2016-2017 Colloquium Series


The Tourism Studies Working Group is pleased to announce
 
ACTUAL-VIRTUAL HARBIN HOT SPRINGS AND TOURISM:
"Naked Harbin Ethnography"

Scott MacLeod
Founder, World University and School

Friday, May 5, 5:00pm
Gifford Room, 221 Kroeber Hall
University of California, Berkeley

 
Abstract:
In this talk I present an ethnographic interpretation of my new book "Naked Harbin Ethnography: Hippies, Warm Pools, Counterculture, Clothing-Optionality and Virtual Harbin," chapter by chapter, as tourism to both actual and virtual Harbin Hot Springs - in terms of contemporary theories in tourism studies (http://bit.ly/HarbinBook & https://twitter.com/HarbinBook ). In this interpretation, a) on the ground "tourism," informed by a movement of "hippies to the hot springs" to actual Harbin from the 1960s to the present, is complemented by b) online tourism to virtual Harbin as a new methodology I'm calling ethno-wiki-virtual-world- graphy, where digital group making, virtual world building and ethnographic wiki knowledge generation, and related STEM research, are central and generative to a new form of tourism studies' digital representation. Harbin is re-building from the devastating Valley fire of September 2015, and this talk will further examine how a new research group at World University and School - http://www.scottmacleod.com/ research-group.html - will seek to understand Harbin when it re-opens - by October 4, 2017.

Speaker Bio:
Scott G.K. MacLeod is an American academic and Professor of Sociocultural Anthropology at World University and School - http:// worlduniversityandschool.org. He's taught "Network Society, Information Technology and the Global University" on Harvard University's virtual island, and on Penn State Isle in Second Life as a Penn State University instructor. He's taught both anthropology and sociology in real life at Chatham University, the University of Pittsburgh, and at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received a Master's Degree in anthropology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a Diploma of Research from the University of Edinburgh. His research focuses on the information technology network society age, the world wide web cosmos, the virtual, and actual-virtual Harbin Hot Springs. He is World University and School's founder, president and CEO. Wiki World University and School is CC MIT OCW-centric (in 7 languages) and CC Yale OYC-centric and seeks to develop major universities in all ~200 countries' main and official languages, as well as wiki schools in all 7,099 living languages; WUaS plans to offer online CC OCW Bachelor, Ph.D., law, M.D. as well as I.B. high school degrees, partly in group video.

Personal web site: http://www.scottmacleod.com

Representative publication: "Naked Harbin Ethnography: Hippies, Warm Pools, Counterculture, Clothing-Optionality and Virtual Harbin" (Academic Press at World University and School, 2016).

Previous UC Berkeley TSWG abstracts as reference:
http://www.tourismstudies.org/ news_archive/MacLeod2015.htm
http://www.tourismstudies.org/ news_archive/MacLeod2012.htm