps them sustain themselves amid crises. This study also contributes to the body of literature by suggesting IT-based solutions for various industries to elevate effective responsiveness and avoid significant losses. (shrink)

The United Nations Scientific, Education and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has commenced drafting a Universal Bioethics Declaration. Some in the relevant UNESCO drafting committee have previously desired to restrict its content to general principles concerning the application (but not necessarily the goals) of science and technology. As potentially a crucial agenda-setting statement of global bioethics, however, it is arguably important the Universal Bioethics Declaration transparently address major bioethical dilemmas in the field of public health, such as universal access to affordable, essential (...) medicines. Article 13 (Social Responsibility) of the Preliminary Draft Universal Bioethics Declaration states: ‘Any decision or practice shall ensure that progress in science and technology contributes, wherever possible, to the common good, including the achievement of goals such as: (i) access to quality health care and essential medicines, including for reproductive health and the health of children.’Cost effectiveness pricing systems, such as that most notably used in Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), arguably represent one of the most scientifically effective mechanisms whereby public monies may be utilised to assist in the provision of medicines for the common good. They contain two essential elements: first, a process of scientific evaluation of objectively demonstrated therapeutic significance, and then, a fiscal lever (the government reimbursement price) attached to that evaluation.It is now well established that the US Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association (Pharma), through the assistance of the US Trade Representative (USTR), saw the Australia United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) as an opportunity to fulfill a legislative mandate to ‘eliminate ’ the cost-effectiveness pricing system in Australia’s PBS. One of the most remarkable features of the arguments raised against the PBS in this context was the fact that they made almost no reference to the normative discourse of bioethics or international human rights. Provisions such as Article 13 in UNESCO’s Universal Bioethics Declaration, although they will create no immediate obligations under international law, may play an extremely valuable role in legitimising the use of bioethical and human rights concepts in access to medicines debates surrounding multilateral and bilateral international trade deals such as the AUSFTA. (shrink)

In this incisive study of the biological and cultural origins of the human self, the author challenges readers to re-think ideas about the self and consciousness as being exclusive to humans. In their place, he expounds a metatheoretical approach to the self as a purposeful system of extended cognition common to animal life: the invisible medium maintaining mind, body and environment as an integrated 'field of being'. Supported by recent research in evolutionary and developmental studies together with related discoveries in (...) animal behavior and the neurosciences, the author examines the factors that have shaped the evolution of the animal self across widely different species and times, through to the modern, technologically enmeshed human self; the differences between which are presented as relations of degree rather than absolute differences. Much like our primitive ancestors, he contends, routine human behaviour is governed more by unconscious instinct than self-conscious rationality, and is generally resistant to any major changes in customary habits of life, until compelled in time to do so. However, in extreme and rapidly evolving circumstances, as with climate change, tardy responses may become so detached from reality as to constitute an actual threat to survival. (shrink)

Cultures of Memory in South Asia reconfigures European representations of India as a paradigmatic extension of a classical reading, which posits the relation between text and context in a determined way. It explores the South Asian cultural response to European "textual" inheritances. The main argument of this work is that the reflective and generative nodes of Indian cultural formations are located in the configurations of memory, the body and idiom (verbal and visual), where the body or the body complex becomes (...) the performative effect and medium of articulated memories. This work advances its arguments by engaging with mnemocultures-cultures of memory-that survive and proliferate in speech and gesture. Drawing on Sanskrit and Telugu reflective sources, this work emphasizes the need to engage with cultural memory and the compositional modes of Indian reflective traditions. This important and original work focuses on the ruptured and stigmatized resources of heterogeneous Indian traditions and calls for critical humanities that move beyond the colonially configured received traditions. Cultures of Memory suggests the possibilities of transcultural critical humanities research and teaching initiatives from the Indian context in today's academy. (shrink)

Technology advancement provide more effective and efficient ways for the people to perform individual and or collective roles and execution of responsibilities, and this has also resulted to tenacious upsurge in peoples' dependence on technology. As the right for people with disabilities increases, the need to cater for their educational right like every other learner brought about the quest to provide for AT that can best serve those special students. Application of AT can help students with one or more deficiencies, (...) aid information collection process and increase learning motivation. The aim of this study is to conduct content analysis of studies on AT in education and the research sample consist of research publications on AT in education published on Scopus between 2018-2022. Content analysis was conducted on the research publications related to the research and the data gotten were evaluated through descriptive statistical methods with the intention that research findings will add to the body of literature and create more quest for research interest on AT in education. The findings indicated that, more studies were conducted in the year 2021 compared to others, qualitative research method was applied more in those studies, followed by quantitative and mixed methods, the larger percentage of the studies under review were conducted under special education, and the greater part of co-authorship were local collaboration. (shrink)

