International Society
for the History and Theory of Intellectual Property
http://www.ishtip.org
Fourth Annual ISHTIP Workshop
Intellectual property as cultural technology
London School of Economics, 25 & 26 June 2012
Intellectual property rights are generally supposed to function
as means of stimulating and diffusing cultural production. This instrumentalist
understanding of how intellectual property works as a cultural technology has
survived for more than two centuries; it has been amplified and refined by a
long tradition of economic analysis and economic history, and it has now been
retrenched as the basic premise of contemporary debates about public domains,
digital commons, and the expansion of corporate semiotic power. How plausible or
illuminating is this pervasive representation of the agency of intellectual
property rights?
There are some familiar ways of testing this representation.
Lawyers and economists ask whether patent laws work as they should in the
domains of, for example, software or biomedical innovation, they speculate as to
the reasons why creativity in the fashion industry seems to flourish in a
‘negative space’ (a domain unframed by copyright law), and they ask how formal
intellectual property rights work with ‘social norms’. But these lines of
inquiry still reduce culture to what can be rendered in terms of scarcity,
efficiency, and instrumentality.
The theme of this conference seeks to elicit alternative
approaches to the cultural implications of intellectual property and cultural
property laws. A rubric that turns on the terms ‘culture’ and ‘technology’ can
only be open-ended, but the following questions might be taken as a rough
starting point for reflection:
(1) How might we understand the implication of different forms of intellectual or cultural property in economic, political, aesthetic, or scientific cultures? How might we schematize the ‘functions’ or ‘effects’ of intellectual property law in terms other than those of instrumentality, efficiency, or repressive power?
(2) Do intellectual property regimes themselves have specific cultures? Here, ethnographic, historical, or sociological analyses might reveal the specific practices, techniques and media that condition the existence and effects of intellectual property forms.
(3) Might we understand intellectual property as a mode of cultural creativity in its own right? Intellectual property law has evolved a complex set of fictions, semantic artefacts, themes, and figures that have an existence in broader cultural life, not just as agents of encouragement or constraint, but as conceptual resources that have shaped the discursive fields of various social cultures. Somewhat more abstractly, regimes of intellectual property have turned the improbable notion of ‘intangible property’, or of ‘intangible things’, into common currency. So, instead of seeing legal forms as secondary ratifications of cultural figures, might we instead explore intellectual property law’s own cultural intelligence and authorship?
We invite contributions from established and doctoral scholars working in the broad field of the humanities and the social sciences, including anthropology, economic history, history of science, media studies, literary theory, science studies, and critical theory, as well as legal history and legal theory.
Papers selected for presentation at
the workshop will be circulated in advance to registered participants. Abstracts
of proposed papers (together with a brief author bio) should be submitted by
1 March 2012. A maximum length of 9,000 words is recommended.
Important dates
Submission of proposal (abstract and bio): 1 March 2012
Notification of acceptance: 31 March 2012
Submission of paper: 1 June 2012
Workshop: 25-26 June 2012
The fee for attendance at the LSE/ISHTIP conference on ‘Intellectual Property as Cultural Technology’ is £118.00. This charge covers all refreshments and lunches for the two days of the conference, the reception on the first day of the event, and the conference dinner. Payment should be made via the LSE E-Shop [click here to purchase].
We have reserved a very limited number of rooms at William Goodenough Club in central London for the nights of June 24th, 25th, and 26th, at a preferential rate of £100/£145 for single/double rooms: http://club.goodenough.ac.uk
Participants who wish to take advantage of these rates should contact Alain Pottage at r.a.pottage@lse.ac.uk to reserve a room, indicating a preference for single or double accommodation, and indicating whether a double room is acceptable in lieu of a single. Again, these rooms will be allocated according to the order of receipt of requests. Payment will be made by participants directly to the Club.
The following hotels are reasonably priced and close to the School:
http://www.strandpalacehotel.co.uk
http://www.londonrussellhotel.co.uk
http://www.thefieldinghotel.co.uk
http://www.clubquarters.com/NonMemberHome.php
http://www2.travelodge.co.uk/hotels/location/london-hotels?gclid=CNjHub-tlq8CFQQMtAodKkT6zQ%3fpst=1
Contacts
For information and programme updates visit the ISHTIP website: http://www.ishtip.org
Please also visit the specific website for the Workshop at the LSE: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/law/IPconference.htm
Abstracts and author bios can be submitted to any of the following, who will circulate these to the Program Committee.
Alain Pottage, Law Department, LSE: r.a.pottage@lse.ac.uk
Tatiana Flessas, Law Department, LSE: t.flessas@lse.ac.uk
Dev Gangjee, Law Department, LSE: d.gangjee@lse.ac.uk
