UH300 - The persistence of low-tech in a high-tech world

UH 300 - Fall 1997

Toys, tools, and gadgets
At home
At play
At school
Future thoughts

Weekly web sites: Utne Reader Online

Special projects

• 120 Utne visionaries
• Voluntary simplicity movement: Simple living network / Simple living: The journal of volunary simplicity / Duane Elgin's 1981 book, Voluntary Simplicity / frugal living resources (from Institute for global communications)
• The Club of Rome: started the no-growth movement with the 1972 classis, The limits of growth , co-author of / Eco
• Eco Books: Book titles on ecological economics, on ecological history , on ecological philosophy, on ecological design, on ecological literature and criticism, on ecological living, on ecological politics, on ecological psychology
• pro-growth: Progress and freedom foundation / the Tofflers / Interview with Malcolm Forbes, Jr

Historical figures

• economists: Malthus / EF Schumacher, author of 1973 classic Small is beautiful / EF Schumacher society
• philosophers: Buckminster Fuller /
• spiritual leaders:
• literary figures:

Contemporary figures

• journalists/scientists: Bill McKibben / Donella Meadows /
• gurus (visionaries): James Lovelock /
• literary figures: Gary Snyder /
• Web links: John Perry Barlow / Esther Dyson / Howard Rheingold / Nicholas Negroponte / Douglas Coupland / Paul Saffo / Stewart Brand / Jon Katz / Sven Birkerts / Camile Paglia / Ben Woolley / Douglas Rushkoff / George Gilder / Umberto Eco / Jeremy Rifkin / Neil Postman
• Web texts: John Perry Barlow's online writings / Camille Paglia's online writings / Bruce Sterling's online resources / Bill Gates' columns / Wired article on George Gilder / Negroponte's Wired columns / Postman interview
• Print texts:

*Web reflections: A miscellany: [Return to top]

• Web links: Virtual communities (compiled by Howard Rheingold) / GBN Booklist (by Stewart Brand) / CyberReader (College text) / BBC's The Net / Micro Times archives / SHARP (Society for the History of Authorship, Reading & Publishing)
• Web texts: Howard Rheingold's Virtual Communities / 24 Hours in Cyberspace / William Mitchell's City of Bits / excerpt from Richard Lanham's Electronic Word / Magna Carta of the Knowledge Age / Public Life in Electropolis / Gregory J. E. Rawlins' Moths to the Flame (MIT P book; complete text) / Negroponte's Being Digital (excerpts) / Mary Dery's Escape Velocity (excerpts)
• Print texts: Clicking In: Hot Links to a Digital Culture, ed.. Lynn H. Leeson /

New-age voices

• ADDITIONAL READINGS. Newt Gingrich: / Nicholas Negroponte: Machine dreams***. Interview with Nicholas Negroponte. Technology Review, Jan 1992 v95 n1 p33(7) / Nicholas Negroponte. The digital revolution***: Reasons for optimism. (The Futurist, Nov-Dec 1995 v29 n6 p68(1) / Negroponte's Being Digital (excerpts) / Jeffrey Seglin, E-mail with ... Nicholas Negroponte*** (Inc., Annual 1994 v16 n13 p74(7)) / Being Nicholas Interview (Wired) / Get a life? (Wired) / Negroponte Age of Optimism / Wilson da Silva. Net prophet / George Gilder: / Paul Saffo: 'Quality on an Age of Electronic Incunabula' / Paul Saffo interview (Boston Globe) / Douglas Coupland: In the dessert***. Excerpt from Life After God) (Saturday Night, March 1994 v109 n2 p 46(6) / Kevin Kelly: Out of Control (full text of book) Jim McClellan on Kevin Kelly's Out of Control / Keven Kelly selection from 'Out of Control' / Bruce Serling: / John Perry Barlow: Being in nothingness: Virtual reality and the pioneers of cyberspace / It's a poor man who blames his tools/ Others: Interview with David Gelernter / Kaplan and Ferrell's ''Weavers of Webs': A Portrait of Young Women on the Web / Other: Ben Woolley's Introduction to Virtual Worlds / Reed Karaim, 'Technology and Its Discontents'*** (Civilization) / Kevin Kelly and Swen Birkerts, 'The Electronic Hive: Two Views'*** (Harper's) / Gregory J. E. Rawlins' Moths to the Flame (MIT P book; complete text) / / Gretel Erhlich's 'On Water' / / Jay Walljasper's 'The Steady State' / / Douglas Rushkoff and Daniel Boorstin, 'Beyond the Spectacle'*** ('Media: It's the Real Thing'). New Perspectives Quarterly / R. Dreyer Berg. From Descartes to the computer***. ETC., Summer 1994 v51 n2 p123(22) / Hunt Janin. The post-information society***. Virginia Quarterly Review (01-01-1994) / Jean Gimpel. An emergency plan for our civilization / Kellyn S. Betts. Interview with Stewart Brand***. E, May-June 1996 v7 n3 p10(3)
• ADDITIONAL WEB SITES. Gingrich: the Progress & Freedom Foundation Negroponte: Negroponte's Wired columns / Nicholas Negroponte (links) Others: Bruce Sterling's online resources
  

Old-testament prophets

• ADDITIONAL READINGS. Bill McKibben: NPR conversation***; Tripod interview (June 13, 1996), The enigma of Kerala / Wendell Berry: Wendell Berry, Twenty-seven propositions about global thinking***. The Atlantic, Feb 1991 v267 n2 p61(3) / Wendell Berry. The pleasures of eating***. East West, Dec 1990 v20 n12 p50(5) / Wendell Berry*** (interview). Whole Earth Review, Wint 1988 n61 p14(2) / 'The Art of Place'***: A Conversation with Wendell Berry (New Perspectives Quarterly) / Wendell Berry, Decolonizing rural America*** (Audubon, March-April 1993 v95 n2 p100(5) / Wendell Berry's 'Getting Along with Nature' / Wendell Berry, 'The Body and the Machine'*** (Parabola) / Mark Slouka: Mark Slouka's 'Rapture and Redemption in the Virtual World' / Alan Thein Durning: 'Long on Things, Short on Time'*** (Sierra, Jan-Feb 1993 v78 n1 p60(8)) / Alan Thein Durning'. Limiting Consumption: Toward a Sustainable Culture' (The Futurist, July-August 1991 v25 n4 p11(6)) / Others: Warren Harris' 'Roadkill on the Information Superhighway' / Lewis Thomas's 'Humanities and Science'/ Richard Hoggart.The uses of computeracy***. New Statesman & Society, May 5, 1995 v8 n351 p21(3) /
• ADDITIONAL WEB SITES. Centre for Alternative Technology / Frugal living (EcoNet) / Sustainability (Millenium Whole Earth Catalog) / Foundation for Global Sustainability / Thoreau World Wide /