This article examines how the so-called disembodied criminal subject is given structure and form through the law of homicide and assault. By analysing how the body is materialised through the criminal law’s enactment of death and injury, this article suggests that the biological positioning of these harms of violence as uncontroversial, natural, and universal conditions of being ‘human’ cannot fully appreciate what makes violence wrongful for us, as embodied entities. Absent a theory of the body, and a consideration of corporeality, (...) the criminal law risks marginalising, or altogether eliding, experiences of violence that do not align with its paradigmatic vision of what bodies can and must do when suffering its effects. Here I consider how the bionic body disrupts the criminal law’s understanding of human violence by being a body that is both organic and inorganic, and capable of experiencing and performing violence in unexpected ways. I propose that a criminal law that is more receptive to the changing, technologically mediated conditions of human existence would be one that takes the corporeal dimensions of violence more seriously and, as an extension of this, adopts an embodied, embedded, and relational understanding of human vulnerability to violence. (shrink)

Contemporary academic interest in the human body is a response to fundamental changes in the relationship between body, economy, technology and society. Scientific advances, particularly new reproductive technologies and therapeutic cloning techniques, have given the human body a problematic status. Ageing, disease and death no longer appear to be immutable facts about the human condition. The emergence of the body as a topic of research in the humanities and social sciences is also a response to the women's and gay liberation (...) movements, and environmentalism, animal rights, anti-globalism, religious fundamentalism and conservative politics. Further, the human body is now central to economic growth in various biotechnology industries, in which disease itself has become a productive factor in the global economy and the body a code or system of information from which profits can be extracted through patents. In modern social theory, the body has been studied in the contexts of advertising and consumerism, in ethical debates about cloning, in research on HIV/AIDS, in postmodern reflections on cybernetics, cyberbodies and cyberpunk, and in the analysis of the global trade in human organs. The body is a central feature of contemporary politics, because its ambiguities, vulnerability and plasticity have been amplified by new genetic technologies. (shrink)

This is a unique study, contuining the work of Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger, and using the techniques of phenomenology against the prevailing nihilism of our culture. It expands our understanding of the human potential for spiritual self-realization by interpreting it as the developing of a bodily-felt awareness informing our gestures and movements. The author argues that a psychological focus on our experience of well-being and pathology as embodied beings contributes significantly to a historically relevant critique of ideology. It also provides an (...) essential touchstone in experience for a fruitful individual and collective response to the danger of nihilism. Dr Levin draws on Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology to clarify Heidegger's analytic of human beings through an interpretation that focuses on our experience of being embodied. He reconstructs in modern terms the wisdom implicit in western and semitic forms of religion and philosophy, considering the work of Freud, Jung, Focault and Neitzsche, as well as that of American educational philosophers, including Dewey. In particular, he draws on the psychology of Freud and Jung to clarify our historical experience of gesture and movement and to bring to light its potential in the fulfilment of Selfhood. Throughout the book, the pathologies of the ego and its journey into Selfhood are considered in relation to the conditons of technology and the powers of nihilism. (shrink)

This paper makes a plea for more reflexive attempts to develop and anchor the emerging concept of responsible research and innovation. RRI has recently emerged as a buzzword in science policy, becoming a focus of concerted experimentation in many academic circles. Its performative capacity means that it is able to mobilise resources and spaces despite no common understanding of what it is or should be ‘made of’. In order to support reflection and practice amongst those who are interested in and (...) using the concept, this paper unpacks understandings of RRI across a multi-disciplinary body of peer-reviewed literature. Our analysis focuses on three key dimensions of RRI that remain particularly opaque. A total of 48 publications were selected through a systematic literature search and their content was qualitatively analysed. Across the literature, RRI is portrayed as a concept that embeds numerous features of existing approaches to govern and assess emerging technologies. Our analysis suggests that its greatest potential may be in its ability to unify and provide political momentum to a wide range of long-articulated ethical and policy issues. At the same time, RRI’s dynamism and resulting complexity may represent its greatest challenge. Further clarification on what RRI has to offer in practice—beyond what has been offered to date—is still needed, as well as more explicit engagement with research and institutional cultures of responsibility. Such work may help to realise the high political expectations that are attached to nascent RRI. (shrink)

We discuss the implementation of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) within a project for the development of an AI-supported exergame for assisted movement training, outline outcomes and reflect on methodological opportunities and limitations. We adopted the responsibility-by-design (RbD) standard (CEN CWA 17796:2021) supplemented by methods for collaborative, ethical reflection to foster and support a shift towards a culture of trustworthiness inherent to the entire development process. An embedded ethicist organised the procedure to instantiate a collaborative learning effort and implement (...) RRI in a translational context. Within the interdisciplinary setting of the collaboration and with the support of a technoethicist, we successfully identified relevant, project-specific challenges and developed a roadmap with derived actions, thus meaningfully integrating RRI into the development process. We discuss the methodological procedure in terms of its effectiveness and efficiency, the allocation of responsibilities and roles, particularly regarding potential frictions in the interdisciplinary context with embedded ethics, and the challenges of the translational context. We conclude that the responsibility-by-design standard effectively established a productive workflow for collaborative investigation and work on ethical challenges. We reflect on methodological difficulties and propose possible avenues to our approach. (shrink)

