477 research outputs found
COVID-Calls discussions - Hosted by Scott Gabriel Knowles - every weekday
No full textDescription: COVID-Calls discussions are streamed on YouTube Live, and archived on the Slow Disaster Podcast here: https://soundcloud.com/scott-knowles-433708957 Scott Gabriel Knowles is the host. He is a professor of history at Drexel University--he studies disasters worldwide. Email him at: [email protected] He is the host of COVID-Calls, a discussion of the COVID-19 pandemic with disaster experts held every weekday at 5pm EST. What IS COVIDCalls? https://phillymag.com/news/2020/08/15/scot..
Death, Life, and Longing in the Pandemicene
No full textAbstract
This essay explores the concept of the Pandemicene, a proposed elaboration of the Anthropocene tailored to account for the COVID-19 pandemic and the world it is making. The Anthropocene itself is a new geological era defined by human industrial activity as the dominant shaping force on the planet and its resources. Humans have already created the conditions for nonhuman animal to human disease spillover, exemplified by the emergence and global spread of SARS-CoV-2. The bimodal impact of climate change is crucial: leading to a rapid and large-scale species die off, while also reconfiguring ecosystems and placing more and more species into close contact. The results are hard to predict, just like a pandemic, but epidemiologists working on spillovers are alarmed—even if climate change were to slow down, the acceleration is underway. The Pandemicene offers a useful articulation of the Anthropocene, a concept that too often floats freely without coming to the ground in the form of specific disasters, in specific places, killing real people. With COVID in mind, we know the Pandemicene as well as we know anything, and it has reshaped human society, economies, and geopolitics in only three years-time. Building on a body of interviews conducted for the COVIDCalls podcast, this essay digs deeper into the Pandemicene, exploring ways that it elaborates the Anthropocene, and the new research questions it raises.</jats:p
A Slow Disaster Historical Experiment
No full textLooking at the pandemic in the long historical view of 'slow disasters' shows how it is a continuation of previous health emergencies rather than a discrete event. The tendency of politicians to prematurely declare an end to the pandemic has not helped improve public trust in health policy. © 2022 Current History Inc.. All rights reserved.
Education for Disaster Justice
No full textDisasters reveal injustice in society; disasters create new injustices. These two intertwined ideas were the inspiration for an action research project, the first Disaster Haggyo, held across multiple locations in South Korea in the summer of 2022. The Disaster Haggyo-"haggyo" translates to "school" in Korean-was also an experiment in pedagogical methods. Science education, though not explicitly the aim of the Disaster Haggyo, infused every aspect of our approach. The Haggyo curriculum approaches innately technological disasters as entanglements of science, technology, and living organisms, inviting students to engage with unfolding disasters through tactics like citizen science, regulatory activism, and victim advocacy. The Disaster Haggyo was also created as a method for conducting research on the structural features of disaster injustice, in the mode of "action research," to enable mutual aid and a dissolution of boundaries among researchers and those seeking disaster justice in two specific sites: Ansan and Jeju Island, South Korea. Specifically, our goal was to document and evaluate the ways in which (1) disaster memorialization and (2) disaster education practices empower survivors and bereaved families, and also the ways that such activities might also burden them, or even cause ongoing harm. Ansan, home of the Danwon High School, is the key site for Sewol Ferry Disaster bereaved family memorialization and activism. Jeju Island is both the site of the 1947-1954 Jeju Uprising and Massacre as well as a site of increasing environmental fragility in the climate change era. This paper argues that an articulation of disaster justice emerged as a key goal embedded in both memorialization and education activities across the various Disaster Haggyo research sites. Our interlocutors in these sites, in quite creative and surprising ways, insisted on justice as a language through which to interpret their lives and the lives (and deaths) of those for whom they cared most deeply.
Science education in an age of unnatural disasters: an introduction to the special issue
No full textParution : World’s Fairs in the Cold War - A. P. Molella, S. G. Knowles
No full textWorld’s Fairs in the Cold War. Science, Technology, and the Culture of Progress - Arthur P. Molella, Scott Gabriel Knowles 302 Pages. ISBN : 9780822945789 Résumé The post–World War II science-based technological revolution inevitably found its way into almost all international expositions with displays on atomic energy, space exploration, transportation, communications, and computers. Major advancements in Cold War science and technology helped to shape new visions of utopian futures, the sto..
