I have always thought she took too many risks and someday she would pay the price. Her mother had gone missing in an Alberta town in the 80s and was never found. Whenever I am with her I feel her mother’s eyes trying to see her daughter through mine. In some contorted fashion I cannot help but admire the way she lets herself follow her crazy instincts that compel her to park her flashy red sports car, get out and just sit down on the curb beside one of the 4000+ homeless people in Calgary just because she felt his “aura.” Her language is situated in some vague space between spoken word poetry and folk physics. And when she drops by unexpectedly I just automatically put on the teapot and take out the china. There’s always a story and I never know what is fiction and what is real but it all seems to matter somehow. When she leaves I feel exhausted.

While she sat there alongside the others a woman stopped and tried to give her money too. She didn’t feel insulted. She just felt she was supposed to hear this man’s story. He was a veteran from the war in Iraq and he was suffering from PTSD [1]. It somehow made those stories we read about “out there” seem closer to “here and now” in Calgary.

Suicide prevention is a primary concern for Bostonian Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D., staff psychiatrist for Veterans Affairs in Boston in his work with Viet Nam war veterans. The suicide statistics among Vietnam war veterans are higher than American soldiers who died in Vietnam (MHAT). While their names do not appear on the Memorial Wall, their faces are reflected on its surface.

The numbers of suicides among veteran-soldiers of the Irag OIF (Operation Iraqi Freedom) and Afghanistan theaters have reached epidemic proportions. In 2003 the US military engaged a team of mental health experts to investigate unprecedented numbers of psychiatric casualties.

“It is baffling, if not astonishing, that these military psychiatrists, supposed experts in combat-related stress, have so normalized war that it is overlooked as the source of the disease they have been sent to diagnose, that its horror can be thus discounted and its psychic effects rendered invisible (Shay 2006:2).”

Shay argues that wars have provided scientists and doctors with an ongoing supply of combat-traumatized soldiers including material to enhance understanding of the etiology of soldier-veteran suicides. He claims that war itself is a disease that kills and maims bodies, and ravages the minds of those who engage in it. In the 20th century US (and Canadian?) soldiers were at a much higher risk of becoming a psychiatric casualty (and death by their own hands) than death by enemy fire (Shay 2006:2). And the psychological ravages of war are not restricted to veteran-soldiers. The mental wounds are not restricted to those directly involved but also are inflicted upon civilians and society at large. In fact, Shay argues forcefully that Herman’s groundbreaking work on trauma and recovery (1992, 1997) can be applied to societies as well.

Shay claimed that the “structure, organization and fundamental culture” of 20th century US military ventures contributed to the trauma suffered by soldiers. He challenges distorted histories about why the Viet Nam war ended. He asked a question he cannot answer but felt compelled to raise:

“[Did] and in what ways, [US Vietnam War soldier's] resistance or refusal in the face of moral outrage serve[...] to protect an individual psyche from the effects of an overwhelming traumatic experience[?] (Shay 2006:2).”

The human practice of war, a state-sponsored activity which causes lethal physical, emotional , spiritual and psychological trauma, can be ended. An end to war is an intergenerational project similar to ending the human practice of slavery. “It has been with us since time began.” “It is part of human nature.” “It is part of every culture and found in every part of the world (Shay 2006:xii).”

The end the human practice of war involves “creating trustworthy structures of collective security, within which citizens of every state would have a well-founded confidence in their security from attack by another country [or from within as in the case of genocide perpetrated on a targeted population within the borders of a nation-state]- backed up be reliable expectation of prompt, effective and massively multilateral armed intervention (Shay 2006:xii-xiii).”

Shay refers to Emmanuel Kant’s essay “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch” [4] in which Kant argued that even in a peaceful world where ruinous wars have passed away, police-like soldiers, would be necessary. Shay is not calling for peace through war, but peace from ruinous wars (2006:xiii).

Notes

1. During the American Civil War the disorder was called “irritable heart;” in WWI it was called “shell shock,” in WWII it was “battle fatigue” and now it is called Post traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) (Shay 2006:2-3).

2. The suicide of her husband, a Vietnam veteran, provided the impetus for Penny Coleman to research the “why question” and the result is the book entitled Flashback.

3. Judith Herman (1992, 1997) described responses of intrusions or flashbacks as a reflex in which the mind attempts to integrate [explain, contextualize, make tolerable?] an intolerable memory. When the “intolerable memory” fails to be integrated, wounds remain open and healing cannot take place. This may provoke a contradictory reflex where the mind protects itself by numbing, “forgetting” or avoiding the intolerable memory. Intolerable memories can be triggered automatically and repeatedly. Defense mechanisms of avoidance and numbing create their own problems and make the sufferer even more vulnerable. Herman called this self-perpetuating cycle, an “oscillating rhythm” between two intolerable states of being (intrusion and constriction) where healing and equilibrium remain elusive, a dialectic of trauma.

“The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma. People who have survived atrocities often tell their stories in a highly emotional, contradictory, and fragmented manner that undermines their credibility and thereby serves the twin imperatives of truth-telling and secrecy. When the truth is finally recognized, survivors can begin their recovery. But far too often secrecy prevails, and the story of the traumatic event surfaces not as a verbal narrative but as a symptom (Herman 1997:Introduction).”

4. Kant also included notions of “hospitality” providing all with the freedom to emigrate with an anticipation of hospitality from the nation-state to which they were immigrating. He imagined a world of nation-states governed by republican governments and a global body of governance, a league of nations. His ‘conversation’ on world peace is ongoing.

Meanwhile, convoluted arguments are offered by political science professor, Erik Gartzke, who warns of the “possible pitfalls of a capitalist peace” (Perpetuating Peace forthcoming). Gartzke has used the Fraser Institute Economic Freedom Index to argue that ensuring economic freedom (including the freedom of the military industries) is more effective than forms of governance in the reduction of violent conflict.

US military professionals themselves are not militarists. Militarists who argue against an end to war include U.S. military industries and their most enthusiastic allies in politics and the media, many of whom seem to imagine that war exists to provide them with an income and/or an adrenalin rush (Shay 2006:xi).

Webliography and Bibliography

Coleman, Penny. 2006. Flashback: Post traumatic Stress Disorder: Suicide and the Lessons of War. Boston: Beacon Press.

Durkheim, Emile. Suicide.

Herman, Judith Lewis. 1992 [1997]. Trauma and Recovery: the aftermath of violence- from domestic abuse to political terror. New York: Basic Books.

Hopper, Jim. Excerpts from Trauma and Recovery.

Shay, Jonathan. 2006. “Foreword.” in Coleman, Penny. 2006. Flashback: Post traumatic Stress Disorder: Suicide and the Lessons of War. Boston: Beacon Press.

Mental Health Assessment Team (MHAT)

Fantasy Palace, Iqaluit, Nunavut June 27, 2002

Originally uploaded by ocean.flynn

This is a partial truth, more like a flicktion, or a dream, or the virtual than the real. It’s not science or art, more like an invention or innovation. Pieces of this a flicktion are scattered throughout my semi-nomadic cybercamps like tiny inukshuk on a global landscape. It mimics visual anthropology but isn’t. It imitates ethnography but lacks the objectivity. There are words written, pictures taken of events, dates, settings, stages and characters without an author. Maybe it’s the wrong venue in a photo album of beaming faces, stunning scenery, professional photographers, travelers, techies, retirees. But we can all choose to follow each others sign posts in this cyberspace or move on. This is the power of this new social space spun in CyberWeb 2.0.

