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Call for submissions for a new Hypermedia Webspace
Steve Mizrach (SEEKER1@NERVM.NERDC.UFL.EDU)
Fri, 3 Mar 1995 00:49:18 +0000
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS FOR A NEW ELECTRONIC HYPERMEDIA WEBSPACE
TOPOTHESIA: A VIRTUAL ANTHROPOLOGY INFORMATION SINGULARITY
Topothesia means a "viewing or touring of fictitious or imaginary
places." It's a place for unravelling the complex intersections of
humanity, technology, and imagination.
Topothesia is not quite an electronic journal. It's an Information
Singularity (IS) - a place for information accretion. You throw us data,
and if it happens to be sympatico with the direction of the Webspace, it
sticks.
For the "mission statement" ("vision") of Topothesia, view the
following URL using your web browser:
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/anthro/Topothesia.html.
IF YOU WANT TO SUBMIT TO TOPOTHESIA...
When do we want stuff?
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NOW, or pretty darn soon.
What are the areas of interest?
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Here are some possible imaginary spaces...
the anthropology of science, technology, and computing (what I call
anthro-of-STC); examples might include ethnographies of defense
installations, computer labs, video production studios, or so forth...
speculations about future technologies and their potential human impacts
(what I call anthrofuturism) - examples might be space colonization,
virtual reality, genetic engineering, life extension, androids, etc...
the anthropology of net.culture/cyberculture/virtual culture (what I call
cyberanthropology) - examinations of sociocultural, linguistic, or even
political (censorship, access, privacy, control, equity, etc.) dynamics of
various parts of cyberspace, such as MUDs/MOOs, the Web, Internet Relay
Chat, electronic newsmedia, Usenet, BBSes, online services, etc.
discussions of anthropological concepts and concerns found in science fiction...
discussions of ways to that technological methods are affecting the social
sciences for good or ill - content analysis software, CD-ROM, video editing
equipment, online databases, etc...
"human factors" (or their neglect thereof) in technological design...
you get the idea, run what you've got by us, if any of this even sounds
remotely like what your stuff is about.
Who do you have to be?
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We primarily want to publish the work of students interested in the areas
that the IS covers. That means mostly graduate students - they're the only
ones who really care about being published anyway - but we'll certainly
take stuff from undergrads and postdocs, and maybe even members of the
professoriate, if you ask nicely. You don't have to be in anthropology -
but you need to be familiar with some of the concepts of the social
sciences. And oh yeah, we'll even take stuff from people outside the
academy. The main requirement is interest in the subjects of the journal,
and an ability to present theories about them cogently and clearly.
What do you have to do?
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We would ultimately like all submissions to be in plain-Ascii HTML format.
You can easily do this using "vanilla" editors like Emacs or BBEdit, or one
of the specialized HTML editors for Mac/DOS/Unix/etc. We ask people to
follow our style guide. If your submission is of a
multimediac nature, we ask all accompanying sounds, images, video, etc. to
be in Mosaic-friendly file formats. All linked documents and files should
then be compressed into an archive and deposited in our ftp inbox. But
first...
What do you have to tell us first?
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We want to first see a pre-HTML abstract of the work. Tell us whether you
want your work to go in the "Perspectives and Offerings" section or the
"Main Engine" section. If it's just for Perspectives and Offerings (we
expect things for this area to be short), we'll look over the abstract and
tell you whether it's going in the current IS or not... or if we don't want
it at all. If it's for the Main Engine, we'll ask you (if we like the
abstract) for the document, and then the whole text will be peer-reviewed
(mostly by the editorial board, but perhaps some outside review as well)
and then sent back to you with suggestions for revisions, corrections, etc.
If you've got things you want to see "in print" fast, send 'em to P & O; if
you want the benefits of the formal scholarly process (as well as the
delays), tell us it's for ME...
If we like your stuff, we give you the ftp address. DO NOT MAIL SUBMISSIONS
TO THE JOURNAL ADDRESS. We will not take anything that way.
What if you're Web-challenged?
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We'll take non-HTML ASCII too, even without any attached files or
hyperlinks or anchors. We ask people to use HTML if at all possible,
because if we HTMLize your document, it won't have your own individual
'touch'... however, these submissions must still go through the same
process. We look over the abstract, then you ftp the document into the IS
inbox if we like it.
What do we want for the Main Engine?
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Stuff for Perspectives and Offerings can be experimental, multimediac in
nature, basically "anthing goes" - within reason. Mainly, things for P & O
should be short - less than 1200 words.
For the Main Engine, things are more formal. We expect you to follow the
style guide closely; not to use images spuriously (but inlined charts,
tables, graphs, and diagrams are always a plus); to use footnotes,
citations, cross-references (to other documents on the Net), and a
bibliography; to have a table of contents that links to anchors in the
document; and to be prepared to deal with the commentary and response
structure that will build up around your documents... also, if you're
describing a certain phenomenon on the net (say, a particular MOO or BBS),
we ask you to give 'directions' for other cyberanthropologists to go there
and do their own "fieldwork"...
Got all that? Got an abstract for us to take a look at? Send it to
Topothesia@rice.edu, and give us some time to look it over. We'll get back
to you shortly.
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Seeker1 [@Nervm.Nerdc.Ufl.Edu] (real info available on request)
CyberAnthropologist, TechnoCulturalist, AnthroFuturist, Topothesian
Home Page URL: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/anthro/Seeker1_s_CyberAnthro_Page.html
"One measures a circle, beginning anywhere." -- Charles Fort
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