Live feed archive


Below is an archive of the live feed that took place during the 2011 conference. It is preserved both as a written record of what took place during the conference (its time stamps in particular may be useful in locating things discussed in the video of the conference), and as the result of an experiment in simulcasting the conference proceedings internationally.

Like all such records, it contains typos, mistakes, discussions about whether the video streaming was working correctly, and other ephemera. It has not been edited and will not be (avatar images have been stripped out to improve loading time, but nothing else has been changed).


705 Comments to “Live feed”

  1. STSNext20 says:

    Hi everyone. I’m Sam Evans, a fellow at the Harvard STS Program, and I will be blogging the first session of STSNext20. We’ll get started in 10 minutes or so

  2. Tim Forsyth says:

    Greetings from London

    • STSNext20 says:

      Hi Tim! Welcome. Are you getting the live feed?

  3. Hello from Ithaca. Lots of familiar faces in the audience.

  4. Toluwalogo Odumosu says:

    Hi Everyone, Tolu here.

  5. R Douglas-Jones says:

    Hi both 🙂

  6. STSNext20 says:

    Sheila Jasanoff begins the event by welcoming everyone.

  7. Toluwalogo Odumosu says:

    Hi Rachel

  8. Can the volume be cranked up a bit? Hard to understand the speaker.

    • STSNext20 says:

      We are working on that. Sorry if it’s too quiet.

  9. Tim Forsyth says:

    I dont know what others can hear, but I can’t hear anything – it is very faint

    • STSNext20 says:

      Is the sound any better now, Tim?

  10. Tim Forsyth says:

    marginally better, but still not enough… sorry

  11. Liz Moor says:

    Agreed, can’t hear a thing!

  12. MalteZiewitz says:

    Hello from Oxford. I agree it’s more like a silent movie.

  13. Sound is good now, for me here in Brazil. Hi and thank you!

  14. Tim Forsyth says:

    A scary black and white silent movie

  15. R Douglas-Jones says:

    Applause for Team STS from Estonia! The sound for me is OK, but I have no visuals – my movie is a still! Ought I refresh, perhaps…

    • MalteZiewitz says:

      OK, if you tell me what you hear, I tell you what I see. 😉

  16. Maja Horst says:

    Greatings from Denmark: I think the microphone for the speaker does not feed – because we could hear the clapping and laughter, but not Sheila

  17. Hi everyone! Here in the Netherlands I have decent sound with earphones, but no moving picture as well.

  18. STSNext20 says:

    Ted Porter takes the podium to discuss “Does STS Matter, and to Whom?”

  19. With headphones and volume set to max I can understand maybe half of what Andrew Jewett is saying.

    • I hear that “STS” appears in many sentences.

  20. erm, Ted Porter, I meant

  21. STSNext20 says:

    Tim says STS has been moderately successful in enhancing discussion on science and technology issues, though it does not have the control of the discourse like the natural science or medical disciplines do.

  22. Tim Forsyth says:

    Yes headphones help, but still faint. Actually really blurred

  23. Is it possible that the wrong Microphone is feeding?

  24. Toluwalogo Odumosu says:

    wworking on the audio. we may have to move the camera during the first brek.

  25. Anonymous says:

    I’m still finding it very faint, too…a bit better than before, but still hard to understand. Thanks.

  26. STSNext20 says:

    As science is brought more openly into policy-making, we tend to see science as a well-demarcated affair, keeping free of conflict. But now, the incentives for contesting “what is science” have never been more compelling.

  27. STSNext20 says:

    Our modern debates has provided forums for asking questions that scientists used to be better at suppressing. Our current “un-modern” uncertainty have created a space for STS.

  28. Pantea Bashi says:

    Hello from Germany. Thank you for the live feed. The sound is not really clear because it is the room sound and not the one from the speakers microphone. Is there a possibility to improve that? Thanks a lot.

    • STSNext20 says:

      We will re-jig it in the first break. Sorry for the low audio volume!

  29. Such a shame that even with headphones, I can hear only every fifth word.

  30. STSNext20 says:

    What sort of knowledge should be brought to bear on problems involving science and technology? An STS training can provide indispensable skills

  31. OK, now I get nothing anymore…

    • R Douglas-Jones says:

      Same!

    • you-u-u-u get-t-t-t it-t-t

      with-h-h-h-h the-e-e-e echo-o-o-o if-f-f you-u-u reload-d-d-d

      • My error, i had two windows open. Its okay now. Thank you.

  32. STSNext20 says:

    A motto for our field: Not just thin discription, but thin description thickly described

  33. Yeah, feed is gone. Well, let’s rely on Sam’s tweets for now.

  34. STSNext20 says:

    One of the real contributions of STS calls attention to the material aspects of the science.

