CCC Events

Thurs. October 27, 2011 :::: 4:00 - 5:30 PM :::: MUB Theater II

Speaker: Thomas Streeter
Professor of Sciology, University of Vermont
& author of The Net Effect: Romanticism, Capitalism, and the Internet

Beginning in the 1960s an increasing number of engineers and policymakers began to reinterpret the act of computing, not as calculation or prediction, but as a form of expression, exploration, or art, to see themselves as artist, rebel, or both, and to find communities with similar experiences that would reinforce that view. Direct, unplanned interaction with computers offered an enticing and safely limited unpredictability. These discursive habits, Streeter argues, had consequences: for example, the 1990s dotcom stock bubble owes much to the linkage of romantic tropes to networked computing.

Thurs. March 24, 2011 :::: 4:00 - 5:30 PM :::: MUB Theater I

Speaker: Thomas McCarthy
Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Northwestern University

Historically, conceptions of human development -- enlightenment, civilization, progress, modernization, and the like -- have played a central role in justifying European-American imperialism. At the same time, the rise of liberalism -- with its conceptions of liberty and equality -- has generated ever greater tension with such hierarchical orderings of difference. McCarthy argues that the tension arises from a dilemma in which neither conception -- sociocultural development nor human equality -- may be simply dropped. However, a critical theory of development may serve to reduce, if not eliminate, theoretical and practical dissonance.

Tues. March 22, 2011 :::: 4:00 - 5:30 PM :::: MUB Theater I

Speaker: Anannya Bhattacharjee
Founder, Society for Labour & Development
& President, Garment and Allied Workers Union (India)

The complex interconnectedness of economics, culture, people, and politics forces us to assess the scale and impact of social justice movements at a global level. Even with globalization, regional and nation-state contexts remain critical. There is a need for frameworks that are complex and not uni-dimensional; attentive and not self-indulgent; grounded and not only discursive. Through the experiences of local and international organizing, this talk will explore the elements for new frameworks for engagement in the contemporary globalized and massively stratified world.