From gun to briefcase: the rise of the private military firm 1990-2007
No full textThere is an often-quoted statistic stating that in the Gulf War of 1991, seen by some as the last hurrah of the cold war military, the ratio of active military personnel to contractors and civilians was approximately 60 to 1. The Iraq War of 2003 has seen near parity between contractors and the total number of troops deployed. This number signifies a fundamental shift in military doctrine that bears examining. Tasks once seen as the purview of militaries around the world have been outsourced to private interests such as Blackwater USA and DynCorp. These firms all fall under the umbrella designation of the Private Military Firm (PMF).This thesis seeks to explain how these firms have achieved such critical roles in United States military operations since the Gulf war. In doing so I will argue that militaries in the post cold war vacuum have sought to reduce size and increase efficiency through the outsourcing of core functions to privatized interests. Due to a large industrial military infrastructure being in place since the end of World War II, the move of the military toward privatization of some functions is not unusual. That a whole new industry has sprung up around the military with a minimum of public knowledge, while avoiding the derogatory “mercenary” label is unusual.This thesis will seek to answer three questions. First, to whom do the PMFs answer? For example, in April 2001, a single engine Cessna was shot down by the Peruvian Air force under the guidance of a surveillance plane operated by Aviation Development Corporation as part of American counter-narcotics operations in South America. The plane contained a group of Baptist missionaries, of whom a mother and her daughter were killed.1 The CIA--for whom the contractors were working--claimed it was a matter for the company. The company claimed it was carrying out its contract with the CIA; therefore, it would fall on the C.I.A.Second, is there a real cost benefit to using private forces to carry out the tasks once executed by national militaries? In 2004 Tim Spicer, former head of the well known PMF Sandline Security, won a $293,000,000 contract for the newly minted AEGIS Defense Services Ltd. to provide security for multiple organizations and corporations currently active in the Iraq conflict. This is the largest contract awarded to a non-US firm so far in the Iraq War.Finally, what is the role of technology in this burgeoning industry? For example the military theories of net-centric and 4th generation warfare incorporate technology as the basis for national strategy in the coming years. These new military strategies will require not only the classic military presence of “boots on the ground”, but an extensive and complex communications and information relay system to fight a wars on not only the strategic front, but political and media fronts as well.To begin I will define the structure of the PMF. In this section I hope to establish a vocabulary by which I can explain how the PMF has created a multi-tiered, multi service business that separates it from the mercenary. The next section will be three case studies examining individual companies and what they have contributed to the debate using the three questions asked above. Finally, I will divide this history into 3 eras; The Gulf War, September 11, 2001, and finally the Afghan and Iraqi wars. These four events have defined the development, explosive rise, and ultimate testing of the privatized military industry.M.S., Science, Technology, and Society -- Drexel University, 200
게이머: 탈근대 인간성으로서 게임-네이티브 - 국내 인디게임 개발 사례를 중심으로
No full text학위논문(석사) - 한국과학기술원 : 과학기술정책대학원, 2024.8,[135 p. :]This study explores the primary motivations underlying game development and their transition from the enjoyment of play into socially constructed and practical domains. The research seeks to distill these motivations from the lived experiences of game developers, focusing on three core questions: (1) What constitutes gameplay, and how does it transition into game development? (2) How is the game industry socially constructed through modern systems such as society, state, corporations, and educational institutions? (3) What are the specific processes involved in game development, and how are these elements integrated?
The research is divided into three sections. Section 1 provides a historical analysis of digital game development in South Korea from the 1970s to 2024, incorporating developer testimonies to examine how gameplay experiences motivate individuals to pursue game development. Section 2 investigates the transition from the motivation to develop games to the actual development process, emphasizing educational pathways and institutional support mechanisms. Section 3 employs discourse analysis to examine the interactions between game developers and players within digital spaces, and the implications of these interactions for understanding gamer identity.
The methodology includes documentary research tracing the life trajectories of individuals within game culture, in-depth interviews and an analysis of interview transcripts to identify common patterns. The study concludes with a gamer manifesto, highlighting the political significance of recognizing indie game developers and advocating for a postmodern perspective that values enjoyment and interaction within virtual worlds, challenging traditional productivity-based definitions of identity.한국과학기술원 :과학기술정책대학원
Atoms for peace in Brussels and Osaka: World’s Fairs and the shaping of Japanese attitudes to nuclear power
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