Myths and realities Feminist Perspectives on Globalisation September 11-14, 2003 in Graz, Austria Karl-Franzens University, Resowi Center

Organized by feministATTAC Austria jointly with the Institute of International Management, University of Graz in collaboration with Femmes et Mondialisation, France, frauennetz ATTAC Germany and other feminist and gender groups within ATTAC Sweden, Belgium and Finland as well as in cooperation with Renner-Institut, Grüne Bildungswerkstatt, Frauenarmutskonferenz, WIDE, Verein für soziale Stadtentwicklung Graz, Dreikönigsaktion and the Austrian Student Union (ÖH).

more information in english and german

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Some time ago on "my online-community's" IRC-channel someone pointed us to a small movie-file showing a not-really-athletic kid dancing around with a broomstick, clearly impersonating Sith-Lord Darth Maul of Star-Wars-Episode-I fame. Being reminded of myself as a kid when "Star Wars" hit the silverscreen for the first time in 1977 I felt quite some sympathy for the boy -- and we had some minutes of good amusement watching him wielding his imagined double-bladed lightsaber. Afterwards I forgot about that. Today, while skimming through the german online-magazine Telepolis, I found a whole article on this movie and the still developing story surrounding it. In a nuthshell: Ghyslain, a 15-year-old high-school kid of Quebec (Canada), filmed himself doing the martial-arts sequence in the studio of his school in November 2002. The tape was forgotten about, unless the contents were discovered by a "friend" of Ghyslain. This friend and his companions digitally encoded the movie and put it on the internet. Unexpectedly the movie instantaneously became a great success in cyberspace. Bryan Dube enhanced the movie by adding lightsaber-glow to the broomstick, and sound-effects from the Star-Wars movies, calling the result The Last Hope. Another guy made a Matrix-reloaded version from it ... Till today far more than two million people worldwide downloaded the movie and the remixes made from it. Andy Baio, whos weblog waxy.org was hit by heavy download-demand for the movie, thought about the whole case, and came up with the idea to compensate the "Star Wars Kid" -- meanwhile Ghyslain is known by this alias -- for the embarrassment and personal humiliation he suffered from the unauthorized online-publication of his martial-arts moves. Baio started an online-fund-raising to be able to buy the Star Wars Kid some digital equipment. Quickly more than 4000 USD were collected! Besides that the whole story had found a tremendous response in the media. Several major newspapers reported about the case and Fox-television even broadcasted the movie twice on US-television. The mass of online-responses is equally heavy. Lots of people made fun of the Kid, but quite the same number voiced their sympathy, as he reminded them of theirselves -- just like I had felt when watching the original movie for the first time. The majority of the geek-community wholeheartedly embraced Ghyslaine -- the result of the fund-raising is ample proof of this. But on May 29, 2003 the whole story took a new twist, as an offline-power jumped into the game: Ghyslain's family is thinking about taking legal steps against the ones who put the original movie on the net; a lawyer already is on his way and tries to pull away the media-pressure from the family (Read the english transcript of an interview, Radio Canada did with the family's lawyer). Nevertheless Ghyslain will accept the presents generated by the fund-raising (including non-cash gifts like a Darth-Maul-lightsaber-replica signed by Ray Park, the actor who impersonated Maul in "Star Wars: Episode I"), and doesn't intend to take legal action against the fundraisers or those who generated the remixes ... to be continued, I guess. --zeph

P.S.: A personal side-note. When I watched "The Last Hope" today, I was dazzled by how deeply I'm infected with this piece of popular-culture, and how much I'm still a kid myself. I started the movie on my laptop, earphones on the head, and clicked on my audio-settings icon, to increase the volume. Immediately the lightsaber-sounds from the movie were like echoed -- I completely had forgotten that a long time ago I had replaced all the default-system-sounds of my comp by Star-Wars-soundeffects ... normally I don't hear them, as audio is switched off most of the time.

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"The American Research Institute in Turkey (ARIT) is a non-profit educational institution dedicated to promoting American and Turkish research and exchange related to Turkey in all fields of the humanities and social sciences. ARIT provides support for these scholarly endeavors through maintaining research centers in Istanbul and Ankara and administering a program of fellowships to support research in Turkey at the doctoral and post-doctoral levels." Read more about all this at the ARIT homepage.

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The 'W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (AIAR) offer quite a number of substantial fellowships: "In the next academic year, the Albright will administer $200,000 in grants, fellowships and fee awards. These include awards for an Annual Professor, to National Endowment for the Humanities, three Andrew Mellon East-Central European, and three USIA Junior Research Fellows, as well as awards for a Samuel H. Kress, a Joint Samuel H. Kress Athens/Jerusalem and a George A. Barton Fellow. Thirteen USIA administrative fee grants will be awarded to Albright Associate Fellows. This year, the Albright has 59 fellows, including 28 with stipends and fee awards from the Albright Institute. Associate Senior, Post-Doctoral and Research Fellows receive funding from other sources, including, among others, the Fulbright and the Council of American Overseas Research Centers." Have a look at the list of the fellowships, including detailed descriptions and deadlines. The Application Forms are downloadable, too.

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Conference: Wireless Internet Opportunities for Developing Nations, June 26, 2003, New York City "As you are certainly aware, Wireless Internet applied to large-scale broadband distribution is the hottest trend in the information technology sector with far reaching implications for the connectivity of underserved areas. On June 26th, W2i, the Wireless Internet Institute and the United Nations Information and Communication Technologies Task Force are joining forces to organize the Wireless Internet Opportunities for Developing Nations conference at UN Headquarters in New York City. The conference will bring representatives of developing countries together with leading technology vendors, carriers, investors, regulators, entrepreneurs and field practitioners from around the world. Participants will examine development potential created by emerging wireless technologies and discuss recommendations to governments, regulators and Wireless Internet stakeholders to foster rapid market growth and bridging connectivity gaps. Participants will include IBM, Intel, Agere, the World Bank, the FCC, the MIT Media Lab, the Wi-Fi Alliance, and a number of leading wireless Internet stakeholders. The conference will include plenary sessions and brainstorming workshops to facilitate experience sharing and interaction among participants. A showcase adjacent to the conference will also allow field practitioners and technology developers to share best practices and innovative solutions, an opportunity that your organization may like to consider. Given your interest in these topics and the high profile of this meeting, we wanted to alert you so that you can reserve the June 26th, 2003 date on your schedule and register at your earliest convenience to participate in the conference plenary and workshop sessions. Special rates for both the conference and the Millenium UN Plaza Hotel are available until May 30th. Details on the program and participating industry leaders can be found here, where you can register on-line. If you have any question, please do not hesitate to contact us via e-mail or phone: (617) 439 5400. Daniel Aghion Executive Diretor Sarbuland Khan Acting Executive Coordinator" via Anthro-L

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Oxford University Press has set up a program wherein scholars from developing nations are eligible for free or greatly discounted electronic access to a large number of professional journals. Have a look at the complete information.

SMITH, R. 2003. "Closing the digital divide," in: British Medical Journal 326(7383): 238.

delivers an introduction to the rationale behind programs such as OUP's. via Anthro-L

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