Technologies and Artworks: An Interdisciplinary Exploration through Ihde and Latour discusses and applies the phenomenological framework described by the philosopher of science and technology Don Ihde, in his text Technology and the Lifeworld, in relation to recent artworks of sculpture and performance that incorporate technologies. The study considers closely Ihde’s embodiment, hermeneutic, and alterity variants for the purpose of developing conceptual tools to investigate the complicated human-technology relationships present in the works considered. A subsequent discussion of psychasthenia and its relationship to Ihde’s embodiment variant demonstrates the limitations of Ihde’s approach and the need for additional sources in order to create a more comprehensive study. Additionally, this study draws on Bruno Latour’s text Science in Action, and in particular on his concepts of modalities and black boxes in order to contrast to and complement Ihde’s approach. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of the relationship between art and research, the increase in doctoral programs that accept or are designed for artists, a reflection on the effect of this study on the author’s own art practice, and the productive tension between the different processes involved in research and art.

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2008. Graduate Programme in Communication and Culture. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 88-91). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR38821

In this thesis I argue that technical communication as an academic curricular entity has struggled to define itself as either a humanities or scientific discipline. I argue that this crisis of identity is due to a larger, institutional flaw first identified by the science studies scholar Bruno Latour as the problem of the "modern constitution." Latour's argument, often referred to as Actor-Network Theory (ANT), suggests that the epistemological arguments about scientific certainty are built on a contradiction. In viewing the problem of technical communication's disciplinarity through the lens of ANT, I argue that technical communication can never be productive if it seeks to locate itself within any of the institutional camps of the modern university. Rather, I contend that technical communication is a strong example of a nonmodern discipline, and that its identity crisis can be utilized to take one step towards rewriting the institutional debate over scientific certainty.

Agency is a foundational and ongoing concern for the field of Rhetoric and Composition. Long thought to be a product and possession of human action, rhetorical agency represents the most obvious connection between the educational and theoretical work of the field and the civic project of liberal arts and humanities education. Existing theories of anthropocentric rhetorical agency are insufficient, however, to account for the complex technological work of digitally enmeshed networks of humans and nonhumans. To better account for these complex networks, this project argues for the introduction of new materialist theories of distributed agency into conversations about agency within Rhetoric. Such theories eschew the distinction between rhetorical and material agency and instead offer a way of accounting for action and change that makes room for rhetorical and material interventions as well as human and nonhuman participants. I take as my site the social media aftermath of the 2013 bombing at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. The digital networks of human users and nonhuman spaces (especially Twitter and Reddit) produced specific tangible effects: #BostonHelp helped stranded runners and tourists find food, shelter, and ways of communicating with family and friends, and Reddit’s /r/findbostonbombers forum enabled and fueled hurtful speculation about an innocent missing student. The strength, impact, and endurance of these networks leads me to three important conclusions: rhetorical/material agency must be distributed across a network of human and nonhuman participants; human intention no longer functions as an appropriate measure of the success or failure of rhetorical/material agency; and responsibility – like agency – must be distributed across networks’ human and nonhuman members.

This essay marks the degrading biosphere in David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas and argues that its narrative disclosure is meaningfully explored using the idea of a growing ecological awareness. The book depicts agentive nonhumans that are unseen or under-attended by the novel’s humans. I suggest this literary presentation of the biosphere is best understood as after the discovery of global warming when matters of ecological concern “intruded,” to use Timothy Morton’s word, on a human-only society with underequipped modes of historical thought. To construct my reading, I motivate recent work in object-oriented philosophies that would eschew anthropocentric metaphysics. I unpack Cloud Atlas’ ecological vision using Morton’s philosophy in which he explores the conceptual and aesthetic consequences of the hyperobject – a thing that is massively distributed in time and space relative to humans. My analysis will examine passages and techniques that construct Cloud Atlas’ “scenery,” and I argue that they evoke a degrading biosphere that interacts substantially with the human-only personal dramas. Features of the book’s formal construction allow for the animation of this scenery in the reader’s cross-novel interpretation. I look at how characters narrate this scenery to build my argument that the novel’s ecological vision makes claims on its storytelling characters. But as those characters still miss the long-view historical perspectives afforded the reader, they are shown to want community. I end by ruminating on how Cloud Atlas, which would “stretch” the literary novel, questions what the novel is at this ecological moment.