Cultural ethnographers are supposed to return to their academic spaces, sharpen their methodological tools to a tip that almost cuts the paper they write on (and too often the culture, pop or otherwise they are writing about). You’re not supposed to return from the field with their your mind numbed from the frosted words of those who were seduced by the gold mine of benign colonialism, their voices confident, mocking, paternalistic, jaded by years, or decades of northern experience (1970s-2002). Your were supposed to leave the field with the pace of your beating heart uninterrupted inside your embodied self. You weren’t supposed to leave your a chunk of your soul in that graveyard in Pangnirtung on the Cumberland Sound. This is just lack of professionalism. Get a grip. Just write that comprehensive, proposal, dissertation. Move on. It’s just the way it is.
In this coffee shop sipping a cup of freshly brewed French Roast, (better than a Vancouver Starbucks!), SWF listened with her eyes. She was compassionate but ever so slightly distant. She doesn’t seem to realize how much others from the outside can perceive her knowledge. It is what at times makes her intimidating. Her three generation life story is the stuff of Inuit social history. She seems to almost be unaware of how important that story is. She was surprised that the First Nations cared about the creation of Nunavut. I remember our first class together. She spoke so softly but she was so firm, so insistent, modest and dignified. The wails I had heard by the open graves that still echo in my mind, were all too familiar to her. Slowly, insistently she explained to me as if I really needed to listen, remember, register this. “We do not need your tears. We have enough of our own. We do not need you to fix this. We need your respect. We need you to not make it worse. We need you to listen to us, really listen. Alone, with no resources an elder has been taking them out on the land. She gets no funding. What she has done works. The funding is going elsewhere on projects that are promoted by the insiders. Inuit like her are not insiders.”

In a provocative gesture author Paulo Coelho lets his novel’s ten? protagonists interpret the intriguing, elusive main character, Athena or the witch of Portobello, as the principle narrator, 44-year-old journalist Henry Ryan (who is not one) provides ‘raw transcripts” from interviews he collected. I keep thinking of Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author. Perhaps this is ten characters in search of Truth?

At the end of the novel the reader is still uncertain about her character since of course her mother, teachers, ex-husband, employers and followers all see her through their own eyes from different perspectives. Even her name changes throughout. On the last page is Athena truly alive or dead? Did she ever have a special gift that surpassed the everyday? Does she really love others or does she use them for her own ends? Is she manipulative and selfish? Is she a victim or a victimizer? Or is she both. As each protagonist “speaks” we learn as much about them as individuals with their weaknesses and strengths as we do about Athena.

In a final gesture, an innovative twist to the reader-author relationship, the author then hands the story over to his readers and invites them to reinterpret it in a video format by claiming the role of one of the protagonists.

When I set the book down after reading through it twice, I sensed that the profound descriptions of the spiritual power inherent in the pursuit of excellence in creative expression came close to describing Paulo Coelho’s own writing.

I am now working on integrating some of these to illustrate this point . . .

“[L]ife is full of infinite absurdities, which, strangely enough, do not even need to appear plausible, since they are true. [To] reverse the ordinary process may well be considered a madness: that is, to create credible situations, in order that they may appear true [...] to make seem true that which isn’t true, … to give life to fantastic characters on the stage? … Are you not accustomed to see the characters created by an author spring to life in yourselves and face each other? Just because there is no “book” which contains us, you refuse to believe . . . [I]t isn’t possible to live in front of a mirror which not only freezes us with the image of ourselves, but throws our likeness back at us with a horrible grimace?” … Drama is action, sir, action and not confounded philosophy. [E]verybody argues and philosophizes when he is considering his own torments.” (Pirandello/6 characters 1921)

to be continued off to see the fireworks

‘The second kind is done with great technique, but with soul as well. For that to happen, the intention of the writer must be in harmony with the word. In this case, the saddest verses cease to be clothed in tragedy and are transformed into simple facts encountered along the way.’ (Coelho/Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin 2007:80).”

“But then, how many of us will be saved the pain of seeing the most important things in our lives disappearing from one moment to the next? I don’t just mean people, but our ideas and dreams too: we might survive a day, a week, a few years, but we’re all condemned to lose. Our bodies remain alive, yet sooner or later our soul will receive the mortal blow. The perfect crime - for we don’t know who murdered our joy, what their motives were, or where the guilty parties are to be found. Are they aware of what they’ve done, those nameless guilty parties? I doubt it, because they too - the depressed, the arrogant, the impotent, and the powerful - are the victims of the reality they created. They don’t understand and would be incapable of understanding Athena’s world (Coelho/Heron Ryan, 44, journalist. The Witch of Portobello. 2007:5-6.)”

“On Sunday afternoon, while we were walking in the park, I asked her to pay attention to everything she was seeing and hearing: the leaves moving in the breeze, the waves on the lake, the birds singing, the dogs barking, the shouts of children as they ran back and forth, as if obeying some strange logic, incomprehensible to grown-ups. ‘Everything moves, and everything moves to a rhythm. And everything that moves to a rhythm creates a sound. At this moment, the same thing is happening here and everywhere else in the world. Our ancestors noticed the same thing when they tried to escape from the cold into caves: things moved and made noise. The first human beings may have been frightened by this at first, but that fear was soon replaced by a sense of awe: they understood that this was the way in which some Superior Being was communicating with them. In the hope of reciprocating that communication, they started imitating the sounds and movements around them – and thus dance and music were born (Coelho/Pavel Podbielski, 57, owner of the apartment. The Witch of Portobello. 2007).”

/

“Monologue is finalized and deaf to the other’s response, does not expect it and does not acknowledge in it any decisive force. Monologue manages without the other, and therefore to some degree materializes all reality . . . Life by its very nature is dialogic. To live means to participate in dialogue (Mikhail Bakhtin 1984:292-293).”

“. . . (Coelho 2007:50).”

“. . . (Coelho 2007:59).”

“. . . (Coelho 2007:75).”

“. . . (Coelho 2007:76).”

“My way of approaching Allah – may his name be praised – has been through calligraphy, and the search for the perfect meaning of each word. A single letter requires us to distil in it all the energy it contains, as if we were carving out its meaning. When sacred texts are written, they contain the soul of the man who served as an instrument to spread them throughout the world. And that doesn’t apply only to sacred texts, but to every mark we place on paper. Because the hand that draws each line reflects the soul of the person making that line (Coelho/Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin 2007:76).”

“Writing wasn’t just the experience of a thought but also a way of reflecting on the meaning of each word (Coelho/Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin 2007:76).”

“‘Now you must educate only your fingers, so that they can manifest every sensation in your body. That will concentrate your body’s strength.’ (Coelho/Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin 2007:78).”

I did not only teach her calligraphy techniques. I also tried to pass on to her the philosophy of the calligraphers. ‘The brush with which you are making these lines is just an instrument. It has no consciousness; it follows the desires of the person holding it. And in that it is very like what we call “life”. Many people in this world are merely playing a role, unaware that there is an Invisible Hand guiding them. At this moment, in your hands, in the brush tracing each letter, lie all the intentions of your soul. Try to understand the importance of this.’ (Coelho/Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin 2007:78).”

