FACDIS Thirty-First Annual Workshops
Technology: Its Impact on Global Politics, Economics,
Education & Culture
November 3-4, 2011
Lakeview Resort & Conference Center
Morgantown, West Virginia
Final Program
Thursday, November 3
- 9:30 am-1:00 pm
- REGISTRATION: Library
- BOOK Display: University Hall
- 10:30-11:15 am
- Steering Committee Meeting: Ward Christopher Room
- 11:45 a.m.-1:00 pm
- LUNCH: University Hall
- WELCOME: Jack Hammersmith, Director, FACDIS
- REFLECTIONS: Bruce Flack, Consultant, Higher Education Policy Commission
- 1:30-3:00 pm
- OPENING PANEL DISCUSSION WITH PRESENTERS: University Hall
- D. Linda Garcia, Georgetown University
- Deborah G. Johnson, University of Virginia
- Gerald K. Haines, University of Virginia
- Helga Tawil-Souri, New York University
- 3:00 pm-3:15 pm
- BREAK
- 3:15 pm-4:45 pm
- FIRST SET OF CONCURRENT SESSIONS
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Topic 1. Exploring Interdisciplinarity--Promises and Challenges : Seminar Rooms 1-2
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Consultant: D. Linda Garcia, Georgetown University
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Chairperson: Sheli Bernstein-Goff (West Liberty University)
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Session I: Creativity: A Networked Process
We typically think of creativity as an individual attribute, the product of special gifts and attributes. Research shows, however, that 'genius' in and of itself is not enough. Whether or not creative potential is realized depends on the positioning of individuals and groups in the complex set of networks that comprise the creativity environment. In this session we will examine these relationships, and discuss how the architecture of these networks is critical to producing creative outcomes. -
Topic 2. Technology and Society in the 21st Century : Seminar Rooms 3-4
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Consultant: Deborah G. Johnson, University of Virginia
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Chairperson: Nancy Nanney (WVU at Parkersburg)
Session I: Technology and the Future
This session will use thinking about the future as a way to explore the relationship between technology and society. A major theme will be to critique technological determinism and argue for more nuanced views: technology shapes and is shaped by society; technology is sociotechnical systems; technology is value infused. With this as background, 21st century challenges can be examined with a focus on the role of technology in meeting these challenges. - Topic 3. Technology and Intelligence: Training Room 1
- Consultant: Gerald K. Haines, University of Virginia
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Chairperson: James Siekmeier (West Virginia University)
Session I: The Wizard War: World War II and Signals Intelligence
The session will look at US efforts against Japanese communications, especially the Japanese "Purple Machine" and Japanese Naval Code JN-25, the impact of this intelligence on the Battle of Midway and the decision by President Harry Truman to drop the Atomic Bomb on Japan. It will also examine the British-American Signal intelligence efforts in Europe against Nazi Germany and the key role Signal intelligence played against German communications, ULTRA and the enigma machine. The Germans believed that the Enigma enciphering machine was "A riddle within a puzzle, cloaked by a mystery that neither man nor machine would ever solve." -
Topic 4. New Media, New Wars, New Middle East: Training Room 4
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Consultant: Helga Tawil-Souri, New York University
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Chairperson: Robert Willgoos (Shepherd University )
Session I: Cyber Mapping Palestine-Israel
Central to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the struggle over land and geography. Related to this is the struggle of mapping: Where is Israel? Where is Palestine? How does one make sense of the ever-changing landscape? Mapping is as much about territorial control, as it is about nationalist ideologies, national memory, and new forms of resistance -- but how does it impact changes on the ground? This session will address how mapping represents ideological, political, and territorial struggles and ask whether new mapping technologies and forms of archiving on the internet can function as a form of resistance. - 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm
- Social Hour (cash bar): University Hall
- 6:30 pm
- Banquet - University Hall
- Evening Entertainment: Jordan and Its Culture
Friday, November 4
- 7:00 am
- Institutional Representatives Breakfast: Ward Christopher Room
- 7:30 am
- General Breakfast: University Hall
- 8:30-10:00 am
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SECOND SET OF CONCURRENT SESSIONS
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Participants will stay in same track as Thursday afternoon