The Metaphysics Experiment attempts to explicate a theory and history of universalism in modern physics, through an analysis of its conception of nature. Understood as an axiomatic and hegemonic metaphysical premise through four hundred years of scientific and political history, universalism is defined in terms of its general and persistent claim to nature or truth as an ahistorical reality. Thus, I argue that universalism is directly implicated in, not opposed to, the (Christian) monotheistic conception of God. Moreover, universalism constitutes the logic according to which nature is differentiated from history, culture, and politics. It thus constructs both sides of the same ostensible oppositions in the so-called science and culture wars that determine much of today’s politics of nature. The scientific and political dominance of universalism is demonstrated through a history in five acts. Using the current Large Hadron Collider experiment in Geneva as a principal case study in Act 1, and drawing on contemporary philosopher of science, Isabelle Stengers, I consider four pivotal historical moments in the history of physics and metaphysics that determine the universalist claims of this contemporary experiment. In Act 2, the mid-20th century development of Albert Einstein’s General Relativity framework and Big Bang Theory is read against Martin Heidegger’s critique of identity logic. In Act 3, the mid-17th century emergence of the mathematical universe in modern science and philosophy, through Galileo Galilei and René Descartes, is read against Benedict Spinoza’s univocal metaphysics. In Act 4, the late 19th century invention of particle or quantum physics is read against Henri Bergson’s idea of mind-matter dualism. Finally, in Act 5, considering the contemporary use of natural constants in physics, the insights of Michel Serres, Bruno Latour, Peter Sloterdijk, Heidegger, Stengers and Spinoza are drawn together to problematize the modern historical role of physics and its metaphysical constitution of nature. Beyond these historical event-scenes, I also offer a theoretical explication of five logics, demonstrated individually Act by Act, that comprise different dimensions of science in action. Thus, physics is considered historically both as theoretical and experimental practice and as a form of political mobilization.

This thesis brings the philosophies of Jean-Luc Nancy, Slavoj Zizek and Bruno Latour into conversation around the cynosure of ecological rhetoric. It argues for a renewed contemplation of political ecology, one that relinquishes the concept of Nature in favour of the overtly politicized notion of a world in common. By tracing, for the first time, the intersections between these three thinkers’ respective philosophies of nature, this thesis strives to articulate a philosophical framework that can live up to the ecological challenges of the contemporary Anthropocene. / Graduate / 0422 / 0401 / 0298

Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-09T12:28:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2014-08-22Bitstream added on 2015-04-09T12:48:13Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 000816649_20160821.pdf: 199620 bytes, checksum: 5589fdfbdf72936cee45ceceb3339615 (MD5) Bitstreams deleted on 2016-08-22T16:41:53Z: 000816649_20160821.pdf,. Added 1 bitstream(s) on 2016-08-22T16:42:31Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 000816649.pdf: 1210617 bytes, checksum: c1d5bfaad102978e9c87438594167665 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Esta tese consiste na aproximação do pensamento de Bruno Latour à temática da formação do fisioterapeuta, no que se refere à utilização do conceito de híbrido para contribuir com o aprofundamento do assunto no âmbito das práticas da fisioterapia. A análise segue voltada para as relações entre natureza e cultura como partes de uma mesma tessitura, mas que se apresentam para a ciência moderna como separadas. A hipótese levantada é que o fazer da fisioterapia é híbrido, porque expõem as características inevitáveis das misturas. Portanto, o objetivo principal deste trabalho é evidenciar, a partir da análise de matrizes curriculares e perfis profissionais, as condições que favorecem a proliferação de híbridos durante a construção da identidade profissional. Os procedimentos metodológicos desta pesquisa envolveram etnografia, análise documental e entrevistas com professores. As instituições participantes foram a Universidade Estadual de Londrina (Brasil – Paraná) e a Keele University (The UK). A partir da análise dos dados depreendemos três categorias: 1) Perfil profissional: entre currículos, diretrizes e projetos pedagógicos; 2) Campo de poder: entre interesses, limites e possibilidades das estruturas curriculares; 3) Integração curricular: a valorização das misturas na formação do fisioterapeuta. A análise destas categorias desenvolveu-se seguindo uma linha de raciocínio, começando pela demonstração das diferentes concepções sobre o perfil profissional, evocando passado, presente e futuro. Passando em seguida, para o campo da fisioterapia e suas tensões, que deixaram claras as resistências, disputas e diferenças de capitais sociais e, como estes podem influenciar/modificar a trajetória que foi planejada pelas matrizes curriculares. A integração curricular, por sua vez, condensou as expectativas de explicar o conhecimento fisioterapêutico como alicerçado pelo conceito de híbrido, porque... / This thesis is an approaching of Bruno Latour’s thought to the physiotherapist training issue regarding the concept of hybrid in order to contribute to deepening of the subject within physiotherapy practice. The analysis is focused on the relationship between nature and culture as parts of the same fabric, which are understood as separated to modern science. The hypothesis is that physiotherapy practice is hybrid, because it exposes the inevitable characteristics of mixtures. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to evidence from the curriculum changes the conditions that favor the proliferation of hybrids during the construction of professional identity. The research’s methodological procedures involved ethnography, documental analysis and interviews. The participating institutions were the University of Londrina (Brazil - Paraná) and Keele University (The UK). Data analysis inferred three categories: Professional profile: among curricula, guidelines and programme specifications; 2) Field of power: among interests, boundaries and possibilities of curricula structures; 3) Curriculum integration: the value of the mixtures in the physiotherapist education. The analysis of these categories was developed following a reasoning that demonstrated different conceptions about professional profile, evocating past, present and future. The field and its tensions, showed us resistances, disputes, differences of social capitals and how they might influence/modify the trajectory of the curricula. The curriculum integration condensed the expectations of explaining the physiotherapy knowledge as underpinned by hybrid concept, because it exposes the interaction of contents which leads to mixtures. The concept of hybrid represents the possibility of redefining the scientific relations of physiotherapy with its therapeutic practice, taking into account that human and technique’s domains cannot be separated clearly. Accept this mixture would...

