Geoffrey Bowker

Title:

Changing Media/Changing Knowledge

Abstract:

Looking at the development of emerging modes of knowledge production and expression in a number of fields from the humanities to the natural sciences, I explore the questions of ways in which our ways of knowing the world are changing with new media and whether we are developing apposite knowledge infrastructures (http://knowledgeinfrastructures.org/) to accommodate them.  I argue that fostering these new modes entails moving beyond the structures that have worked so well since the Enlightenment.

Bio:

Geoffrey C. Bowker is Professor at the School of Information and Computer Science, University of California at Irvine, where he directs the Evoke Laboratory, which explores new forms of knowledge expression.  Recent positions include Professor of and Senior Scholar in Cyberscholarship at the University of Pittsburgh iSchool and Executive Director, Center for Science, Technology and Society, Santa Clara   Together with Leigh Star he wrote Sorting Things Out: Classification and its Consequences; his most recent book is Memory Practices in the Sciences.  More information can be found at: http://ics.uci.edu/~gbowker.