Aihwa Ong, Stephen J. Collier (eds.): Global assemblages: technology, politics, and ethics as anthropological problems (2005)

Provides an exciting approach to some of the most contentious issues in discussions around globalization—bioscientific research, neoliberalism, governance—from the perspective of the “anthropological” problems they pose; in other words, in terms of their implications for how individual and collective life is subject to technological, political, and ethical reflection and intervention.

* Offers a ground-breaking approach to central debates about globalization with chapters written by leading scholars from across the social sciences.
* Examines a range of phenomena that articulate broad structural transformations: technoscience, circuits of exchange, systems of governance, and regimes of ethics or values.
* Investigates these phenomena from the perspective of the “anthropological” problems they pose.
* Covers a broad range of geographical areas: Africa, the Middle East, East and South Asia, North America, South America, and Europe.
* Grapples with a number of empirical problems of popular and academic interest — from the organ trade, to accountancy, to pharmaceutical research, to neoliberal reform.

Published by Wiley-Blackwell, 2005
ISBN 1405123583, 9781405123587
494 pages

Key terms:
biopolitics, neoliberal, Singapore, Belaya Kalitva, anthropology, Heterarchies, Michel Foucault, Paul Rabinow, Icelandic, Marilyn Strathern, Islamic banking, ethnography, Cameroon, David Stark, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, deCode Genetics, bioavailability, bioethics

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Lee Hoinacki, Carl Mitcham (eds.): The challenges of Ivan Illich: a collective reflection (2002)

This unique collection examines the man Utne Reader has called “the greatest social critic of the twentieth century.” The essays — all but one written by people who knew Illich personally — discuss how his life and thought have affected conceptualization, study, and practice of psychotherapy, notions about education, ideas concerning the historical developments of texts, perceptions of technology, as well as other topics. All of Illich’s books are discussed and his ideas on education, theology, technology, anarchism, and society are examined in relationship to those of Rene Girard, Karl Polanyi, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jacques Ellul. Illich’s previously unpublished paper offering a new view of conspiracy in European history is included.

Published by SUNY Press, 2002
ISBN 0791454215, 9780791454213
256 pages

Key terms:
CIDOC, Tools for Conviviality, Boyars, Puerto Rico, Cuernavaca, Jacques Ellul, Deschooling Society, Carl Mitcham, E.F. Schumacher, Rene Girard, homo economicus, David Cayley, Barry Sanders, Leopold Kohr, iatrogenesis, Dalmatia, Karl Polanyi, Duden, Louis Dumont

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Electronic and Experimental Music: Technology, Music, and Culture, 3rd ed (1985/2008)

“Electronic and Experimental Music provides a thorough treatment of the relevant history behind the marriage of technology and music that has led to the state of electronic music today. Drawing widely on innovations from the worlds of classical music, rock and roll, hip hop, popular music, jazz, and modern dance, it covers the chronology of electronic music in separate parts devoted to early history, analog synthesis and instruments, digital synthesis and computer music, and the music itself. The third edition incorporates a contemporary pedagogical design, offering a variety of learning aids designed to help readers understand and review basic concepts, history, and milestones in electronic music, including reader’s guides and summaries at the beginning and end of each chapter, sidebars providing a unique profile of an influential individual in the field of electronic music, playlists of recommended listening covering every genre mentioned in the text, and timelines highlighting major technological andmusical innovations discussed in each chapter.”

Publisher Scribner, 1985
Third edition, Routledge, 2008
ISBN 0415957826, 9780415957823
462 pages

Key terms: Theremin, John Cage, Wendy Carlos, Gordon Mumma, Telharmonium, Robert Moog, Buchla, musique concrete, David Behrman, Pauline Oliveros, analog synthesizers, electronic musical instruments, Alvin Lucier, David Tudor, Bell Labs, Pierre Schaeffer, Max Mathews, Hugh Le Caine, Robert Ashley, keyboard

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