Stony Brook University SUNY Korea

A research paper written by DTS undergraduate students, Tae-Yun Kim, Soo-min Kim, Tae-woong Yoon, and Do-hyun Oh under Professor Neal Dreamson’s supervision, has been published in an academic journal, Korean Journal of Converging Humanities (Volume 9, Issue 2, page 1-22). Korean Journal of Converging Humanities is a journal registered on KCI (Korea Citation Index), published on a quarterly basis. The paper was an outcome from their study in a course, EST 441 Interdisciplinary Senior Project, Fall 2020. 

In the paper, the team critically reviews the concepts of smart cities and human smart cities using three well-known smart cities’ plans including Barcelona, Dubai, and Singapore. The team discovers that the plans contain anti-humanism and anti-non-humanism (or anthropocentrism). The team argues for three posthumanist dimensions: non-dualism, more-than-humans, and ecological community to make smart cities free from anthropocentrism. The team develops a conceptual framework for post-humanist smart cities to ensure that the next generation of smart cities becomes inclusive of all humans, non-humans, and more-than-humans.

Below are the testimonial statements of the students.

Tae Yun: The production of this research paper enables me to have a new perspective on technology that coexists with the present society we live in. Defining the right use of a city and technology from a different (and whole new) perspective was the biggest challenge but, at the same time, was the biggest harvest of learning.

Soomin: I had been interested in policies regarding Smart Cities, and this opportunity helped me open up new perspectives towards the topic. I'm happy to see our paper got published in the academic journal as an extension of the college course. I was thankful to work with a great team and learn deeply about the research process.

Taewoong: I have learned a lot academically in the process of writing this research paper, and I deeply felt that there were things I needed to study more after all. I sincerely thank Professor Neal Dreamson. Prof. Dreamson has given us a lot of feedback. I also appreciate our team members, who have always commented on revising and supplementing with meticulousness.

Dohyun: What I gained from this paper is that I learned the proper way of critical review. A critical review is not just criticizing a topic but continuously questioning and evaluating a topic.