Recent technological and methodological changes in farming have led to an emerging set of claims about the role of digital technology in food production. Known as precision agriculture, the integration of digital management and surveillance technologies in farming is normatively presented as a revolutionary transformation. Proponents contend that machine learning, Big Data, and automation will create more accurate, efficient, transparent, and environmentally friendly food production, staving off both food insecurity and ecological ruin. This article contributes a critique of these rhetorical (...) and discursive claims to a growing body of critical literature on precision agriculture. It argues precision agriculture is less a revolution than an evolution, an effort to shore up and intensify the conventional farming system responsible for generating many of the social and environmental problems precision agriculture is presented as solving. While precision agriculture advocates portray it as a radical, even democratic epistemological break with the past, this paper locates truth claims surrounding datafication and algorithmic control in farming within deeper historical contexts of the capitalist rationalization of production and efforts to quantify and automate physical and mental labor. Abjuring the growing cultural tendency to treat algorithmic systems as revolutionary in favor of social and historical dimensions of precision agriculture, can help re-frame the discussion about its design and use around real, socially and ecologically oriented change in farming, and so ensure that the possibilities and benefits of precision agriculture are as evenly and effectively shared as possible. (shrink)

Responsibility has become a central concept in AI ethics; however, little research has been conducted into practitioners’ personal understandings of responsibility in the context of AI, including how responsibility should be defined and who is responsible when something goes wrong. In this article, we present findings from a 2020–2021 data set of interviews with AI practitioners and tech workers at a single multinational technology company and interpret them through the lens of feminist political thought. We reimagine (...) class='Hi'>responsibility in the context of AI development and deployment as the product of work cultures that enable tech workers to be responsive and answerable for their products over the long and short term. From our interviews, we identify three key pain points in understanding the distribution of responsibility between actors and developing responsible design and deployment practices: (1) unstable business ecosystems and AI lifecycles, which require an approach to responsibility that accounts for the dynamic nature of these systems; (2) the issue of incentivizing engineers to take responsibility for the mundane maintenance practices essential to the functioning of AI systems and (3) the need to overcome individual and structural barriers to taking ownership over AI products and their effects. From these findings, we make three recommendations based on feminist theory: (1) organisations should move from a static model of responsibility to a dynamic and ethically motivated response-ability; (2) companies need to revalue care and maintenance practices; and (3) firms must move away from individualistic ideas of responsibility towards fostering wider cultures of responsibility. (shrink)

This article seeks to contribute to the continuous reflection on the integration of technology into education. In order to accomplish this aim, the use of technology in the form of blended learning and online education will be utilised to illustrate how technology plays a central role in education today. It is argued that technology should not merely be viewed as a tool, but rather as a medium that shapes culture. Therefore, the integration of technology into education should be accompanied by (...) continuous reflection on the identifiable characteristics of technology as medium that is not value-neutral or a disembedded force. To the contrary, technology is socially embedded and could be directly linked to other social developments and processes. The article therefore wishes to highlight the social embeddedness of technology by stressing how it is intertwined with other social developments like economy. In order to utilise technology more effectively and in a responsible manner in education, the nature thereof as medium should be reflected on. In light of the discussion on the technology as a socially embedded medium, the possible challenges and opportunities that it poses as medium to education, are identified and discussed. Specific reference is made on how theological education could benefit from educational technologies. (shrink)

Through a critique of the rhetorical configurations of identity theft, this article contributes to the emerging body of theory contending with the social effects of digital information technologies (DIT). It demonstrates how the politics of fear manipulate technosocial matrices in order to derive consent for radical changes such as the domestication of the Web and the instrumentalization of identity. Specifically, this critique attends to these tasks by performing a rhetorical reading of three recent television commercials that were heavily circulated by (...) the international financial conglomerate, Citigroup Incorporated. Based on this reading, which is heavily indebted to Foucaldian theories of power and discipline, a distinction is drawn between identity theft as it is configured in juridico-political discourse and the cultural phenomenon of identity theft, which functions as a technosocial myth. (shrink)

This is a unique study, contuining the work of Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger, and using the techniques of phenomenology against the prevailing nihilism of our culture. It expands our understanding of the human potential for spiritual self-realization by interpreting it as the developing of a bodily-felt awareness informing our gestures and movements. The author argues that a psychological focus on our experience of well-being and pathology as embodied beings contributes significantly to a historically relevant critique of ideology. It also provides an (...) essential touchstone in experience for a fruitful individual and collective response to the danger of nihilism. Dr Levin draws on Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology to clarify Heidegger's analytic of human beings through an interpretation that focuses on our experience of being embodied. He reconstructs in modern terms the wisdom implicit in western and semitic forms of religion and philosophy, considering the work of Freud, Jung, Focault and Neitzsche, as well as that of American educational philosophers, including Dewey. In particular, he draws on the psychology of Freud and Jung to clarify our historical experience of gesture and movement and to bring to light its potential in the fulfilment of Selfhood. Throughout the book, the pathologies of the ego and its journey into Selfhood are considered in relation to the conditons of technology and the powers of nihilism. (shrink)

