This notice just came through on the Chronicle for Higher Education’s “Wired Campus” mailing:

Rensselaer Polytechnic Starts ‘Science of the Web’ Program

What is the future of the Web? Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute plans to explore this issue when it launches a new academic program next month focused on the emerging academic discipline of “science of the Web.” The field examines the architectural underpinnings of the Web, its social aspects, and who controls the flow of information, among other issues. The university has titled its program: The Tetherless World Constellation. The program will be publicized June 11 at Rensselaer Polytechnic where a panel of experts from academe and industry, including Timothy J. Berners-Lee–who is credited with having invented the Web–will discuss its future. Web users across the world will submit questions for discussion.–Andrea L. Foster

I’ve recently been in conversation with some of my colleagues at Cornell, from both Communication and Information Science, about how to reimagine and rearticulate (dare I say, re-brand) the HCI program here, based on the presence now of a enough people, and a range of people, to really say its something we do. It strikes me that this might be one way to get at some of what HCI is about, while getting away from some of the limits built into its very name and its particular history.

On the other hand, I saw a talk at ICA last week where a very well known scholar in media studies briefed the audience on the emerging discipline they were trying to create, called “cultural science,” which (from an albeit brief and rapid presentation) looked like a push to soak the study of culture in things like evolutionary economics and game theory. The endpoint of the talk was to focus on the “entrepreneurial consumer” — which I think is the most shocklingly wrong direction that the study of culture, media, and society could possibly take.