“Naturally, if she respected the brush that she used, she would realise that in order to learn to write she must cultivate serenity and elegance. And serenity comes from the heart. ‘Elegance isn’t a superficial thing, it’s the way mankind has found to honour life and work. That’s why, when you feel uncomfortable in that position, you mustn’t think that it’s false or artificial: it’s real and true precisely because it’s difficult. That position means that both the paper and the brush feel proud of the effort you’re making. The paper ceases to be a flat, colourless surface and takes on the depth of the things placed on it. Elegance is the correct posture if the writing is to be perfect. It’s the same with life: when all superfluous things have been discarded, we discover simplicity and concentration. The simpler and more sober the posture, the more beautiful it will be, even though, at first, it may seem uncomfortable.’ (Coelho/Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin 2007:78).”

“I can combine two things . . . (Coelho/Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin 2007:80).”

” ‘There are two kinds of letter,’ I explained. ‘The first is precise, but lacks soul. In this case, although the calligrapher may have mastered the technique, he has focused solely on the craft, which is why it hasn’t evolved, but become repetitive; he hasn’t grown at all, and one day he’ll give up the practice of writing, because he feels it is mere routine. ‘The second kind is done with great technique, but with soul as well. For that to happen, the intention of the writer must be in harmony with the word. In this case, the saddest verses cease to be clothed in tragedy and are transformed into simple facts encountered along the way.’ (Coelho/Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin 2007:80).”

“‘Look at a skilled blacksmith working steel. To the untrained eye, he’s merely repeating the same hammer blows, but anyone trained in the art of calligraphy knows that each time the blacksmith lifts the hammer and brings it down, the intensity of the blow is different. The hand repeats the same gesture, but as it approaches the metal, it understands that it must touch it with more or less force. It’s the same thing with repetition: it may seem the same, but it’s always different. The moment will come when you no longer need to think about what you’re doing. You become the letter, the ink, the paper, the word.’ (Coelho/Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin 2007:80).”

Calligraphy is not a mere repetition of beauty but an individual, spontaneous, personal and creative gesture (Coelho/Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin 2007:83).

In order for a great artist to forget the rules, first she must know them and respect them (Coelho/Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin 2007:83).

in the blank spaces between the letters. In the moment when a note of music ends and the next one has not yet begun (Coelho/Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin 2007:99).

Vosho Bushalo, a 65-year-old Roma restaurant owner commented about Athena, “If I speak of her now in present tense, it’s because for those who travel, time does not exist, only space (Coelho/Bushalo 2007:104).

Coelho, Paulo. 2007. The Witch of Portobello.

This selected bibliography includes entries that might be useful in teaching, learning and research on Ethical, Legal and Social dimensions of science and technology; How scientific knowledge is implicated in establishing, contesting, and maintaining social order; Maintaining social order through scientific knowledge

They might be categorized under

Science> Sociology of Science > Scientific Knowledge >

Social Studies of Science

Technology > Theory >

I am intrigued by the role of the semantic web in mapping knowledge systems and I hope I am contributing to the development of this powerful tool for sharing data, information and as a small step towards knowledge and wisdom as part of a process of a renewed concept of civilization.

Key Words, tags, folksonomy

sociology of science, politics of nomenclature, Golem, peer review, authority in scientific knowledge, authority, trust in scientific knowledge, honesty in scientific knowledge, ways of knowing, certainty, sunset of certainty, sunset of ontological certitude, ontological certitude, replication, mere replication, Michael Mulkay, Social Studies of Science, mapping systems and moral order, science in the American polity, states of knowledge, science and social order, social production of scientific knowledge, social production of social order, social order and social cohesion, social dimensions of scientific writing, life sciences, science advice, expert advice in public policy, social dimensions of science and technology, politics of science and technology, expertise studies, property formation, risk disputes, biotechnology, problematic authority, data with-holding, intellectual property, scientific exchange, expert advice studies, contemporary politics, credibility of expert advice, the production of credibility of expert advice, challenging expert advice, sustaining expert advice, how advisory bodies bring authoritative advice to the public stage, measuring bio-economics, bio-societies, public proofs, making things public, map-making, mapping social order, Sokal affair, research tools, human values, ethics, science and technology and human values, ethical and legal and social issues, knowledge and technology and property,

Lists

trust, honesty, authority

ethical, legal, social

Dichotomies

Conjectures and Refutations

Bibliography and Webliography

Altman, Lawrence. 1990. “The Myth of ‘Passing Peer Review.” in Ethics and Policy in Scientific Publication. Bethesda, MD: Council of Biology Editors, Inc.

Bayer, Ronald. 1987. “Politics, Science, and the Problem of Psychiatric Nomenclature: A Case Study of the American Psychiatric Association Referendum on Homosexuality.” in Scientific Controversies: Case Studies in the Resolution and Closure of Disputes in Science and Technology, edited by H. Tristam Englehardt Jr and Arthur Caplan. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.

Collins, Harry. 1985. “Replicating the TEA-Laser.” in Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice, edited by Harry Collins Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice. London, UK: Sage.

Collins, Harry and Trevor Pinch. 1988. The Golem at Large: What You Should Know About Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Collins, Harry and Trevor Pinch. 1993. The Golem: What Everyone Should Know about Science. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press: Cambridge University Press.

Council_of_Biology_Editors. 1990. “Ethics and Policy in Scientific Publication.” Bethesda, MD: Council of Biology Editors, Inc.

David, Paul A. “Clio and the Economics of QWERTY.”

Eisenthal, Bram D. 2003. Fervent and curious attracted by legend of Golem. Prague, CZ: Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Epstein, Steven. 1995. “The Construction of Lay Expertise: AIDS Activism and the Forging of Credibility in the Reform of Clinical Trials.” Science, Technology, and Human Values 20.

Gieryn, Thomas. 1983. “Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists.” American Sociological Review 48.

Golem. A Prague’s Guide - Spanish Synogogue.

Goodwin, Charles. 1997. “Professional Vision.” American Anthropologist 96.

Hafton, John and Paul Plouffe. 1997. “Science and Its Ways of Knowing.” Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Haraway, D. 1991a. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge.

Haraway, Donna. 1983a. Cyborgs?

Haraway, Donna. 1983b. “The Ironic Dream of a Common Language for Women in the Integrated Circuit: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s or A Socialist Feminist Manifesto for Cyborgs.” in History of Consciousness Board. University of California at Santa Cruz. : Submitted to Das Argument for the Orwell 1984 volume.

Haraway, Donna. 1988. “Situated Knowledges: the Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.” Feminist Studies 14.

Haraway, Donna. 1989. Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science.

Haraway, Donna. 1991b. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” Pp. 149-181 in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge. http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html haraway_donna/cyborg_manifesto.htm

Haraway, Donna. 1991c. “Daughters of Man-the Hunter in the Field, 1960-80.” in Simians, Cyborgs and Women. New York: Routledge and Kegan.

Haraway, Donna. 1996. “Situated Knowledges: the Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.” Pp. 249-263 in Feminism and Science.

Haraway, Donna. 1997. Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan©_Meets_OncoMouse™. New York: Routledge.