To a great extent, cultural learning is mimetic learning, which is at the center of many processes of education, self-education, and human development. It is directed towards other people, social communities and cultural heritages and ensures that they are kept alive. Mimetic learning is a sensory, body-based form of learning in which images, schemas and movements needed to perform actions are learned. This embodiment is responsible for the lasting effects that play an important role in all social and cultural fields. (...) A mimetic process creates both similarities and differences to the situations or persons to which or whom they relate. By participating in the living practices of other people, humans expand their own life-worlds and create for themselves new ways of experiencing and acting. Receptivity and activity overlap. In all areas of human existence rituals and gestures are important for the mimetic development of body knowledge. Embodied knowledge is indispensable in religion, politics, economy, science, families, and education. It helps us to deal with difference and alterity and to create a sense of community and social relationships. It also enables us to assign meaning and structure to human relations. Ritual knowledge facilitates both continuity and change, as well as experiences of transition and transcendence. (shrink)

In his article “Storied Bodies, or Nana at Last Unveil’d” , Peter Brooks makes the claim that, for a certain dominant mode of nineteenth-century narrative, the female sexual organ is the occult source of the narrative dynamic. On a superficial reading, Brooks’s piece might appear to empower women by putting their sexuality at the generative origin of the story. But the opposite is the case: his argument reflects rather than critiques the misogynist strategies of the texts he discusses. I will (...) begin my analysis of his article with a brief return to the story by Barbey d’Aurevilly whose climactic scene Brooks offers as “a kind of allegory of the cultural story [he has] been delineating” . Charles Bernheimer is professor of romance languages and chair of the program in comparative literature and literary theory at the University of Pennsylvania. The author of Flaubert and Kafka and Figures of Ill Repute , he is currently working on a study of fin-de-siècle literature and art, The Decadent Subject. (shrink)

This article argues that “technologies of culture” influence citizens’ conceptions of the American state. The technology of modernism educated citizens to manipulate machines and control nature. This influenced citizens’ views of government’s tasks and capacities. Postmodern technology focuses attention on the self and alters people’s conceptions of the tasks and capacities of government. The article discusses the political implications of postmodern citizenship and suggests possible remedies for postmodernism’s effects on democratic citizenship in the United States.

A recent clinical literature on the psychology of cosmetic surgery patients is concerned with distinguishing good from bad candidates. Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) — a mental disorder marked by a pathological aversion to some aspect(s) of one’s appearance — is typically understood in this context as a contra-indication for cosmetic surgery, as it marks those with inappropriate motivation who are unlikely to be satisfied by the surgery’s outcomes. This article uses Foucault’s genealogical work to argue that both the attempt to (...) provide diagnostic conditions for BDD itself, and the broader attempt to demarcate normal and psychopathological concern with appearance are, in part, effects of disciplinary power. Although often presented as a way of making cosmetic surgery more ethical and restrained, this epistemic project inadvertently defends cosmetic surgical interests. Specifically, it contributes to legitimizing the image of an ethically suspect sub-specialty of medicine, and supports its commercial expansion and effective profit-making by displacing its negative sequelae onto patient psyches. (shrink)