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Topic 1. Exploring Interdisciplinarity--Promises and Challenges: Seminar Rooms 1-2
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Consultant: D. Linda Garcia, Georgetown University
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Chairperson: Sheli Bernstein-Goff (West Liberty University)
Session II: Emergence: A Networked Phenomenon
Who, today, doesn't feel somewhat out of control, given the declining economy, climate upheavals, the world situation, etc. What we fail to realize is that our individual behavior, and local interactions, give rise to collective outcomes and global patterns of interactions that are unpredictable and often unintended. That is to say, global patterns "emerge" in the context of multiple individual interactions. In this session we will examine the phenomenon of emergence, and consider how it might not only explain slime mold behavior, self-organization, the stock market, and many other phenomenal occurrences but also--for better or worse--unintended consequences. -
Topic 2. Technology and Society in the 21st Century: Seminar Rooms 3-4
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Consultant: Deborah G. Johnson , University of Virginia
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Chairperson: Nancy Nanney (WVU at Parkersburg)
Session II: Information Technology, Ethics and Policy
Many human activities are now configured around computers and information technology. This raises questions about how the involvement of computers and information technology affects the quality and character of human relationships, human arrangements, and human behavior. What are we to make of virtuality, humanoid social robots, avatar attachment, friendship as instrumented via Facebook, knowledge produced via consensus (Wikipedia), and more? These new configurations of human activity can and should be examined from an ethical perspective. -
Topic 3. Technology and Intelligence : Training Room 1
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Consultant: Gerald K. Haines (University of Virginia)
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Chairperson: James Siekmeier (West Virginia University)
Session II: The Cold War: Gaining the Advantage in the Intelligence War
This session will examine US intelligence efforts to gain vital information relating to Soviet intentions and capabilities. With the emergence of the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the states of Eastern Europe were effectively sealed off from traditional HUMINT intelligence methods. With very little intelligence on this perceived enemy, various US administrations turned to cutting edge scientific technologies to provide intelligence on these closed societies. This session will explore the development of aerial reconnaissance efforts, the U-2 and the SR-71 and the origins and evolvement of satellite reconnaissance, especially imagery, CORONA, GAMBIT, HEXAGON, and CRYTAL. It will also look at the very special relationship formed during the Cold War between the CIA, the US Air Force, and private industry. -
Topic 4. New Media, New Wars, New Middle East: Training Room 4
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Consultant: Helga Tawil-Souri, New York University
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Chairperson: Robert Willgoos (Shepherd University)
Session II: New Media Wars
War-time propaganda is as long standing as war itself. With the rise of new technologies, such as satellite TV, handheld cameras, the internet, cellular phones, etc., do the landscapes of war and propaganda change because of this? This session will address these questions by looking specifically at the role of new media in the Hizballah-Israel war of Summer 2006 and the Gaza War of 2008-2009. From those examples participants are welcome to draw parallels to other wars. - 10:00-10:30 am
- COFFEE BREAK
- 10:30 am-12:00 pm
- THIRD SET OF CONCURRENT SESSIONS
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Participants will stay in same track as Thursday afternoon and Friday morning
-
Topic 1. Exploring Interdisciplinarity--Promises and Challenges: Seminar Rooms 1-2
-
Consultant: D. Linda Garcia, Georgetown University
-
Chairperson: Sheli Bernstein-Goff (West Liberty University)
Session III: Thinking in Terms of Networks
Networks are an ideal unit of analysis for employing an interdisciplinary approach for understanding our complex world. We find networks wherever we look--in our cells, in our environment, in our relationships, on the internet, etc. As importantly, all networks share a number of interesting characteristics in common, allowing us to draw implications from one field to see what lessons they may provide for another. In this session we will explore the nature of networks, examine how we might study them, and discuss how they provide a fundamental framework for understanding and analyzing complex subject.
