[[Wikipedia:Ein kritischer Standpunkt]]
September 25-26, 2010
University Library Leipzig, Germany
On 25th and 26th of September 2010 the German speaking conference [[Wikipedia:Ein
kritischer Standpunkt]] ([[Wikipedia:Critical Point of View]]) will take place at the
University Library in Leipzig, Germany. The conference will gather Wikipedia researchers,
critics as well as community-members from the German-speaking world for an
interdisciplinary debate. In particular the significance of Wikipedia for education,
politics, culture and society will be discussed.
Wikipedia is one of the largest, if not the largest, self-contained general knowledge
reference of our time. It offers critical insights into the contemporary status of
knowledge, its organizing principles, function, impact, production styles, mechanisms for
conflict resolution, and relation to power (re-)constitution. New strategic and tactical
operations of knowledge and power are clearly at work through Wikipedia. Of specific
interest is the concept of 'the open', which is ambiguous within the social
formation(s) constituted by Wikipedia, serving as both a rallying concept of digital
democracy enthusiasts and as an ideoglical nodal point masking new agonistic encounters.
In both material and perceptional ways, every new technology modifies the conditions of
possibility for knowledge. The logic of technologies bleeds into the very structures and
organizing principles of knowledge, and today both medium and message may reflect the
ideas of the (organized) network, multitude, or the Deleuzian machine. It is through a
selected mix of technological and normative conditions – the distributed architecture of
the net, the Wiki software platform, commons-based property licenses and the FLOSS
zeitgeist – that Wikipedia as the encyclopedia of the information age emerges, both
continuing and transforming the Enlightenment encyclopedic impulse or will to know.
The main topics of the conference are Wikipedia & The Politics of Open Knowledge,
Digital Governance, and Wikipedia & Education. These topics derive from the
significance of the online encyclopedia in the reconfiguration of knowledge
(re-)production and its consequences for the public, architectures of participation, and
political education in a media democracy. Alongside presentations of established scholars
like Christian Stegbauer, Peter Haber, Rainer Hammwöhner, Ramón Reichert, and Ulrich
Johannes Schneider, the programme of the conference will consist of a panel discussion of
Wikipedia community-members and critics, as well as Wikipedia-workshops and a research
network meeting.
The research network meeting addresses Wikipedia researchers to discuss their current
research and draft new research projects. Especially aimed for young academics, the
research network meeting is planned as open space, allowing its participants to actively
engage in the event as questions and topics are shaped and discussed among the group. To
participate, we ask for a registration by email not later than August 31, 2010 to
info(a)cpov.de. Please include a description of your research interest or abstract of your
research on one page and tell us, if you are interested to make a short presentation.
The Leipzig conference continues the series of international conferences of the Wikipedia
Research Initiative Critical Point of View from January and March 2010 in Bangalore
(India) and Amsterdam (Netherlands). It is hosted by cultiv – Gesellschaft für
internationale Kulturprojekte e.V. in cooperation with the Research Initiative Critical
Point of View and funded by the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung.
The conference will be open to the public. There will be no participation fee. Conference
language is German.
For further information please visit the conference website:
www.cpov.de
Deadline for the Registration for the network meeting: August 31, 2010
Concept and Editorial board: Geert Lovink, Johanna Niesyto and Andreas Möllenkamp
Contact
cultiv
Gesellschaft für internationale Kulturprojekte e.V.
Bernhard-Göring-Str. 65
D-04107 Leipzig
Tel. +49-341-2228893
Email: info(a)cpov.de
www.cpov.de