What does it mean to ‘calculate’—today? The pause introduced by the dash in this question marks the inescapable necessity of historicizing the problem of calculation. In his provocative essay, ‘Toward a Critique of the Ineffectual: Heidegger’s Reading of Aristotle and the Construction of an Action without Ends’, Dimitris Vardoulakis proposes a philosophical and political programme in order to counter the negative effects of ‘Heidegger’s mistake’ (the conflation of causality and instrumentality through a mistranslation of Aristotle) that has led to the (...) theoretical fetishization of the ‘ineffectual’ (action without ends) in continental philosophy. In his conclusion, Vardoulakis advocates for a return to a politics and ethics of practical judgment that avoids the twin pitfalls of asserting either the impossibility or the absolute possibility of calculation. As he puts it, we need to acknowledge today ‘the exigency to calculate in the face of the provisional ends of instrumentality, or to perform the judgment that the Greeks called phronesis’ [2022: 244]. This is why we should keep in mind that Heidegger’s critique of technology in the 1950s was articulated in the context of the early Cold War, atomic warfare, and the rise of cybernetics. But, as many have recently argued, in the age of so-called ‘Big Data’, neoliberal rationality has increasingly replaced the epistemology of ‘causality’ with epistemologies of ‘correlation’: the algorithmic calculation of probabilistic relations between clusters of variables (based on information harvested by digital technologies designed for the total surveillance of human life). As Chris Anderson notoriously announced in his 2008 editorial, ‘The End of Theory’, ‘correlation supersedes causation, and science can advance even without coherent models, unified theories, or really any mechanistic explanation at all’. He calls this epistemology ‘dimensionally agnostic statistics’ (the amount of data available can no longer be visualized in its totality). This worldview, however, functions as a basic attack on one of the fundamental (and still often repeated) ground-truths of modern science: correlation is not causation. As Anderson puts it: ‘There is now a better way. Petabytes allow us to say: “Correlation is enough”’. In other words, the stakes of Vardoulakis’s argument must be tested against the rise of this neoliberal elimination of causality from corporate epistemologies that has led to an inversion of the terms of the Heideggerian critique of technology: as it turns out, technology has produced an ideology of pure instrumentality without causation. Today, there are only ends without causes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Randall Allsup, “Music Teacher Quality and Expertise”Bennett ReimerI am delighted to have this opportunity to reflect on Randall Allsup’s excellent, incisive, and wise paper. The issues he raises reach to the core of who we have been, where we are now, and how we must adapt ourselves to new challenges that deeply question both our ideals and our practices.Allsup’s opening questions relate directly to the most pressing (...) matters our profession is now facing—questions philosophical in essence. What kind of music teachers do our students deserve? What is the purpose of public education? And how do we get beyond our continuing and understandable desire for better-trained music teachers to ask the more pertinent question of what constitutes effective music teaching and learning in what the musical world is swiftly becoming. He has the courage to address this level of complexity seriously, and to make significant progress toward clarification. That deserves my respect and, I am quite sure, the respect of all of us.Allsup approaches his central premise on the significant changes needed in our professional identity by reminding us that we have “a long and distinguished [End Page 108] commitment to teaching and teachers.” That commitment, however, is based on the established assumption that music education is founded on excellence of performance as its ultimate goal and its greatest value. To achieve this musical end, he points out, requires mastery, attained through prolonged, careful apprenticeship. This “long running pedagogy of mastery and excellence appears closed to, or at least hostile to, innovation and popular input.”In addition, he argues, this belief system embroils all of us, teachers and their students, in the dichotomy of, on the one hand, replication of existing excellence as our goal, and, on the other, the need for emancipation from what was and what is, toward what might be; the need, that is, for transformation. The past, he recognizes, cannot simply be ignored: it is too precious for that. The future, however, also cannot be excluded. Within this antinomy we must find our way, honoring the past while not allowing it to constrict our future.At this point in his exposition Allsup approaches the proposition he is harboring, a proposition I want to explore for its potential in both clarity and complication. The basis of his key proposal is our need for teachers who are able “to think openly and less certainly about the design and implementation of musical instruction. Our pluralistic society,” he continues, “makes it imperative that we multiply the methods employed in the pursuit and construction of knowledge.”To accomplish this, Allsup presents a foundational dichotomy. There are “open forms of music” relating to “new and evolving ways of aesthetic participation that break with our traditional processes and our established codes and standards.” Contrasting with open forms are “closed forms,” representing the authoritative, the certain, and the canonic. “Closed forms,” he says, “represent culturally-structured and norm-driven literacies, where valuations of goodness pre-exist any aesthetic encounters.” Closed forms, he argues, are based on culturally agreed-upon modes of participation that are rigid in nature, such as in the prescribed and proscribed sequence of musical events proceeding inexorably in the order of composer-conductor-performer-audience.Such past (and present) rigidities, he points out, have become increasingly irrelevant. In every dimension of our lives significant and fast-occurring changes have become dominant, even expected, leaving us, as citizens and as educators, in confusion and uncertainty, and therefore in distress. We encounter aesthetic forms that are open-sourced and de-authored, unconnected to shared standards of practice. Technologies of music making and taking, he points out, have overthrown tradition to a startling degree, erasing distinctions among expert and amateur, between master and apprentice, between process and product, specialist and generalist, the classical and the vernacular.All this, and much more, is argued cogently and, I think, persuasively. It leads us to a central conception influencing how we must act as professionals. Our [End Page 109] obligation is to not only incorporate openness of musical engagements into our present culture of musical “closedness,” but to recognize the advent of openness as being a... (shrink)