Topic 2. Technology and Society in the 21st Century: Seminar Rooms 3-4 - Consultant: Deborah G. Johnson, University of Virginia
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Chairperson: Nancy Nanney (WVU at Parkersburg)
Session III: Technology and Democracy
What can democratic citizenship mean in an age of increasingly complicated technology and reliance on technical expertize? Building on the idea that technology shapes and is shaped by society, it would seem that democracy shapes and is shaped by technology. In order to understand this relationship, we have to ask? What is democracy?, What is technology?, How do they mutually shape each other? Answering these questions contributes to understanding what citizens need to know about science and technology in order to participate in democratic decision making. -
Topic 3.Technology and Intelligence : Training Room 1
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Consultant: Gerald K. Haines, University of Virginia
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Chairperson: James Siekmeier (West Virginia University)Topic 4.New Media, New Wars, New Middle East:Training Room 4
Session III: The FBI Counterintelligence and VENONA
With 9/11 the United States turned its attention to terrorist activities and possible attacks on the homeland. Wiretapping and expanded NSA authorities emerged with the Patriot Act. With this came questions regarding the protection of American civil liberties and the authorities of government to promote national security concerns. This session will focus on FBI efforts in the counterintelligence field, the origins of its authorities and its major successes in dealing with the infiltration of the United States by subversive powers. It will carefully examine the VENONA program and the Soviet penetration of the United States and the rise of McCarthyism. Much was achieved without cutting edge technology.
- Consultant: Helga Tawil-Souri, New York University
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Chairperson: Robert Willgoos (Shepherd University)
Session III: From Streets to Tweets: The Arab Uprisings
Did Al-Jazeera lead to the fall of Ben Ali in Tunisia? Did Facebook lead to the fall of Mubarak in Egypt? Will Tweeting result in the fall of other Arab dictators? By contextualizing the general political-economic and medial technology landscapes in the region, this session will critically assess the role of new media technologies in the Arab uprisings. - Noon:
- WORKSHOPS ADJOURN
LUNCHEON SPEAKER
BRUCE C. FLACK, Higher Education Policy Commission
Bruce C. Flack served as Director of Academic Affairs and Vice-Chancellor for State Colleges for the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission from 1989 to 2011. Dr. Flack has held several positions in West Virginia higher education. He previously served as professor of history, vice president for academic affairs, and interim president at Glenville State College, and Interim Chancellor for the Higher Education Policy Commission. Flack holds the B.A. degree from Otterbein College and the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in history from Ohio State University. He has been active in numerous regional and national higher education initiatives, and has served on national councils of the College Board and the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association. He now serves as a consultant to the Higher Education Policy Commission and teaches part-time at Marietta College.
WORKSHOP LEADERS
D. LINDA GARCIA, Georgetown University
D. Linda Garcia is the former Director of the Communication, Culture and Technology Program at Georgetown University, and presently is a member of the faculty. Prior to assuming the Directorship of the 150+ student graduate program, in 1996, she was Project Director and Senior Associate at the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment. There, she directed studies on electronic commerce, intellectual property rights, national and international telecommunications policy, standards development, and telecommunication and economic development. In 1997, Linda received her Doctorate from the Program in Social Science Informatics, which is part of the Psychology Department at the University of Amsterdam. She received her Masters in International Affairs from Columbia’s School of International Affairs in 1965, and was ABD in Department of Political Science. In 1963, she received her Bachelor’s Degree from Syracuse University where she majored in International Affairs. This year she is teaching Technology and Society, Networks and International Development, The Networked Economy and Networks and the Creative Process. Linda is Deputy Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) of the Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA), a part of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Solstice Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to the study of the Anasazi people and their environment. In addition, Linda is a member of the advisory board of the Center for Social Media at American University, Associate Editor for the online Journal for Virtual World Research, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Global Standards Analysis.
GERALD K. HAINES, University of Virginia
Originally from the Detroit area, Dr. Haines received his PhD in history from the University of Wisconsin in 1973. There, he worked on the history of United States-Latin American relations. After a brief teaching stint, he served for the majority of his career in the Central Intelligence Agency’s History Office. He has served as Chief Historian of the CIA, and the National Reconnaissance Office Historian. He has also served in the Officer-in-Residence Program, in which qualified CIA officials teach at universities and colleges in the United States. In this program, he taught courses on the history of the Intelligence Community, and United States-Latin America relations, in the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia (UVA). Dr. Haines has authored or co-authored a number of books. Dr. Haines’s publications include Americanization of Brazil: A Study of U.S. Cold War Diplomacy in the Third World, 1945-1954 (1989, re-issued by Rowman and Littlefield, 1997); The National Reconnaissance Office: Its Origins, Creation, and Early Years, published by the National Reconnaissance Office in 1996; and CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-1990: A Die-Hard Issue (1997, reissued by the Center for the Study of Intelligence, 2004). Dr. Haines splits his time between Arlington and Charlottesville, VA, where he teaches history courses at UVA.