Harnad, Stevan. 1995. “Interactive Cognition: Exploring the Potential of Electronic Quote/Commenting.” Pp. 397-414 in Cognitive Technology: In Search of a Humane Interface, edited by B. Gorayska and J.L. Mey. http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00001599/00/harnad95.interactive.cognition.html

Hilgartner, Stephen. 2003. What Is Science? Introduction to Science and Technology Studies: Cornell University. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Hughes, Thomas P. 1987. “The Evolution of Large Technological Systems.” in The Social Construction of Technological Systems, edited by Wiebe Bijker, Hughes Thomas, and Trevor Pinch. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Jasanoff, Sheila. 1995. “The Law’s Construction of Expertise.” in Science at the Bar: Law, Science, and Technology in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Jasanoff, Sheila. 1997. “Civilization and Madness: The Great BSE Scare of 1996.” Public Understanding of Science 6. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Kamenetz, Rodger and Steve Stern. 2003. Jewish Icons of Prague: Kafka and The Golem.

Knorr-Cetina, Karin and Michael Mulkay. 1983. “Science Observed: Perspectives on the Social Study of Science.” London, UK: Sage. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Latour, Bruno. 1983. “Give Me a Laboratory and I Will Raise the World.” in Science Observed: Perspectives on the Social Study of Science, edited by Karin Knorr-Cetina and Michael Mulkay. London, UK: Sage. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Latour, Bruno. 1987. “Literature.” in Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society. Cambridge. MA: Harvard University Press. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Lewenstein, Bruce. 1992. “Cold Fusion and Hot History.” Osiris 7:135-163. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

MacKenzie, Donald. 1987. “Missile Accuracy: A Case Study in the Social Processes of Technological Change.” in The Social Construction of Technological Systems, edited by Wiebe Bijker, Hughes Thomas, and Trevor Pinch. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Merton, Robert K. 1942 [1973]. “The Normative Structure of Science.” in Sociology of Science, edited by Robert K. Merton. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Mukerji, Chandra. 1996. “The Collective Construction of Scientific Genius.” in Cognition and Communication at Work, edited by Yrjo Engestrom and David Middleton. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Mulkay, Michael. 1976 [1991]. “Norms and Ideology.” in Sociology of Science: A Sociological Pilgrimage, edited by Michael Mulkay. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Mulkay, Michael and Nigel Gilbert. 1986 [1991]. “Replication and Mere Replication.” in Sociology of Science: A Sociological Pilgrimage, edited by Michael Mulkay. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

NSF. 1997. “Full Text of Twenty-Year Vision Statement.” National Science Foundation, Center for Science, Policy, & Outcomes. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Pinch, Trevor. The Sociology of Science: Cornell University http://www.sts.cornell.edu/Syllabi/S&TS%20442%20-%20Fall%2099.htm.

Pinch, Trevor. 1981. “The Sun-Set: The Presentation of Certainty in Scientific Life.” Social Studies of Science 11. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Popper, Karl. 1962 [1997]. “Science: Conjectures and Refutations.” in Science and Its Ways of Knowing, edited by John Hafton and Paul Plouffe. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Shapin, Steven. 1995. “Trust, Honesty, and the Authority of Science.” in Society’s Choices: Social and Ethical Decision Making in Biomedicine, edited by National_Academy_of_Science. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

SJFF. “The Golem: San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.” San Francisco. http://www.bestofberkeley.com/view_article.asp?article_id=136

Stossel, Thomas. 1990. “Beyond Rejection: A User’s View of Peer Review.” in Ethics and Policy in Scientific Publication.

Bethesda, MD: Council of Biology Editors, Inc. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Thieberger, F. 1955. The great Rabbi Loew of Prague: His life and work and the legend of the golem. London, UK: Horovitz Publishing Co.

Vuletic, Dean. 2003. The Return of the Golem. Prague, Czechoslovakia: Czech Radio 7, Radio Prague. http://www.radio.cz/print/en/33264

Wegener, Paul and Carl Boese. 1920. “The Golem.” San Francisco.

Notes

A number of these bibliographic entries are based on bibliographies compiled by Professors Tarleton Gillespie and Stephen Hilgartner, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Science & Technology Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 USA. Stephen Hilgartner studies the social dimensions and politics of contemporary and emerging science and technology, especially in the life sciences. His research focuses on situations in which scientific knowledge is implicated in establishing, contesting, and maintaining social order-a theme he has examined in studies of expertise, property formation, risk disputes, and biotechnology. His book on science advice, Science on Stage: Expert Advice as Public Drama, won the 2002 Rachel Carson Prize from the Society for Social Studies of Science.

How scientific knowledge is implicated in establishing, contesting, and maintaining social order

Maintaining social order through scientific knowledge

key words: Social Studies of Science, mapping systems and moral order, science in the American polity, states of knowledge, science and social order, social production of scientific knowledge, social production of social order, social order and social cohesion, social dimensions of scientific writing, life sciences, science advice, expert advice in public policy, social dimensions of science and technology, politics of science and technology, expertise studies, property formation, risk disputes, biotechnology, problematic authority, data with-holding, intellectual property, scientific exchange, expert advice studies, contemporary politics, credibility of expert advice, the production of credibility of expert advice, challenging expert advice, sustaining expert advice, how advisory bodies bring authoritative advice to the public stage, measuring bio-economics, bio-societies, public proofs, making things public, map-making, mapping social order, Sokal affair, research tools, human values, ethics, science and technology and human values, ethical and legal and social issues, knowledge and technology and property,

Hilgartner, Stephen. 2000. Science on Stage: Expert Advice as Public Drama, Stanford University Press.

“Behind the headlines of our time stands an unobtrusive army of science advisers. Panels of scientific, medical, and engineering experts evaluate the safety of the food we eat, the drugs we take, and the cars we drive. But despite the enormous influence of science advice, its authority is often problematic, and struggles over expert advice are thus a crucial aspect of contemporary politics. Science on Stage is a theoretically informed and empirically grounded study of the social process through which the credibility of expert advice is produced, challenged, and sustained. Building on the sociology of Erving Goffman, the author analyzes science advice as a form of performance, examining how advisory bodies work to bring authoritative advice to the public stage. This lively and accessible analysis provides not only new insights about science advice but also a fresh look at the social dimensions of scientific writing.” (from the book jacket)

Hilgartner, Stephen. “Making the Bioeconomy Measurable: Politics of an Emerging Anticipatory Machinery” (Comment). BioSocieties 2(3):382-6, 2007. http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php

Hilgartner, Stephen. “Overflow and Containment in the Aftermath of Disaster” (Comment). Social Studies of Science, 37(1):153-58, 2007. http://www.hurricanearchive.org

Hilgartner, Stephen. “Voting Machinery, Counting, and Public Proofs in the 2000 US Presidential Election.” Michael Lynch, Stephen Hilgartner, and Carin Berkowitz, in Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy, edited by Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel. MIT Press, 2005.

Hilgartner, Stephen. “Making Maps and Making Social Order: Governing American Genome Centers, 1988-1993.” In From Genetics to Genomics: The Mapping Cultures of Twentieth-Century Genetics, edited by Jean-Paul Gaudillière and Hans-Joerg Rheinberger, Routledge, 2004.

Hilgartner, Stephen. “Mapping Systems and Moral Order: Constituting Property in Genome Laboratories.” In States of Knowledge: The Co-Production of Science and Social Order, edited by Sheila Jasanoff, Routledge, 2004.