Biometric technologies are becoming more pervasive in the workplace, augmenting managerial processes such as hiring, monitoring and terminating employees. Until recently, these devices consisted mainly of GPS tools that track location, software that scrutinizes browser activity and keyboard strokes, and heat/motion sensors that monitor workstation presence. Today, however, a new generation of biometric devices has emerged that can sense, read, monitor and evaluate the affective state of a worker. More popularly known by its commercial moniker, Emotional AI, the technology stems (...) from advancements in affective computing. But whereas previous generations of biometric monitoring targeted the exterior physical body of the worker, concurrent with the writings of Foucault and Hardt, we argue that emotion-recognition tools signal a far more invasive disciplinary gaze that exposes and makes vulnerable the inner regions of the worker-self. Our paper explores attitudes towards empathic surveillance by analyzing a survey of 1015 responses of future job-seekers from 48 countries with Bayesian statistics. Our findings reveal affect tools, left unregulated in the workplace, may lead to heightened stress and anxiety among disadvantaged ethnicities, gender and income class. We also discuss a stark cross-cultural discrepancy whereby East Asians, compared to Western subjects, are more likely to profess a trusting attitude toward EAI-enabled automated management. While this emerging technology is driven by neoliberal incentives to optimize the worksite and increase productivity, ultimately, empathic surveillance may create more problems in terms of algorithmic bias, opaque decisionism, and the erosion of employment relations. Thus, this paper nuances and extends emerging literature on emotion-sensing technologies in the workplace, particularly through its highly original cross-cultural study. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Witness of the Body: The Past, Present, and Future of Christian Martyrdom ed. by Michael L. Budde and Karen ScottElizabeth Sweeny BlockWitness of the Body: The Past, Present, and Future of Christian Martyrdom Edited by Michael L. Budde and Karen Scott Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2011. 238 pp. $22.00In Michael L. Budde’s introduction to this volume, he asserts its twofold purpose: to identify criteria for distinguishing authentic Christian (...) martyrdom from inauthentic and to return martyrdom to a more central place in Christian life. This collection of essays—some of which were presented as part of a lecture series at DePaul University during the 2006–7 academic year—aspires to reconsider and redefine martyrdom in order to remove both the “freak-show element” and the “heroic exceptionality” associated with martyrdom in modern culture (viii). The goal of the volume, which is part of the Eerdmans Ekklesia Series, is to resituate martyrdom within the everyday life of the church, and the majority of the essays argue for the ongoing significance of a revised martyrdom for this distinctive community. These eleven essays are as much about martyrs themselves as they are about how martyrdom is perceived, received, and remembered. The interdisciplinary volume [End Page 211] is successful in encouraging a broader understanding of martyrdom, one that may not necessarily include death, and in drawing attention to the ongoing need for memorializing Christian martyrs to inspire commitment and transformation.The volume is divided into four parts representing both chronological and substantive distinctions. Part 1, “Martyrdom as the Church’s Witness,” introduces the problem of isolating the requirements of martyrdom and defining who fits into this category, a challenge addressed throughout the volume. Part 2, “Martyrdom Builds the Church,” discusses positive elements of martyrdom, especially with respect to the value of women’s bodies, drawing on both the early female martyrs in general and Joan of Arc in particular. Part 3, “Martyrdom Destroys the Church,” recounts some of the most difficult aspects of modern martyrdom, calling for a more accurate history and recognition of the emergence of a new kind of martyrdom in which one’s loyalty is to country, not faith. Part 4, “Martyrdom and the Future Church,” calls attention to the need to continue celebrating the memory of martyrs and describes the contemporary Christian martyr as a peacemaker not seeking martyrdom in the traditional sense of the word.What stands out as a theme across a number of the essays, and what I judge to be a valuable contribution to Christian ethics, is an emphasis on the way martyrs live(d), suggesting that what can and should be emulated by Christians today is a commitment to action on behalf of conversion and transformation. Tripp York’s essay rightly argues that martyrdom need not be viewed as merely reactionary, as a way of life in opposition to something, but as transformative and “for the sake of the world” (37). Michael Budde makes a similar assertion that martyrdom is better defined as deep loyalty than as treason, thereby suggesting that this kind of loyalty to Christ ought not to be limited to the special calling of a few but seen as the commitment of all Christians. Stephen Fowl’s essay conveys the meaning of the title of this volume, identifying martyrdom as part of the larger practice of “believers’ witness of the body to God’s drama of salvation” (44). He argues that in life or death, one can magnify Christ, and one’s bodily actions and responses can reflect one’s character and commitments. Emmanuel Katongole provides powerful recognition of the ways in which Christian martyrs “keep the church from sleeping” (193) and “embody the mundane gestures and practice of peaceableness in their everyday living” (199). This volume succeeds in shifting the focus from martyrdom in the traditional sense—being put to death because of one’s faith—to the ways Christians today remember, respond to, and emulate the lives and actions of martyrs. [End Page 212]Elizabeth Sweeny BlockUniversity of ChicagoCopyright © 2013 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Attending cram school has long been a trend in ethnic Chinese culture areas, including Taiwan. Despite the fact that school reform policies have been implemented in Taiwan, cram schools have continued to prosper. Therefore, in this educational culture, how to achieve a good educational effect is also a topic worthy of discussion. However, whether students really engage in those tutoring programs provided by cram schools has seldom been studied. To address this gap, this study explored how parents’ hovering attitude toward (...) life and coursework influences their children’s engagement in cram schools. This study targeted those students who attend English cram schools to test the correlates between two types of helicopter parenting, tutoring engagement and continued attendance at cram schools. A total of 320 questionnaires were sent out, and 300 were returned, giving an overall response rate of 93.75%. Excluding seven incomplete or invalid questionnaires, 293 valid questionnaires were received. The results of this study show that hovering behavior awareness is negatively related to cram school engagement, whereas cram school engagement is positively related to the intention to continue attending cram school. Moreover, the results imply that parents should alleviate their helicoptering behavior to enhance their children’s engagement in cram school tutoring programs. (shrink)

