[Air-L] Call For Abstracts: Information Ethics Roundtable on Transparency and Secrecy

[Kay Mathiesen]

  Information Ethics Roundtable 2015
April 9-10, 2015
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Union South
http://ier2015.org

Call for Papers
Theme: Transparency and Secrecy

Keynote Speakers

Louise Amoore, Professor of Geography, Durham University (UK), author of The
Politics of Possibility: Risk and Security Beyond Probability (Duke
University Press, 2013).

Christopher Kutz, C. William Maxeiner Distinguished Professor of Law;
Director, Kadish Center for Morality, Law and Public Affairs, University of
California, Berkeley.

Transparency is important in a variety of ways, and disputes about
transparency and secrecy permeate much of our public discourse. This year’s
meeting of the IER seeks papers from a variety of perspectives and
disciplines addressing questions about transparency and secrecy, for
example:

   -

   -  What is transparency? What does it mean for something to be kept
   secret or made transparent?
    -

   -  What justifies transparency in different domains?
    -

   -  When is transparency bad, or unjustifiable? When is secrecy good, or
   justifiable?
    -

   -  Lots of organizations seek to make government and corporate actions
   transparent

   (e.g., fact-checking organizations, open records advocacy organizations,
   market watchdog groups). Do they succeed? What criteria should we use to
   determine whether they succeed? Do they introduce other questions of
   information flow?
    -

   -  What policies in scientific research and publishing, in journalism,
   in government, and in commerce best promote transparency?
    -

   -  Is secret law really law?
    -

   -  Is it possible to maintain and build trust within a climate of
   secrecy?

   The goal of the 2015 Roundtable is to bring together scholars and
   professionals to examine these and related issues pertaining to
   transparency and secrecy, broadly construed. Hence, we welcome submissions
   on these and any related topics, and we encourage submissions from a broad
   range of disciplines.

   Please submit an abstract of about 500 words to ier at slis.wisc.edu by
   January 5, 2015. Abstracts will be peer reviewed, and notification of
   acceptance status will be sent by January 20, 2015. Paper drafts for
   commentators will be due by March 10, 2015.

   More information is available at http://ier2015.org. For specific
   questions and inquiries, please contact organizer Alan Rubel at
   arubel at wisc.edu.