Hilgartner, Stephen. “Biotechnology.” In Smelser, Neil J. and Paul Baltes, eds., International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2:1235-40, Elsevier, 2002.

Hilgartner, Stephen. “Acceptable Intellectual Property.” Journal of Molecular Biology, 319(4):943-46, 2002.

Hilgartner, Stephen. “Data Withholding in Academic Genetics: Evidence From a National Survey.” Eric G. Campbell, Brian R. Clarridge, Manjusha Gokhale, Lauren Birenbaum, Stephen Hilgartner, Neil A. Holtzman, David Blumenthal, Journal of the American Medical Association 287(4):473-80, 2002.

Hilgartner, Stephen. “Data Access Policy in Genome Research.” Pp. 202-18 in Arnold Thackray, ed., Private Science: Biotechnology and the Rise of the Molecular Sciences, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998.

Hilgartner, Stephen. “Access to Data and Intellectual Property: Scientific Exchange in Genome Research.” Pp. 28-39 in National Academy of Sciences, Intellectual Property and Research Tools in Molecular Biology: Report of a Workshop, National Academy Press, 1997. http://www.nap.edu/books

Hilgartner, Stephen. “The Sokal Affair in Context.” Science, Technology & Human Values, Vol. 24, No. 2, Autumn 1997, pp. 506-22.

Hilgartner, Stephen. “Biomolecular Databases: New Communication Regimes for Biology?” Science Communication, Vol. 17, No. 2, December 1995, pp. 240-63.

Teaching:

Hilgartner, Stephen. Spring 2007 - (S&TS 391/Govt 309/AmStud 389) Science in the American Polity: 1960- Now TR: 1:25-2:40, 4 Credits

Hilgartner, Stephen. Spring 2007 - (S&TS 411) Knowledge, Technology and Property MW: 2:55-4:10, 4 Credits

Hilgartner, Stephen. Fall 2006 - (BSOC/S&TS 205) Ethical Issues in Health and Medicine TR: 10:10-11:25 + Section, 4 Credits

Hilgartner, Stephen. Fall 2006 - (S&TS 645/Govt 634) The New Life Sciences: Emerging Technology, Emerging Politics T: 2:30-4:25, Credits

Links:

Department of Science & Technology Studies: www.sts.cornell.edu

Undergraduate major in Biology & Society: www.sts.cornell.edu/programbsoc.php

Ph.D. Program in Science & Technology Studies: www.sts.cornell.edu/programphd.php

Cornell New Life Science Initiative: Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues: http://www.genomics.cornell.edu/focus_areas/elsi/

Voting Technology Archive: http://www.sts.cornell.edu/voting_technology_archive/

A summary by Maureen Flynn-Burhoe of Hornung (1998 ) on Luhmann: Complexity: non-intervention and observation

In Fuchs discussion of the work of Niklas Luhmann, an impassioned theorist. Luhmann argued that the role of sociology was to develop a theory that would provide a better and more complex understanding of the world. This could be done by developing a description and analysis of modern society through observation of society in its minute details. However, in its role as a science, sociology should not try to provide recipes to improve the world. The functional differentiation between sociology and politics should be respected.

In this way ethics should not determine sociological theory rather ethics depends on sociological theory.

Professor Hornung, the President of the University of Marburg, acknowledged that Luhmann’s restriction to observation and non-intervention may seem to be an unaffordable luxury in crisis-ridden times. Hornung admits that sociologists “are in fact under daily pressure in our jobs to “produce” both scientific results and students to the precise profiles requested by the economy and the “market”. But he cautions against ignoring Luhmann’s lesson that

“complexity can be handled only by complexity (Hornung 1998).”

Shifting Words, Shifting Worlds

In the address written at the time of Niklas Luhmann death in 1998, Dr. Bernd R. Hornung, , described Luhmann as the “most important contemporary intellectual leader and representative of systems science in sociology.” The influence of his new challenges and new perspectives extended far beyond sociology. Empassioned by theory, Luhmann provided new and influential perspectives which challenge the “army of “regular scientists.” Luhmann combined the theory of the organization of the living of Maturana and Varela with his own complex reasoning and “transferred it to sociology, where it became soon a cornerstone of his own monumental construction of theory.” In this theory the observer plays a key role by observing minute differences which impact on shifting terms, words and worlds (Hornung 1998).

“A considerable part of his life work consists in applying his abstract, complex frame of theoretical reference to virtually all areas of society, from the internal workings of administration to global ecological problems, from politics and economy to arts, love, and religion. Aiming at a universal theory of society no sector of society was left out in his attempt to apply, test, and further develop his theory.” In order to expand his theory Luhmann entered into a scholarly confrontation with Habermas’ theory (1971). See Hornung (1998).

Luhmann, a student of Talcott Parsons at Harvard in 1960-1, is a successor to but not a follower of, Parsons. They both attempted to develop a grand sociological theory that was universal and all encompassing (Hornung 1998).

In 1968, as Professor of Sociology at the newly founded Reform University of Bielefeld he devoted his full energy to his theory of modern society. He was inspired somewhat by Husserl’s phenomenology but primarily by systems theory and cybernetics in his own efforts to develop a description of society (Hornung 1998).

Luhmann’s Methodology: History, Legal Theory not Empirical Measurement

Informed by his love for history and using the tools of legal theory which involved library research and case studies Luhmann’s project was to study society as a whole and develop a theory of modern society. His methods were not those of a natural scientist. He did not use an ethnological style of participant observation nor empirical measurement, data collection, and statistical hypothesis testing as a way to construct theory (Hornung 1998).

Review of Joan Huber’s 1995 Centennial Essay for the American Sociological Association

JoanHuber’s 1995 Centennial Essay for the American Sociological Association presents a view of sociology as a discipline in which there are two unbridgeable intellectual approaches. In the first group are the scholarly, viable academics, the true scientists capable of producing replicable research who, as

“disinterested observers seek[...] objective truth with universal validity that is based on the notion of a reality independent of human thought and action (Searle 1993:69 cited in Huber).”

On the other side of this intellectual chasm are the academics who have postmodernist tendencies, which for her encompasses feminists, anti-rationalists and relativists. They operate mostly in the humanities seeking to discover truth about the universe while rejecting the rationalist philosophy that has sustained Western European civilization for centuries. They infiltrate sociology because of its interdisciplinary nature. Huber’s believes sociology’s status as a science is in direct correlational to its status within academia.

For Huber the solution lies not in negotiating a larger space for “who?” but in compliance to the expectations of administrators. To “get busy” producing data invokes an image of pencil pushers who do not have time to ask the larger questions (Huber:212-3).

My question is, who then will ask those questions? And who is “we”? For Huber the survival of sociology as a discipline depends on the exclusion of those academics whose research does not conform to her definition of science. Whereas in more prosperous times, the interdisciplinary nature of sociology was seen as a strength, in a period of crisis within the discipline, Huber views it as a weakness.

Models of Profitability Impact on Sociology, Cultural Representation and Identity Issues

Max Weber’s statement about endemic bureaucracy creating an “iron cage of the future” proved to be prophetic. Current debates in social sciences reflect the contradiction inherent in the late 20th century in which increasing bureaucratic process in all forms of governance collides with theoretical enquiries demanding constant reappraisals of these same processes. In the university setting, sociology as a discipline is situated at the centre of these debates. In practice sociologists as civil servants can become trapped into working on narrow, exclusive and specialized enquiries that allow them to operate only with hard facts such as statistics that resemble scientific methods. At worst this transforms them into bureaucrats operating in a safe and acceptable environment while investigating short-term answers to questions they did not formulate, questions that were not informed by a contemporary theoretical framework. It indeed becomes Weber’s cage.

