siete tutti invitati presso l’Aula Magna Storica del Rettorato alle lezioni del prof. Herbert Maschner (Professor of Anthropology and Professor of Geosciences, Executive Director of the Center for Virtualization and Applied Spatial Technologies (CVAST), University of South Florida (USF) attualmente visiting professor al dipartimento di Scienze Storiche e Beni Culturali della nostra università.
Le lezioni si terranno presso l’Aula Magna Storica del rettorato nei giorni 12 e 15 maggio e il giorno 5 giugno dalle 11.00 alle 13.30.
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- 12 maggio ore 11.00 alle 13.30 Aula Magna Storica del rettorato
- Democratizing Science and Education: How 3D Technologies are Creating a Revolution in the Academy
Herbert Maschner
3D technologies are creating a revolution in nearly every academic discipline. From archaeology to ancient literature, paleontology to architecture, heritage to scientific visualization and computer science– all are being transformed by new approaches to on-line media and digital access to knowledge. The Democratization of Science Project is a global effort to create opportunities for anyone in the world to study, analyze and publish the results of research on the most scientifically important collections in the world.
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15 maggio ore 11.00 alle 13.30 Aula Magna Storica del rettorato
Endangered Peoples, Endangered Species: The Sanak Island Biocomplexity Project, Alaska
Herbert Maschner
Indigenous cultures in the arctic are endangered from globalization, climate change, loss of heritage, and pressures from external groups. Many species in the arctic are also endangered from many of the same problems. The Sanak Island Biocomplexity project was created to assist the Unangan people (Aleut) of the Aleutian Islands in their attempts to better understand their history, heritage, and ecology in relation to a changing global social, political, and natural environment. Biocomplexity is the integration of physical, natural, and social sciences, as well as the humanities, to better understand a changing world. This presentation with show how interdisciplinary approaches lead to answers for some of the world’s most pressing problems, and it will present a new method for investigating the inter-relationships between humans and the environment.
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5 giugno ore 11.00 alle 13.30 Aula Magna Storica del rettorato
Complex Systems, Traffic Jams, and the Origins of Social Inequality and Hierarchical Societies
Herbert Maschner
For the last 50 years, archaeologists, historians, and other social scientists have conducted projects around the world attempting to understand some of the most fundamental events in the history of humanity. One of the most important has been the original of social inequality and the development of social hierarchies. But despite hundreds of projects and millions of dollars /euros, we do not have the answer. Here I propose that the reason we have difficulty finding answers to some of these global problems is that we ask the wrong questions. Taking an interdisciplinary approach from complexity science, and using data from a GIS of hunter-gatherer societies in Asia, North America, and Greenland, I will show that the answer might be more a product of the nature of humanity itself, rather than an issue of culture or history.