Welcome
The University of Virginia is proud to host the September 2009 Annual Conference of the Humanities and Technology Association. Papers dealing with all aspects of the interactions of technology, science, the Humanities, and the social sciences are welcome. The conference will cover a broad range of disciplines and perspectives.
The Humanities and Technology Association was established in October 1978 to encourage interdisciplinary dialogue among the humanities, science, engineering, and technology, with the aim of better defining how humanistic concerns interface with technological achievements and advances. The HTA sponsors both a journal and an annual conference.
For our 2009 annual conference, we invite you to the University of Virginia, an institution that has since its founding been concerned with the relationship of technology and democracy and with preparing citizens to contribute to the development of both. The Department of Science, Technology, and Society (STS) in the School of Engineering and Applied Science is hosting the conference. Since the 1930s, the STS department's teaching and research have helped students, the academic community, and the public to understand, to develop, and to use technology for advancing human welfare.
Our conference theme—TECHNOLOGY, DEMOCRACY, & CITIZENSHIP—grows out of the conviction that the field of STS—and the humanities and social sciences (HSS) broadly conceived—can contribute significantly to developing a more balanced, realistic, and useful understanding of technology and democracy, the relationships between them, and the demands and opportunities of citizenship in our time.
In addition to scholars in STS and the HSS, we hope to attract practitioners and researchers in fields ranging from engineering, science, and architecture to public policy, entrepreneurship, government, and international development.