Antirationalists, which for Huber meant anti-science, undermined the credibility of the entire discipline of sociology. Relativism in Britain and postmodern anti-rationalist tendencies in the late 1960s examined the social sciences from within. Knowledge producers, including social scientists were accused of being ‘eurocentric’ and by extension “parochial”. Huber rejects these anti-rational tendencies and feels they should not be tolerated within a discipline already in crisis (Huber:205, Gulbenkian 1995:52). Huber feels theoretical debates are hollow and they contribute to the crisis in sociology since the 1970s with the closing of departments of sociology, the increase of stress among sociologists and skepticism on the part of the media and by extension the public on the role of the sociologist. This has led to a lowering of moral among sociologists as well as a lowering of median professorial salaries (Huber:209). University administrators, already under pressure because of fiscal restraints, became increasingly critical of sociology departments which in their view were centres for leftist radicalism attracting student activists and creating units that were increasingly difficult to control, administer and manage.

She argues that sociologists have to recognize the feasibility of their research. Academic teaching and research facilities require funding which is currently highly competitive. Funding is not just based on ability but on a legitimized ability to provide something that no one else can. The question then is, “What do we do as sociologists) that no one else does as well?”

Current trends in many academic and cultural institutions’ policies are strongly influenced by business models of profitability. This could prove detrimental to issues of identity and representation and to an adequate reflection of the complexities of society and culture.

Huber’s uncritical positivism and objectivism reflects sociology divorced from its implications. Huber grants the safe acceptable forms of knowledge a privileged status. She concludes her paper with a call to sociologists to produce “solid facts” about the way societal organizations function and change in order to clarify the the problems experienced by individuals and groups. Giving it a comparative advantage, sociology supplies the knowledge needed to run welfare states. Sociology needs practical problems that will stimulate pressure for action, attract resources and test theories. The data produced by sociologists should be generated through the sharpest theoretical and methodological tools, while maintaining historic continuity (Huber:203).

Joan Huber is more concerned about the question “What do we do as sociologists, that gives us the right to make a claim for legitimacy as a scientific discipline ?”

My question, “Who are we as sociologists?” should be at least recognised and investigated before we just “get to work” and produce these “solid facts about the way societal organizations function and change in order to clarify the experistates, to stimulate pressure for action, attract resources and test theories (Huber:213-4).”

It is not enough, declares Rorty, to be willing to run welfare states, stimulate pressure for action and attract resources if there is not a fundamantal belief that it is feasible economically (Rorty:1996). This feasiblity is based on belief. By its very nature it cannot be a solid fact.

Gulbenkian 1995:52

Huber, Joan. 1995. “Institutional Perspectives on Sociology” American Journal of Sociology

Flynn-Burhoe, Maureen. 1999. Review of

CITP Students Meeting Charlie Gordon in his LOEB office

Originally uploaded by ocean.flynn

Charlie Gordon was Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University when I was working on my PhD in Sociology. He knew Marybell Mitchell well and had followed and admired her PhD dissertation on Inuit politico-social history. My work was closely linked to hers and he followed it with genuine interest. When I graduated with my MA in Canadian Studies (1995) I was uniquely situated as an unofficial but very engaged liaison between the university, the National Gallery of Canada, the urban Inuit community, the Inuit Art Foundation, particularly their Cultural Industries Training Program (1995-2004) and Qaggit. John Shepherd was the first to help me find free classroom space and access free resources on campus to introduce urban Inuit to university life, to make an unfamiliar space a little less intimidating and to take advantage of human and material resources such as the map library, the film library (Michael Jackson), the slide library, and new technologies (Nestor Quirod and Carol Dence). Once I began my PhD c. 2000, John Shepherd, Dennis Forcese and Charlie were the three people who had influence who helped the most in facilitating ongoing access.

This photo was taken as we did one of our first walk-about on campus. It meant a great deal to me that Charlie would take time to make these students feel so warmly welcomed on campus. This was the last group of CITP students I taught so perhaps for this reason they are particularly special. Or perhaps I learned the most from them?

The message on Charlie’s door was a note that said something like, “We are all intelligent here, be kind.” He was.

At one point that had become extremely discouraging for me as I tried to teach a course without any resources [1] and with what seemed to me to be unnecessary blocks put it my path by the departmental administrator. He seemed to go out of his way to make it difficult for me to have an office. I was meeting with students in the cafeteria. When I finally did get a shared office it was so cluttered and messy I had to move things around so there was some room for Carleton University students let alone for the Inuit students. A retired professor from the Classics department ( who had been offered the space by a friend in Sociology and Anthropology, when he lost his in his old department) also had access to this room. One of the more humorous encounters occurred when he arrived in the tiny office, claimed his comfortable chair and sat there and read as I met with these Inuit students! Finally in exasperation I asked Charlie, do I have an office or not? He replied that I did and he offered to make a sign for me in calligraphy with my name on it! He never actually did but it was a sweet thought.

Tom Sherwood, the University’s chaplain and a close friend of Gordon’s described how Charlie was always helping people make connections with each other. On any given day he would talk to 10 different students from 10 different departments.”

Donna, my PhD supervisor and I had met with him on Thursday, xx and we discussed ways in which I could complete my PhD in a sustainable fashion. It was an exciting meeting because we were all on the same wave length. Charlie at first suggested I work as his research assistant which was an amazing offer. And Donna made the counter offer that I work with her as her RA and that my skills with new technologies be exploited. Nothing was put in writing but with these new possibilities it seemed as though I could finish my dissertation even without the OGS and SSHRC. The next day Charlie went to see his oncologist and was told he only had a few weeks to live. He was immediately sent to the Bruyere Hospice where he spent his final days surrounded by many friends and his sister. He received thousands of emails and letters from people all around the world who expressed appreciation for his teaching and mentoring. He died very peacefully.

At the gathering after a memorial service held for him on October 3 in Southam Hall I met his sister and his close friend from California, Sharon, who told me that he often shared updates on my work with the Inuit community as he really believed in it.

In my last months at Carleton as I struggled to find a way to complete my PhD was dealing with Secondary Post Traumatic Stress from working too closely without adequate support with those devastated by the Inuit youth suicide epidemic, Charlie was always there to listen.

Perhaps I wasn’t clear at that time or I wasn’t communicating well enough or perhaps I was really just one of many students that he chatted with in his office everyday . . .

With his death there seemed to be no one who remembered. There was no institutional memory . . Nothing was written . . .

After two years of unproductive meetings with the ombudsman, meetings with Deans, the new Department Chair, letters to the President`s office, conflict resolution with Carleton`s human resources lawyer it was obvious that after Charlie there would never be a creative and fair solution for me that would allow me to complete my PhD in a sustainable fashion. It would have required so little on their part. I had so many unique skills and so much unique professional experience.

The work I had done for Carleton in Nunavut was completely forgotten.

Notes

1. I learned in the course of that year from the Human Resources Lawyer that there was a $50,000 fund set aside for teaching resources sessional lectures like myself. It was a policy to not tell sessional lecturers since $50,000 was not enough to go around. It is not surprising that the departmental administrator was completely unaware of the existence of the fund.

