mCenter Director Mimi Sheller discusses her forthcoming book Aluminum Dreams: Lightness, Speed, Modernity (MIT Press, 2014)
For more information please contact mimi.sheller@drexel.edu
* please note that the European pronunciation of “aluminium” has been used throughout for a global audience
Posted in Research
Tagged Aluminum, Caribbean, Sustainability, Technology, Tourism, Transport
From May 8-11, 2013 the Mobile Media Lab in the Communication Studies department of Concordia University in Montreal will be hosting Differential Mobilities: Movement and Mediation in Networked Societies. This international conference is sponsored by the Pan-American Mobilities Network, in association with the European Cosmobilities Network. The conference will be held in collaboration with the 4th annual meeting of the Pan-American Mobilities Network. Previous conferences have been held at: Royal Roads University, Victoria B.C (2010); Drexel University, Philadelphia PA (2011) ; and North Carolina State University, Raleigh-Durham NC (2012).
The conference is an opportunity for scholars, artists, activists, and policy makers to engage in a lively exchange of ideas in an interdisciplinary context, taking the term “mobilities” as a fulcrum. Mobilities has become an important framework for understanding and analyzing contemporary social, spatial, economic and political practices. Mobilities research is interdisciplinary, focusing on the systematic movement of people, goods and information that “travel” around the world at speeds that are greater than before, creating distinct patterns, flows– and blockages. Mobilities research contributes to the study of these technological, social and cultural developments from a critical perspective.
You can follow the conference on social media at these locations:
o Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/mmlMTL
o Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/mmlMTL
o Instagram:
http://www.instagram.com/mmlMTL
Hashtag #mobilities13 in all your related posts.
We invite you to download our Guidebook Mobile Device App in order to view and manage the schedule remotely. You’ll be able to plan your day with a personalized schedule and browse exhibitors, maps and general show info. The app is compatible with iPhones, iPads, iPod Touches and Android devices. Windows Phone 7 and Blackberry users can access the same information via our mobile site at m.guidebook.com.
To get the guide, choose one of the methods below:
Organizing Committee:
The Pan-American Mobilities Network is a scholarly and professional network dedicated to the study of mobilities in South, Central, and North America. The Pan-American Mobilities Network gathers individuals and groups interested in developing more knowledge about mobilities on–or intersecting with–these continents and keen on building collegial relationships. Membership is free and a web-site for the organization is in process.
The Cosmobilities Network connects European scientists working in the field of mobility research. As an interdisciplinary network it represents state of the art research on different aspects of social, physical, cultural and virtual mobilities. It fosters mobility research as a key discipline investigating the modernization of European societies under the conditions of globalization and global complexity.
Conference Chair: Kim Sawchuk (Concordia University, Québec)
For further information, contact: Ben Spencer, Administrative Coordinator, Mobile Media Labmmcconcordia@gmail.com
Posted in Conference, Events
Tagged Art, Events, Mobile Media, Mobilities Theory, Transport, Urbanism
The artist team Ecoarttech (Leila Nadir and Cary Pepperment) will be presenting a Philadelphia premier of their work Indeterminate Hikes+ as part of the class Urban Vitality & the Arts, taught by Mimi Sheller and Hana Iverson. Ecoarttech work on the overlapping terrain between “nature”, built environments, mobility and electronic spaces and technologies. They will be in conversation with Dr. Christian Hunold, Associate Professor of Political Science in Drexel’s College of Arts and Sciences, whose research interests revolve around sustainability and the politics of renewable energy; and writer Bernard Brown, who writes the Urban Naturalist column for GRID Magazine.
You can find more information on ecoarttech and their other work at http://www.ecoarttech.net/
This event is free and open to the public, but is part of an instructional course so please to attend please contact: Mimi Sheller, director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, mimi.sheller@drexel.edu.
Posted in Events
Tagged Art, Events, Mobile Media, Sustainability, Technology, Urbanism
Aluminum has become the most important single bulk material of modern warfare. No fighting is possible, and no war can be carried to a successful conclusion today, without using and destroying vast quantities of aluminum.– Dewey Anderson, 1951
Dr. Mimi Sheller will be speaking on “Aluminum Wars” at the research Seminar of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University on Friday, April 26th. All seminars are held at 12 noon in the Academy’s Ewell Sale Stewart Library & Archives unless otherwise noted. These technical seminars are intended for scientists and college-level students. Guests from other research and higher education institutions and organizations are encouraged to attend.
The talk is based on Dr. Sheller’s forthcoming book Aluminum Dreams: Lightness, Speed, Modernity (MIT Press, 2014). This chapter concerns the ways in which aluminum was crucial to warfare, but also how the contemporary culture of innovation and entrepreneurship remains deeply entwined with the military-industrial complex, with serious implications for our ability to address ethical issues concerning global pollution, environmental destruction, and the huge impacts of aluminum production on marginalized people.