    • STSNext20 says:

      And the social practices that surround them

  35. Tim Forsyth says:

    Sound is better, thanks

  36. STSNext20 says:

    Science promotes knowledge without knowledge of the knower

  37. STSNext20 says:

    Science supports (and seeks to develop) evidence that seems to stand for itself.

  38. STSNext20 says:

    STS is the far-flung community of scholars that takes serriously the impact of science and technology to almost every aspect of life

  39. STSNext20 says:

    The historical form is no alternative to STS, but can enhance and extend it.

  40. STSNext20 says:

    We need to write both for the public, and for the millstones of bureaucracy.

  41. STSNext20 says:

    Andrew Jewett now takes the podium as a discussant for Ted’s talk.

  42. STSNext20 says:

    Andy started his studies in STS with Ted Porter’s Trust in Numbers, which helped liberate him from the parochialisms of American history.

  43. STSNext20 says:

    Intellectual historians often have more in common with other disciplines, than with other historians. This is certainly true for communicating with STS

  44. Andrew Jewett emphasizes the common language shared by STSers and those in related fields.

  45. STSNext20 says:

    At first glance, intellectual history seems to be antithesis to STS, pontificating on the intelligentsia of past times.

  46. STSNext20 says:

    Context has now become a keyword in current intellectual history, focusing on how intellectuals make and use knowledge. A lot of this is informed and in dialogue with STS.

  47. “‘Context’ as a keyword” many. More so than “ideas”

  48. STSNext20 says:

    Andy looks at how and why the objectivist civic epistemology has taken such hold in the United States

  49. STSNext20 says:

    Andy sees himself in general agreement with Ted’s thoughts. Who knows, even philosophers may one day see our light as well.

  50. Both Jewett and Porter emphasize the tight and fruitful connection between STS and history of science.

  51. STSNext20 says:

    It’s now time for questions and answers. If you have a question, post it and everyone else can vote if they would like to have it asked.

  52. STSNext20 says:

    Dorothy Zinberg says: the fact that Brian Williams, host of NBC, asks “should we believe scientists about the radiation hazards of nuclear plants” show how our discourse has changed

  53. STSNext20 says:

    Clark miller asks: Given imporance of the shared intellectual space for both understandin the modern condition and informing scholarship, do you think either of those statements should influence how we organize intellectual activity in the academy? Should we continue to operate in old disciplines?

  54. STSNext20 says:

    Ted replies: positions are usually in departments. A lot of money is interdisciplinary. It is the discussions at those forums that are very stimulating. To what extent does that need to move on to reconfugring departments? I would like to have the faculty positions to maintain cross-fertilization.

  55. STSNext20 says:

    Sheila adds: departments have scarce positions, so what if they give the positions that include intellectual history to move to an STS-inflected department?

  56. STSNext20 says:

    Andy comments: people should be more respectful across disciplines, but that’s hard to ask when funding is so tight

  57. Discussing about disciplinarity, funding structures, and positions is very much based in US context and there might be different conclusions for STS in Europe, I think.

  58. STSNext20 says:

    Ted adds: History tolerates but does not demand close interaction with other disciplines.

  59. Q: Implications for education, on grad and undergrad level?

  60. STSNext20 says:

    Chris Jones asks: with the historical approach, do you have reflections looking at the history of the history of science and STS disciplines over the last 20 years? Are we moving towards more of this engagement?

  61. Jasanoff: are some disciplinary boundaries stronger than others?

  62. STSNext20 says:

    Andy comments: interdisciplinary communication has really only been improving in the last five years. This is particularly true in the humanities vs the natural sciences. The focus on interdisciplinarity is *seen* to be a good thing, but it is a big pressure on individuals because it adds to an already heavy workload.

  63. Porter: proliferation of a wide variety of … studies, many of them associated with some kind of identity politics, unlike STS

  64. STSNext20 says:

    Ted: a large body of theory we now have in common could be roughly considered “postmodern”. For instance, we all know Foucault

  65. STSNext20 says:

    Thanks for the first session. we’ll workon the sound now and Margo Lipstin will take over from me for live blogging the next session.

  66. Toluwalogo Odumosu says:

    Quick question, did the sound get better as we went along?

    • For me it did. I could understand most of it.

    • Somewhat, but I need headphones and all sonds set to max. Its still taxing to listen to.

    • Melike Sahinol says:

      yes, it did a bit better

  67. R Douglas-Jones says:

    Thanks, Sam!

  68. Toluwalogo Odumosu says:

    Thanks for the feedback. I will try and get the levels to be louder.

  69. STSNext20 says:

    Hello, I’m Margo Boenig-Liptsin, I’ll be taking over from Sam for the live blogging for this session. Thank you for joining us!

  70. Samuel Evans says:

    We’re going to turn the audio off for just a sec while we test a new mic.