DEBORAH G. JOHNSON, University of Virginia
Deborah G. Johnson is the Anne Shirley Carter Olsson Professor of Applied Ethics and Chair of the Department of Science, Technology, and Society in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences of the University of Virginia. Trained in philosophy, Johnson’s scholarship focuses broadly on the connections between ethics and technology, especially the ethical issues arising in connection with computers and information technology. Two of her books were published in 2009: The 4th Edition of Computer Ethics (Pearson/Prentice Hall) and Technology and Society: Engineering our Sociotechnical Future, co-edited with J. Wetmore (MIT Press). As an interdisciplinary scholar, Johnson has published over fifty papers on a wide range of topics and in a variety of journals and edited volumes. Currently Johnson serves as co-editor of the Journal Ethics and Information Technology published by Springer, and she recently completed two terms on the Executive Board of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics. Johnson received the John Barwise Prize from the American Philosophical Association in 2004; the Sterling Olmsted Award from the Liberal Education Division of the American Society for Engineering Education in 2001, and the ACM SIGCAS Making a Difference Award in 2000.
HELGA TAWIL-SOURI, New York University
Helga Tawil-Souri is an Assistant Professor in Media, Culture and Communication at New York University where she teaches courses on international development, media globalization, the Middle East, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Her scholarship addresses contemporary cultural and technological transformations in the Arab world and especially Palestine-Israel and their relationship to political and spatial changes. Helga has lived in various parts of the Middle East, Europe, and North America, speaks six languages, and is also a photographer and documentary film-maker. Among her forthcoming publications are articles on National Arab Politics in a Global Media Landscape and Digital Occupation: The Hi-Tech Enclosure of Gaza. Her current book project is Digital Occupation: Infrastructures as Borders in Palestine/Israel. She also serves on the editorial board of the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication and is reviews editor for that journal. In her life before academia, Helga worked as a researcher at a multi-national media conglomerate, and ran her own internet consulting firm.
FACDIS ORGANIZATION
FACDIS Director:
Jack L. Hammersmith, Dept of History, WVU; (304)293-2421 x 5235; email: jhammer@wvu.edu
FACDIS Assistant Director:
Gretchen Peterec, Dept. of Political Science, WVU; (304)293-7140; email: gretchen.peterec@mail.wvu.edu
Administrative Secretary:
Sharon Nestor, Dept. of Political Science, WVU; (304)293-7140; snestor@wvu.edu
FACDIS Founding Director (1980-1997):
Sophia Peterson, Professor Emerita, Dept. of Political Science, WVU; (304) 293-7140
Institutional Representatives, Study Abroad Advisers, and Steering Committee (2011)
INSTITUTION |
INSTITUTIONAL |
STUDY ABROAD |
Alderson-Broaddus College** |
John Hicks*** |
|
Bethany College |
Harald Menz |
Harald Menz |
Bluefield St. College |
Michael Lilly |
John White |
Concord University |
Carmen Durrani |
Carmen Durrani |
Davis & Elkins College** |
David Turner |
|
Fairmont St. University |
Patricia Ryan |
Patricia Ryan |
Glenville St. College |
R. Michael Smith |
C. E. Wood |
Marshall University |
Marybeth Beller |
Maria C. Riddle |
Potomac St. College |
Fred Jacoby |
Fred jacoby |
Salem International University* |
Larry Zbach |
Larry Zbach |
Shepherd University** |
Roland Bergman |
Linda Kinney |
University of Charleston |
Sarah Adams |
Sarah Adams |
West Liberty University* |
Sheli Bernstein-Goff |
Mohamed Youssef |
WVU Institute of Technology |
Jan Rezek |
Jan Rezek |
WV Northern Comm. College |
Frank DeCaria |
Denny Roth |
WV State University |
James Natsis |
James Natsis |
West Va. University* |
Michael Lastinger |
Tara George-Jones |
WVU-Parkersburg |
Rebecca Phillips |
Aaron Crites |
West Va. Wesleyan College |
Kwame Boateng |
Kwame Boateng |
Wheeling Jesuit University * |
John Poffenbarger |
Dominick DeFelippis |
* Institution whose Institutional Representative serves on the Steering Committee until November 30, 2011.
** Institutions whose Institutional Representative serves on the Steering Committee until November 30, 2012.
*** On educational leave from Alderston-Broaddus College for the 2011-2012 academic year.