[pt] Esta dissertação tem por objetivo analisar a crise ecológica de nosso tempo à luz da obra do filósofo e antropólogo francês Bruno Latour, considerando especialmente seus estudos sobre a modernidade e seu conceito de guerra dos mundos. Em trabalhos recentes, Latour ampliou a noção de guerra dos mundos, apresentada originalmente em seu livro War of the Worlds: What about Peace?, de 2002, para se referir à disputa ontológica entre dois povos – os Humanos e os Terranos – que deve ser declarada para fazer frente à situação de grave desequilíbrio de diversos parâmetros ambientais que permitiram o florescimento das formas de vida existentes e que vinham se mantendo estáveis havia milhares de anos. Tal desequilíbrio, asseguram inúmeros cientistas, é causado pelo impacto da ação humana sobre a Terra, e acarretou a entrada do planeta em uma nova época geológica, o Antropoceno. Latour insiste que esta guerra precisa ser declarada para que se possa pensar a paz, entendida como a construção, por meio de um trabalho de diplomacia, de um mundo comum no qual diversas ontologias e cosmologias possam conviver. Este acordo de paz é exequível? Eis a pergunta que este trabalho se propõe a responder. / [en] This dissertation aims to analyze the ecological crisis of our time in the light of the oeuvre of French philosopher and anthropologist Bruno Latour, considering especially his writings on modernity and his concept of war of the worlds. In recent works, Latour has expanded the notion of war of the worlds, presented for the first time in his book War of the Worlds: What about Peace? (2002), referring to the ontological dispute between two people – the Human and the Earthbound – that must be declared for confronting the situation of deep unbalance of the planet environmental parameters that allowed the flourishing of the current forms of life, and that had been relatively steady for thousands of years. Such unbalance, most of scientists assure, is caused by the impact of human action upon the Earth, and brought about its entry in a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. Latour insists that this war must be declared in order to think about the peace, understood as the composition, through a diplomatic work, of a common world in which diverse ontologies and cosmologies can coexist. Is this peace agreement feasible? That is the question this work seeks to answer.

Abstract The research utilizes 'actor-network' theory to analyze debates in the media on the socio-technical controversy on the topic of the amount of coal in the Nástup Tušimice mines. Theoretical part describes its own place in the sociological tradition and theoretical presuppositions of actor-network theory. My conclusion is that, the controversy is being developed alongside several lines, which remain relatively autonomous. Empirical part of this study analyzes dynamics of the conflict and the strategies employed by both sides in the argument over seemingly unequivocal fact. The conclusion focuses on questionable areas of ANT; especially on it's application in research of conflicts in public space which is different from its use in sociology of science where ANT originated. Problematic point seems to be utilization of management of transparency, which is employed by the alliance of companies to sustain their version of reality. Emphasis of ANT on observable aspects of controversies seems to be obstacle for fruitful use of ANT, because it probably misses the crucial areas where the controversies are being developed.