Webliography and Bibliography

Charlie Gordon’s (died 2004-09-27) memorial

1966 - 2004 Charlie Gordon taught at Carleton University. Was he one of the first in the wave of Viet Nam war protesters? Professor Gordon taught at Carleton for 37 years and was renowned for his scholarly research in industrial sociology, and the sociology of the environment. He also studied the nature of movement as seen in social terms, crime and the environment, building codes, and the relationship between design, work, and politics. He was the author of many articles, book chapters, and papers often choosing intriguing titles such as “Goldilocks and the Three Sociologists”. In honour of his countless contributions to the University, Gordon’s legion of friends established an endowment fund to support an annual lecture series in his name. To date, more than 300 faculty, staff and friends have made a contribution.

Uploaded by ocean.flynn on 7 May 08, 12.31PM MDT.

This photo of Dennis Forcese and Patricia Reynolds [1] was taken in the hallway outside Centre for Initiatives in Education offices, Dunton Tower, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON was taken in April 1, 2002 just before I returned to Iqaluit, NU to complete the “winter term [2]” at Nunavut Arctic College.

Professor Forcese [3] was the key player in setting up Carleton’s Centre for Initiatives in Education and in nurturing the Nunavut BA Project, a joint project with Carleton’s Centre for Initiatives in Education and Nunavut Arctic College initiated in 2001 [4].

The first sessional contract for the Nunavut BA program ran from January to April 2002 when this picture was taken. The program started late. There were no students enrolled when I arrived in Iqaluit in January! Patricia was very concerned but I was incredibly optimistic. I really believed in this project. It made sense and it was worthwhile. So I worked full-time nurtured potential contacts at various institutions: Nunavut Research Institute, Inuksuk high school, the Justice department etc . . . I made guest appearances on CBC radio both National and local. (The former aired in Ottawa and a number of friends listened to it. Dennis was delighted.) I talked about it in taxis. I advertised and presented info sessions at Nunatta campus. I set up and paid for a phone line with an Internet connection in my own tiny room in the boarding house. I borrowed a small table and chair from Nunatta campus and added it to my tiny nun-like cell. to be continued . . .

Throughout that term I took dozens of digital photos and shared them as much as I could.

Those months from October 2002 through spring-summer? 2003, where I was traveling back and forth between Iqaluit and Gatineau, staying three weeks at a time in an Iqaluit boarding house while teaching at two institutions - one in Iqaluit and one in Ottawa while working on my PhD proved to be too much for me.

I could have managed perhaps if I was not struggling with the worst youth suicide epidemic [5]. I could have managed if Jennifer had not been brutally murdered. I could have managed if I my primary support system, my husband had been with me on all the trips. I could have managed if the person running the boarding house was not also completely overwhelmed and driven by her own inability to absorb the youth suicides. (Her brother was a suicide victim). I could have managed if there had been some support from at least one of the institutions I worked with. I could have managed if my Ontario Graduate Student funding was not mysteriously cut off in April 2003. I could have managed if the university provided me with sessional teaching or research assistantships on a predictable, regular basis. I could have managed if the university had provided me with a web-savvy Teaching Assistant like AG (who let me down three weeks into the course when it was too late to find someone else) when I was teaching Power and Everyday Life (2003-4) as they had promised, I could have managed if our departmental administer (notorious for such tardiness) had signed contracts in a timely fashion so PhD student sessional lecturers (such as myself) received their first month check on time not four weeks later (September-October 2003 and again in January - February 2004).

I could never understand how Professor John Shepherd would take the time to personally help me refine my SSHRC application in January 2003, with the Awards department encouraging me so enthusiastically about the possibilities of receiving the scholarship that year, and then to not only not receive the SSHRC but to also lose the OGC so unexpectedly and with no explanation. Then to have the Graduate Student Adviser tell me that because I had not kept up with the “pace” [6] I was not good scholarship material. What happened between January when I was working so hard to make the Nunavut BA project work and April of 2003 when the entire campus administration seemed to forget I existed? What happened to all the encouragement and support that I received when they listened with excitement to the CBC radio interview describing the Carleton University-Nunavut Arctic College success story? How could they turn me so effectively into a ghost?

In December, 2001 Dennis Forcese (left) approached me with the opportunity to replace Jill Vickers, who had to undergo emergency eye surgery. Professor Vickers was to be the first of what was hoped to be a series of professors who would reside in Iqaluit, Nunavut for a sessional term while offering BA level courses on-site at Nunatta Campus, Iqaluit to Nunavummiut. Dennis Forcese, Patricia Reynolds and Beth Hughes made me aware of how much the future of the Nunavut BA Project, launched in 2001 by Carleton’s Centre for Initiatives in Education in partnership with Nunavut Arctic College, depended on the success of these first courses.

Dennis and Charlie Gordon were a great solace to each other from 2002 until Charlie’s death from cancer in September 2004. At the time of Charlie’s death I began to make inquiries about the cancer rate on the 7th floor of the LOEB building. I asked if there had ever been a Health and Safety Audit of the floor given the seemingly unusually high number of professors who worked there and had cancer. It was such an unhealthy environment that most professors worked from home offices. Walking through the unusual maze-like architecture of the floor one was struck by the number of closed doors and the profusion of faded art prints. I felt empathy for Emily Carr every time I walked by the sad mechanical representation of her vibrant energy-filled West Coast paintings.

But it was the anthropology lab that was the darkest space in the tower.

I have been grateful ever since to that small group of urban Inuit students in the fall of (2003?) whose extreme discomfort in the presence of skulls and bones in glass cases made it impossible to use that room which had been assigned to us as the last possible space available to our group. Even after Professor Blundell covered the glass with paper, we were all too aware of their presence.

and Patricia Reynolds
April 1, 2002.

The photo accompanying this article was one I took in April 2002 while teaching Human Rights and Sociology at Nunatta Campus, Nunavut Arctic College, Iqaluit, Nunavut (January 2002 - June 2003). I provided Beth Hughes and Thierry Rodon with a CD of some of the photos I took.

the Nunavut BA Project, Carleton’s Centre for Initiatives in Education in partnership with Nunavut Arctic College,

In December, 2001 Dennis Forcese approached me with the opportunity to replace Jill Vickers, who had to undergo emergency eye surgery. Professor Vickers was to be the first of what was hoped to be a series of professors who would reside in Iqaluit, Nunavut for a sessional term while offering BA level courses on-site at Nunatta Campus, Iqaluit to Nunavummiut. Dennis Forcese, Patricia Reynolds and Beth Hughes made me aware of how much the future of the Nunavut BA Project, launched in 2001 by Carleton’s Centre for Initiatives in Education in partnership with Nunavut Arctic College, depended on the success of these first courses.

Professor Forcese was the Supervisor of Graduate Studies in the Sociology and Anthropology department when I first entered their PhD program as part-time student taking one course at a time. He was aware that I had been sessional lecturer in 1997 teaching Inuit art history and sessional lecturer as a fly-in professor since January 2000 with Carleton University’s Social Work Off-Campus Aboriginal Program offering BA level courses to First Nations social work students in Akwasasne, Fort Francis and Moose Factory. My Canadian Studies MA (1995) was linked to Inuit culture and I worked from the beginning in both a teaching and advisory capacity with the Inuit Art Foundations CITProgram which offered courses to urban Inuit.

