[spsp-members] Padova Summer School "Animal Technologies"

[Alfred Nordmann]

Summer School „Animal Technologies“
October 9th to 13th, 2023 at the University of Padova

The Fourth Padova Summer School on Philosophy and Cultural Studies of 
Technology invites advanced MA students, PhD candidates, and postdocs 
from philosophy, STS, art history, cultural and animal studies, and 
related fields.  If you are interested to contribute to our discussions, 
please describe your motivation and interest (no more than 3 pages) and 
send it along with a CV by June 5 to Andrea Gentili - 
andrea.gentili.2 at phd.unipd.it – he will answer any queries as well.

One of the first chapters in the history of technology concerns the 
domestication and breeding of animals, their technological deployment in 
agriculture, transport, mining, sacrificial rituals. At the same time, 
for hunters and gatherers, miners and urban dwellers alike, animals 
structured their technical practices and daily routines. Still today 
animal nature is harnessed, controlled, and transformed through 
technology, still today many human practices are shaped by our 
interactions with animals, and especially today we become aware of our 
co-dependency.

Genome editing offers strategies to enhance animal performance, 
biorobotics exploits animal behavior, One Health research fuses human 
and veterinary medicine with the environmental sciences. Technological 
devices have taken the place of pets, animals for use are monitored, 
fed, even stimulated and entertained by phone apps and virtual reality 
games.

A wide range of phenomena gives rise to several cross-cutting questions:

o    Kinship, moral community and their technological transformation - 
conceived as cooperation, cohabitation, coproduction, or codependency.
o    Technology games, human and animal forms of life - conceived as 
interface, intersection, in-formation, inclusion, or integration.
o    Analog and digital intelligence - limits and possibilities of 
communication, mutual recognition, perception, processing and sharing of 
information.
o    Anthropocene, Chthulucene, Technocene - eco-historical positioning 
for planetary survival.

The summer school faculty includes Natascha Adamowsky, Daria Bylieva, 
Arianna Ferrari, Fabio Grigenti, Natalia Nikiforova, Alfred Nordmann, 
Telmo Pievani, Oliver Schlaudt, Astrid Schwarz, and Marco Tamborini. The 
Summer School is free of charge, accommodations will be provided, 
participants are expected to cover the cost for travel. For further 
information see 
https://www.philosophie.tu-darmstadt.de/media/institut_fuer_philosophie/mitarbeiter_innen/nordmann_1/Animal_Technologies.pdf 
- Deadline for applications is June 5, 2023.