Assuming that the contemporary world is inevitably set in the context of moistmedia (Ascott 2000), this article discusses some artistic proposals that specifically seek to explore the relationship between dry technology and the wet human body, as in the case of telematic dance. This article is grounded in Clark’s (2003) concept of the ‘extended mind’ and ‘cognitive artefact’; Noë’s (2004; 2012) ‘activism’ theory; and Gallagher’s (2005) ideas surrounding ‘body image’ and ‘body schema’. My discussion of ‘moistmedia’ is focused on Ascott’s (...) ‘Moist Manifesto’ (2000, 2003a), as well as moist theories which contribute to rethinking notions of (tele)presence, time, space, distance and of the very body. Through these new comprehensions we can understand the new perceptual demands that dancers have to deal with in the context of telematic dance. This new art configuration promotes different sensory motor experiences compared with a stage-based dance environment. The networked field of telematic dance is one way in which to render reality fluid in a moist context. In this sense, telematic projects could be assumed as moist art – ‘the hybrid interval between cyber and physical space’ – and as the ‘digitally dry, biologically wet, and spiritually numinous’ (Ascott 2003). Analyses of performances created within the project entitled ‘Embodied Varios Darmstadt’ 58’ (2013–14), with the collaboration of artists from Mexico, Spain, Portugal and Chile, will contribute to my discussion of telematic dance. This telematic artistic project was created to develop the concept of the ‘(tele) sonorous body’ from a theoretical and aesthetic point of view, so as to follow my interest in exploring telepresence beyond visual image. In this article, it is assumed that a human being experiences her/his world through sensory motor skills and that these are in play when s/he interacts with the environment (Noë 2004), a milieu garnered from Ascott’s ‘Moist Manifesto’ (2003a). The cultural shift proposed by this manifesto brings into play some important considerations, including notions of negotiation, construction, context and distributed mind, which overlap with conventional ideas of reception, representation, content and the autonomous brain respectively. Our interactions via telepresence with a dance partner bring about different ways of perceiving one another and oneself, because body image and body schema play an active role in shaping our perceptions (Gallagher 2005). Our actions and perceptions, our body image and body schema are responsible for our behaviour and learning in this world, interweaving these bodies partially wet (i.e. those onstage) with the dry (i.e. those tele-transported through cyberspace. The analysis of ‘Embodied Varios Darmstadt’ 58’ will contribute to understanding the perceptual demands of the dancer within the telematic environment, as well as the new notions of time, space, distance, presence, and the very notion of relationship or body contact in dance embedded into this ‘+ + biological culture’. (shrink)