Notes

[1] I knew Patricia Reynolds through my involvement with the Nunavut BA Project, a joint project with Carleton’s Centre for Initiatives in Education and Nunavut Arctic College. According to a recent Google search Patricia Reynolds was still working in 2006 with the Centre for Initiatives in Education’s branch project offering BA courses in Nunavut.

[2] The official university term runs for 13 weeks from January through April. Sinc

[3] Dennis is now enjoying his retirement and continues to participate in at least one of his many projects, providing courses for lifelong learning to retirees. He now gives lectures on wines. His abrupt departure sometime in the fall of 2002? for urgent health reasons from the University and from the BA project unexpectedly and negatively transformed my relationship with the BA project. Until that time I could depend on Dennis as the bridge between my PhD project and my Nunavut experience. When he left there was no institutional memory. I think I full shock began to unsettle my everyday life when I learned that I had lost the Ontario Graduate Scholarship upon returning from Nunavut. I had not managed to keep up with the anticipated pace for my cohort. Dennis, maverick that he was would have seen the unfairness of this and found some creative solution. There was an aura of unreality in those months now. I remember something about an urgent need to return the Project’s laptop. I remember standing in line at the Registrar’s Office trying to get a transcript of marks for an Inuit student who thanks to the successful completion of one of the BA Project courses I taught in 2002-3, was applying for entrance to Harvard [4]. Without Dennis I just could not seem to break through the labyrinth of departmental and divisional bureaucracies. After I returned from Iqaluit for the last time (spring 2003) I no longer officially worked for the BA Project. I no longer had access to offices or materials. I was simply a grad student who’d fallen behind in terms of anticipated outcomes. But at the time I was advised to not bother Dennis with my concerns because of his ill health. The message that I heard over and over was simply to forget it all, move on and complete my PhD. One Sociology Professor advised me to work in an ice-cream store to pay for my studies. As the full extent of my own loss became apparent, I was then advised that I should contact Dennis but by then my own health was jeopardized. Strange. He is such a good man and his work for at-risk groups is what attracted me to working with him. I remember a conversation in which he tried to encourage me to not place all my confidence in him. I think he was trying to tell me that he had many roles to play. One was as my adviser for my PhD studies, the man who helped me to get into the PhD program, who encouraged me in my studies; but the other, and inevitably more important, was his role as the catalyst and maverick behind this exciting, pioneering project in Nunavut. And of course, the role he finally played in 2003 until my final role exit as PhD student, sessional lecturer and contract cultural worker, Carleton University and Ottawa in 2005, was that of a man struggling with cancer. How do you weigh and measure these things?

[4]. Susan Burhoe and Patricia Reynolds made an initial visit to Iqaluit in the fall of 2001 to investigate potential needs and resources. Nunavut Arctic College English Professor, , began offering first year BA level English courses to interested BA level courses on-site at Nunatta Campus, Iqaluit to Nunavummiut. (I believe his first student(s) were students already registered in the Dalhousie Nursing Program or perhaps already registered in the McGill Law Program. Both these programs operated separately from Nunavut Arctic College Nunatta Campus administration although they occupied offices and classrooms?)

[5] In Iqaluit and other hamlets in the eastern portion of Nunavut, Nunavummiut struggled with the youth suicide epidemic. I was the wrong person to be at the epicentre in both time and space. In the 18 month period in which I was connected to the BA project in Nunavut, the youth suicide was the highest on the planet, this small physical area was the epicentre of youth suicide worldwide!

[6] My PhD graduating class should have completed our PhDs c. 2005-6. How many actually did? Anne Galloway who began a year after I did, received a generous SSHRC grant, is still working as sessional lecturer in 2008 and probably will be after her graduation. I didn’t know when I entered the program, but Carleton University’s Sociology and Anthropology Department is notorious for misuse and abuse of sessional lecturers, for PhD attrition and/or for PhD students taking up to ten years to complete their dissertation. Compare that the a Canadian student who took three years to complete a PhD in Sociology at the University of Essex! One student sacrificed everything to complete her PhD and began working as a sessional lecturer c. 2002-2003. It took her a few years to realize that they had no intention of ever hiring her on as professor or even as instructor. Sessional lecturers earned the same as or less than their own teaching assistants. They were often assigned courses three weeks before the class began when all the professors or sessionals with more sway had declined. They were not informed of a special fund (I believe is was c. $50,000 university wide) set aside for sessional lecturers so they could purchase books, etc for their courses. I was told that this information was kept secret because there would not be enough money to go around if all sessional lecturers knew about it.)

[6] He was awarded a Fulbright scholarship and did successfully complete an MA from Harvard, the first Inuk to do so.

Glass Ceiling Fire Water II

Perhaps Sarah was the only one who knew how serious it was. She was an Inuk and a grandmother. She knew the ripple effect of youth suicides.

I brought her with me to Carleton once and she felt something very uncomfortable there that made her shiver. By November 24, 2003 I was shivering all the time. I couldn’t get warm even when I returned south every three weeks. She brought me country food, and sewed special slippers and mittens without thumbs so I could get warm at night.

I still cannot remember the chronology of even the most important events that occurred after I returned from the Pangnirtung cemetery in June 2002?

I remember spending hours on this layered image using a very old version of Photoshop that came for free with a scanner? My screen was of such poor quality I couldn’t really see what I was doing.

I had taken a series of photos while canoeing on Bell Lake. There was one series in particular that I am fond of. The light that day illuminated a small forest of algae below us as we paddled silently just skimming the surface in our 1930s cedar canoe. The light played with ripples that mirrored the deep greens of the Gatineau in the summer.

I tried to be philosophical about what was happening . . . Glass half empty, half full.

I played with reflections from every angle. Reflexivity the metaphor inverted, rotated, fire, water, snow.

I had painted Angels of Fire and Snow first as a sketch and then as a large acrylic canvas in the 1980s in Pointe-Noire, Congo but we left it behind along with most of our belongings. When we returned to Canada I painted it again. It took me at least two months to complete it.

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Angels of Fire and Snow by Joany Lincoln 1970s from the album Reflections of a New World

Angels Oh, Angels

Angels of fire and snow

Oh, Angels Oh, Angels of fire and snow

Behold the moth as it circles the candle, clings to the flame and dies

Behold the candle as it shares its light, weeps away its life drop by drop.

You fly, you weep, you burn in your love

You fly, you weep, you die for your love,

You fly, you weep, you share of your love,

Were it not for the tears, you would burn in the fire of your love

Were it not for the fire, you would drown in your tears.

Joany Lincoln and her family lived a number of years in French-speaking Africa, Bangui, Central African Republic where we met them. She’s also traveled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congo-Kinshasa (formerly Zaire).

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Random reading on youth suicide in Nunavut:

Bell, Jim. 2003. “Tragedy takes toll among youth with suicides at an all-time high: Nunatsiaq News. November 7.

Depalma, Anthony. 1999. “In New Land Of Eskimos, A New Chief Offers Hope.” New York Times. April 4.

Health Canada’s First Nations & Inuit Health Branch, in partnership with Assembly of First Nations and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami/National Inuit Youth Council published The National Aboriginal Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy in 2006.