Reflections On The Past Visions For The Future

"Area studies"--and especially Middle Eastern studies--have been in a state of crisis since the spread of globalization. This volume focuses on one of the field's leading institutions, Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES), which was founded 50 years ago to further research and teaching about a region that remains enigmatic to the U.S.

In recognition of its 20th anniversary, The IBM Center for the Business of Government offers a retrospective of the most significant changes in government management during that period and looks forward over the next 20 years to offer alternative scenarios as to what government management might look like by the year 2040. Part I will discuss significant management improvements in the federal government over the past 20 years, based in part on a crowdsourced survey of knowledgeable government officials and public administration experts in the field. It will draw on themes and topics examined in the 350 IBM Center reports published over the past two decades. Part II will outline alternative scenarios of how government might change over the coming 20 years. The scenarios will be developed based on a series of envisioning sessions which are bringing together practitioners and academics to examine the future. The scenarios will be supplemented with short essays on various topics. Part II will also include essays by winners of the Center’s Challenge Grant competition. Challenge Grant winners will be awarded grants to identify futuristic visions of government in 2040. Contributions by Mark A. Abramson, David A. Bray, Daniel J. Chenok, Lee Feldman, Lora Frecks, Hollie Russon Gilman, Lori Gordon, John M. Kamensky, Michael J. Keegan, W. Henry Lambright, Tad McGalliard, Shelley H. Metzenbaum, Marc Ott, Sukumar Rao, and Darrell M. West.

Spooky Technology explores our understanding of the invisible technologies in our everyday lives, from objects with ‘intelligence’ to systems in our homes that talk to us (and each other). The book is an inventory of spooky technologies, compiled by Carnegie Mellon students reviewing work across art, design, HCI, psychology, human factors research, and other fields, that has been done in this field, or adjacent to it, both historically and more recently, with commentary, essays, and interviews with creators and artists. We often hear that the technologies in our everyday lives would appear to be ‘magic’ and potentially terrifying to people in the past—instantaneous communication with people all over the world, access to a vast, ever-growing resource of human knowledge right there in the palm of our hand, objects with ‘intelligence’ that can sense and talk to us (and each other). But rarely are these ‘otherworldly’ dimensions of technologies explored in more detail. There is an often unspoken presumption that the march of progress will inevitably mean we all adopt new practices, and incorporate new products and new ways of doing things into our lives—all cities will become smart cities; all homes will become smart homes. But these systems have become omnipresent without our necessarily understanding them. They are not just black boxes, but invisible: entities in our homes and everyday lives which work through hidden flows of data, unknown agendas, imaginary clouds, mysterious sets of rules which we perhaps dismiss as ‘algorithms’ or even ‘AI’ without really understanding what that means. On some level, the superstitions and sense of wonder, and ways of relating to the unknown and the supernatural (deities, spirits, ghosts) which humanity has felt in every culture throughout history have not gone away, but started to become transferred and transmuted into new forms.

I, The Rev. Carl Freeman Reynolds, am an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and have served in Outdoor Ministries with the Vermont and New York Conferences and in Churches in Vermont, New Hampshire and Connecticut. I am presently serving the Second Congregational Church of Stafford Springs at West Stafford, Connecticut. I received my BA in Fine Art Photography from Goddard College in Vermont in 1976 and my Masters of Divinity from Bangor Theological Seminary and was ordained in 1977. I am an artist in photography, wood turning and words. These words originated as sermons and prayers.

With broad appeal across scholars and graduate students in the social and behavioral sciences, Joslyn presents new ideas for expanding relationship modeling methods in a way that unites relationship scholars and extends relational theory.

Nishiyama Uzō, educated as an architect between 1930 and 1933, was a key figure in Japanese urban planning. He was a prolific writer who influenced a whole generation of Japanese urban planners and his interpretations of foreign planning and local practice still influence Japanese planning theory and practice today. Nishiyama’s first publications date to the 1930s, and his last ones appeared in the 1990s, spanning a period of enormous political and spatial changes. The three articles translated here, originally published in the 1940s in professional magazines, show how Nishiyama developed his theoretical models based on a social approach to architecture and planning, focusing on land use and land control rather than aesthetic preferences. They provide insight into Nishiyama’s early thinking, his analysis of foreign examples, his reflection on large-scale regional and national spatial organization, and his architectural and urban visions, providing a remarkable and fascinating insight into the state of planning in Japan. These texts call scholarly attention to the writing of a global planning history and invite the reader to engage with a major figure in planning who is largely unknown outside Japan; to reconsider Japanese planning history; and to work towards a truly global planning history. How does Nishiyama compare to the great urban planners of the past in the West, such as Patrick Geddes, Lewis Mumford, or Werner Hegemann? Many more translations will be necessary to answer this question.