Abstract in English, German, French and Croatian -/- In the paper “The ‘Bubbling Up’ of Subterranean Politics in Europe”, which was published in 2013 in the Journal of Civil Society, Mary Kaldor and Sabine Selchow attempted to reveal the specific qualities of the uprisings which emerged after the year 2010 in some European countries, such as Germany, Spain, Italy, England etc. According to the authors, the mode of organization which forms the main body of these emancipatory movements obtains its basic (...) logic from the world of the Internet. The use of the Internet requires a re-evaluation of negative philosophical commentary regarding technology. In the context of twentieth-century philosophy, Martin Heidegger and Herbert Marcuse are the most influential philosophers who studied the negative aspects of technology. Heidegger portrayed the destructive effects of scientific reasoning and technology on the Western culture through the criticism of the traditional Western metaphysics on a phenomenological-ontological level. Marcuse, belonging to the tradition of Western Marxism, formed his critique of technology in the context of the concept of instrumental rationality and the critique of advanced industrial society and capitalism. Although the starting points of their perspectives on technology and the underlying purposes of their critiques of technology were different, it may be asserted that both have a rather negative and almost entirely pessimistic disposition towards technology. Heidegger’s and Marcuse’s criticisms of technology will be discussed in this context and the differences and similarities between these criticisms will be shown. Finally, the paper will emphasise the question of the possibility of a positive role of technology. Technology can serve as an alternative to negative uses by shedding light on the relation between the current uprisings and the Internet. Keywords technology, rationality, freedom, enframing, criticism, revolt movements, Internet, politics //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// /////// Ist die Emanzipation des Menschen durch Technologie möglich? Zusammenfassung In dem Artikel „The ‘Bubbling Up’ of Subterranean Politics in Europe”, veröffentlicht im Jahre 2013 im Journal of Civil Society, versuchten Mary Kaldor und Sabine Selchow die spezifischen Qualitäten der Aufstände zum Ausdruck zu bringen, die nach 2010 in den europäischen Ländern ausbrachen – Deutschland, Spanien, Italien, England usw. Nach Ansicht der Autoren erhält der Modus der Organisation, der den Hauptkörper dieser emanzipatorischen Bewegungen bildet, seine grundlegende Logik aus der Welt des Internets. Die Analogie mit dem Internet erfor- dert eine Neubewertung der negativen Kommentare über die Technologie aus philosophischer Perspektive. Martin Heidegger und Herbert Marcuse sind die einflussreichsten Philosophen, die sich mit den negativen Aspekten der Technologie in der Philosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts befasst haben. Heidegger schilderte die zerstörerischen Auswirkungen der wissenschaftlichen Vernunft und Technologie auf die westliche Kultur durch die Kritik an der traditionellen abend- ländischen Metaphysik auf der phänomenologisch-ontologischen Ebene, während Marcuse, ein Mitglied des westlichen Marxismus, seine Kritik an der Technologie im Rahmen des Konzepts der instrumentellen Rationalität und der Kritik der fortgeschrittenen Industriegesellschaft und Kapitalismus geformt hat. Obgleich die Ansatzpunkte ihrer Perspektiven über die Technologie und die zugrunde liegenden Zwecke ihrer Kritik an der Technologie unterschiedlich waren, kann behauptet werden, dass beide eine eher negative und fast völlig pessimistische Einstellung zur Technologie hatten. In diesem Zusammenhang werden Heideggers und Marcuses Kritiken an der Technologie diskutiert sowie Unterschiede und Ähnlichkeiten zwischen den beiden Kri- tiken aufgezeigt. Abschließend unterstreicht das Paper die Frage nach der Möglichkeit einer positiven Rolle für die Technologie, die als Alternative zur negativen Perspektive dienen kann, indem sie Licht in das Verhältnis zwischen aktuellen Aufständen und Internet bringt. Schlüsselwörter Technologie, Rationalität, Freiheit, Gestell, Kritik, Revoltebewegungen, Internet, Politik //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// /////// L’émancipation humaine est-elle possible à travers la technologie ? Résumé Dans l’article « The “Bubbling Up” of Suberranean Politics in Europe » publié en 2013 dans Journal of Civil Society, Mary Kaldor et Sabine Selchow tentent de mettre en lumière les caractéristiques spécifiques des révoltes qui ont fait jour après 2010 dans certains pays européens – Allemagne, Espagne, Italie, Angleterre, etc. Selon nos auteures, le mode d’organisation qui a formé le corps essentiel de ces mouvements émancipatoires tire sa logique de base du monde de l’internet. Cette analogie avec l’internet requiert une réévaluation, à partir d’un point de vue philosophique, des commentaires négatifs sur la technologie. Martin Heidegger et Herbert Marcuse sont les philosophes les plus influents ayant travaillé sur les aspects négatifs de la technologie au sein de la philosophie du XXe siècle. Heidegger a dépeint les effets destructeurs de la raison scientifique et de la technologie de notre culture occidentale à travers son criticisme de la métaphysique traditionnelle occidentale à un niveau phénoménologico-ontologique, tandis que Marcuse, membre du « communisme occidentale », a formé une critique de la technologie au sein du concept de rationalité instrumentale et une critique de la société industrielle avancée et du capitalisme. Bien que le point de départ de leur perspective sur la technologie et que le but sous-jacent de leur critique diffèrent, il est possible d’affirmer que leur point commun est d’avoir posé un regard négatif et presque entièrement pessimiste sur la technologie. À cet égard, le criticisme d’Heidegger et de Marcuse vont être abordés afin d’en soulever les différences et les similarités. Enfin, cet article mettra l’accent sur la possibilité d’un rôle positif de la technologie qui pourrait servir d’alternative aux perspectives négatives en faisant la lumière sur le lien entre les révoltes actuelles et l’internet. Mots-clés technologie, rationalité, liberté, mettre en forme, criticisme, mouvements de révolte, internet, politique //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// /////// Je li moguća ljudska emancipacija kroz tehniku? Sažetak U članku »The ‘Bubbling Up’ of Subterranean Politics in Europe«, objavljenom 2013. u časopisu Journal of Civil Society, Mary Kaldor i Sabine Selchow pokušale su otkriti specifične značajke pobuna koje su se javila nakon 2010. godine u europskim zemljama poput Njemačke, Španjolske, Italije, Engleske itd. Prema autoricama, način organiziranja koji čini glavno tijelo ovih emancipatornih pokreta preuzima svoju osnovnu logiku iz svijeta Interneta. Analogija s Internetom zahtijeva ponovnu evaluaciju negativnih komentara o tehnici iz filozofske perspektive. Martin Heidegger i Herbert Marcuse najutjecajniji su filozofi 20. stoljeća koji su se bavili negativnim aspektima tehnike. Heidegger je prikazao destruktivne učinke znanstvene racionalnosti i tehnike na zapadnu kulturu kroz kritiku tradicionalne zapadne metafizike na fenomenološko-ontološkoj razini, dok je Marcuse, kao predstavnik zapadnoga marksizma, oblikovao svoju kritiku tehnike u kontekstu pojma instrumentalne racionalnosti te kritike razvijenog industrijskog društva i kapitalizma. Iako su polazišne točke njihovih pogleda na tehniku, kao i osnovne svrhe kritike tehnike, različite, može se reći da obojica imaju poprilično negativno i gotovo u potpunosti pesimističko shvaćanje tehnologije. U tom će se kontekstu razmotriti Heideggerova i Marcuseova kritika tehnike kao i razlike i sličnosti između tih dvaju pristupa. Zaključno će rad naglasiti mogućnost pozitivne uloge tehnike, koja može služiti kao alternativa negativnoj perspektivi osvjetljavajući odnos između nedavnih pobuna i interneta. Ključne riječi tehnologija, racionalnost, sloboda, postav, kritika, pobunjenički pokreti, Internet, politika. (shrink)

The acquisition and display of material artefacts is the raison d’être of museums. But what constitutes a museum artefact? Contemporary medicine is increasingly producing artefacts that do not fit the traditional museological understanding of what constitutes a material, tangible artefact. Museums today are therefore caught in a paradox. On the one hand, medical science and technologies are having an increasing pervasive impact on the way contemporary life is lived and understood and is therefore a central part of the contemporary world. (...) On the other hand, the objects involved in medical diagnostics and therapies are becoming increasingly invisible and intangible and therefore seem to have no role to play as artefacts in a museum context. Consequently, museums are at risk of becoming alienated from an increasingly important part of contemporary society. This essay elaborates the paradox by employing Gumbrecht’s distinction between ‘presence’ and ‘meaning’.Keywords: Exhibitions; Material culture/materiality; Contemporary science; Technology and medicine; Presence effects; Public engagement with science; History of medical science. (shrink)