Conference: Visions of Humanity in Cyberculture, Cyberspace and Science Fiction

http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/cyber/visions-of-humanity/

This was a rather extraordinary conference in Oxford Dassi Elber and myself attended in July. Since all the papers presented will be eventually published as an e-book, I won't spend too much time describing our contributions. But the conference clearly attempted to do something else than merely bringing together a lot of hurried researchers, uninterested in anybody's talks but their own. The organisers (the project called InterDisciplinary Net) made sure that everybody stayed in the same place (beautiful Mansfield College in Oxford), ate the same meals (served in the Harry Potter-like setting of the college's dining hall), and talked about the same subjects. There were no parallel sessions, time limits were rigorously enforced, Q&A sessions were long enough to actually have interesting questions and detailed answers, and everybody was treated equally, whether a tenured professor or a graduate student. Since this conference is only a small part of the InterDisciplinary Net's project, I encourage everybody, and especially students, to check their website and to consider applying to one of their conferences. One thing is certain: I have been to very many conferences but seldom have I had this much fun!