For more information please contact: mimi.sheller@drexel.edu
Water Station in Belloc, Haiti
Over the Spring break Dr. Mimi Sheller traveled to Haiti to present a final report on the NSF-Rapid research conducted in 2010 with professors Franco Montalto, Patrick Gurian and Michael Piasecki on post-earthquake water and sanitation reconstruction in Leogane. We held a meeting of the community groups who had participated in our 2010 Workshop and presented them with a final report translated into Kreyol, as well as giving a presentation and answering their questions. An English version of the report is available here: Final HAITI Report
We are also pleased to have published an article on “Women’s Water and Sanitation Needs in Post-earthquake Leogane, Haiti” in the online journal wH2O: The Journal of Gender and Water, Vol 2., No. 1. The article can be found here: http://issuu.com/wh2ojournal/docs/vol2_no2. wH2O is a new initiative at the University of Pennsylvania that publishes an annual online, open-access academic journal and blog focused on gender and water/sanitation issues worldwide. Dr. Sheller will also be presenting this work at the April 9th Conference of the Philadelphia Global Water Initiative on Gender and Water: Leading Beyond the Burden. Information on the conference can be found at
http://pgwiconference2013.wordpress.com/
Flooded farmland around Lake Enriquillo
Finally, Dr. Sheller also began work on a new NSF-RAPID project with colleagues at CCNY (see an overview at http://www.ccny.cuny.edu/news/spring-break-lake-enriquillo.cfm). The project, RAPID: Understanding Sudden Hydro-Climatic Changes and Exploring Sustainable Solutions in the Enriquillo Closed Water Basin (Southwest Hispaniola), Award #1264466, seeks to understand the causes for, impact of, and potential mitigation strategies in response to the rising water levels of two lakes on the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic which have submerged farmland, houses, roads, and are threatening entire towns. Dr. Sheller conducted 35 interviews on the social and economic impacts of the flooding with local inhabitants and leaders in affected areas of Haiti (La Source, Fonds Parisien) and the Dominican Republic (Boca de Cachon, Jimani, Discubierta).
Fore more information please contact: mimi.sheller@drexel.edu
Posted in Publication, Research
Tagged Borders, disaster risk, Dominican Republic, Engineering, Haiti, Water
6:30-7:30pm, MACALISTER 2020 BOARD ROOM
Costa Concordia Salvage
A talk by Giuseppina Pellegrino (President of STS Italia, and Asst. Professor, Sociology of Culture & Communication, University of Calabria, Italy
This talk aims to describe and identify potential crossroads between STS and Mobilities as two contiguous fields. As they share an interdisciplinary and even transdisciplinary status, their hybridization can provide fertile materials of reflection from both a theoretical and an empirical viewpoint.
In order to depict similarities and differences between STS and Mobility Studies, the case of the cruise ship ‘Costa Concordia’ partial sinking in January 2012 off the Giglio island in Italy will be proposed as ‘exemplary story’ to summarize the key-concepts and criticalities of STS-based Mobilities.
Dr. Pelligrino will also be discussing the state of Science and Technology Studies in Italy and the formation of STS Italia:
THURSDAY, APRIL 4
12-1 P.M.
HAGERTY LIBRARY
STEIN CONFERENCE ROOM 302
mimi.sheller@drexel.edu
This new issue contains the following articles:
Articles
Borders and Mobilities: Introduction to the Special Issue
Tim Richardson
Pages: 1-6
DOI: 10.1080/17450101.2012.747747
To Make Move and Let Stop: Mobility and the Assemblage of Circulation
Mark B. Salter
Pages: 7-19
DOI: 10.1080/17450101.2012.747779
Governmobility: The Powers of Mobility
Jørgen Ole Bærenholdt
Pages: 20-34
DOI: 10.1080/17450101.2012.747754
Mobility Regimes and Borderwork in the European Community
Anne Jensen
Pages: 35-51
DOI: 10.1080/17450101.2012.747780
Mapping the Contours of Mobilities Regimes. Air Travel and Drug Smuggling Between the Caribbean and the Netherlands
Sanneke Kloppenburg
Pages: 52-69
DOI: 10.1080/17450101.2012.747766
Through Metal Fences: Material Mobility and the Politics of Transnationality at Borders
Malini Sur
Pages: 70-89
DOI: 10.1080/17450101.2012.747778
Rebordering France and Denmark Narratives and Practices of Border-Construction in Two European Countries
SARAH SCUZZARELLO & CATARINA KINNVALL
Pages: 90-106
DOI: 10.1080/17450101.2012.747775
Monumentalising the Border: Bordering Through Connectivity
Anthony Cooper & Chris Rumford
Pages: 107-124
DOI: 10.1080/17450101.2012.747761
Conflict’s Tools. Borders, Boundaries and Mobility in Jerusalem’s Spatial Structures☆
Wendy Pullan
Pages: 125-147
DOI: 10.1080/17450101.2012.750040
Towards a Cosmopolitan Cinema: Understanding the Connection Between Borders, Mobility and Cosmopolitanism in the Fiction Film
Maria Rovisco
Pages: 148-165
DOI: 10.1080/17450101.2012.747774