    • Yes, Muuch better! :-) Thx

    • MalteZiewitz says:

      Good job, Sam. Much better now.

  71. This is great now. Much louder

  72. Samuel Evans says:

    Is that any better?

  73. Toluwalogo Odumosu says:

    Audio should be better now!

  74. Jasanoff: Definition of human has drastically changed. Example of arrest because of a DNA fingerprint > genetic reductionism does not tell the whole story

  75. 20 years ago without a plane ticket there was just a résumé to read. But to “almost like there”, we just take ‘nother 20 years I suppose. :-)

  76. STSNext20 says:

    Sheila describes her edited volume around the topic of bioconstitutionalism, which is an attempt at a meta-level STS work — not just a case study

  77. STSNext20 says:

    Douglas Kysar is from Cornell Law School, where Sheila started the STS department.

  78. STSNext20 says:

    Doug is an environmental law scholar; he says that it is a challenge for law to address environment because the “environment” is everywhere, while law works with abstractions, simplifications.

  79. STSNext20 says:

    Doug mentioned Alex Wellerstein’s chapter in ‘Reframing Rights,’ which examines the topic of contingency in science and law

  80. STSNext20 says:

    positivism v. coproduction/bioconstitutionalism!

  81. Samuel Evans says:

    “Does STS need an ethics?” This is a very interesting question the Doug raises

  82. Kysar: More concerned about genetic deprivation than about enhancement

  83. STSNext20 says:

    Levinas!

  84. Subjects are not a given. Levinas: ethics is primary.

  85. STSNext20 says:

    Question: is the Levinasian face-to-face encounter the same through telepresence technologies?

  86. STSNext20 says:

    no firm ontologies or fixed ethics; as I understand it, ethics is taken not as fixed norms, but more like stories, in the sense of narrative ethics (Levinas, Ricouer)

  87. Does STS invite a sense of vertigo? Even ethics is questioned, not accepted as a given.

  88. STSNext20 says:

    Democracy as co-production and also as a technology. The paradox of ‘bootstrapping’

  89. Samuel Evans says:

    Do we have any of the authors of Reframing Rights out there? If so, please share your comments!

  90. STSNext20 says:

    Doug asks what the role of the STS scholar is. His questions is important: how/in what way do STS scholars intervene in actual decision making?

  91. STSNext20 says:

    Sheila: revealing moments of co-production is already a political act

  92. STSNext20 says:

    Sheila re-words Doug’s question: how do we, once we’ve been in the “swamp,” act?

  93. Jasanoff: Once you’ve been in the swamp of ethics and politics and science, how do you get out and answer the so-what question?

  94. Oh, now we’re seeing “Lunar History: Four views of the cataclysm…” :-)

  95. Melike Sahinol says:

    wrong room? 🙂

  96. Ah, reloading the stream helped

  97. STSNext20 says:

    Contributor to the ‘Reframing Rights’ volume from UC Berkeley: it’s up to the individual to decide how to act after the “swamp”

    • Samuel Evans says:

      That’s David Winickoff

  98. STSNext20 says:

    individual action or are there procedures that can guide the STS scholar?

  99. Question if turn to the procedural is a solution to the swamp problem

    • R Douglas-Jones says:

      What procedural, Harald?

      • The procedural is what lawyers focus on.

        • R Douglas-Jones says:

          Is it being proposed as a ‘safety net’ to the swamp problem? Curious.

          • I’m skeptical of proceduralism as a solution on its own. This reminds of article in the current volume of SSS, discussing 4 approaches to the relation between technoscience and politics, one of them being formalism (which is not exactly the same as proceduralism, but close)

  100. Tim Forsyth says:

    Why does it have to be a swamp metaphor? Isn’t this replaying the point behind the book We Have Never Been Modern? ie we have never not been in a swamp, but at least we know we know it?

  101. Jasanoff: STS scholars (or anyone) should not be held reasonable for _not_ knowing what the best solution is.

  102. FYI conference backchannel chat is on Twitter at #stsnext20

  103. STSNext20 says:

    Sheila advocates the contingency point that is in the book — a human being cannot know how his or her action is right

  104. STSNext20 says:

    Sheila: procedurealism is never just procedural

  105. Melike Sahinol says:

    we have to keep in mind that ethics shape technologies, too.

  106. STSNext20 says:

    Kaushik Sunder Rajan (Chicago)

  107. Samuel Evans says:

    Are there other questions from our virtual participant you would like me to ask?

  108. Tim Forsyth says:

    [Thanks for asking Sam! Not sure it went down so well..]

  109. STSNext20 says:

    Sunder Rajan’s comment/question to Doug: is Doug’s point about STS prescriptions assuming that politics comes from above?

  110. hey @stsnext20, please put “share on Twitter” on – your Twitter stream has dropped off the map.

  111. STSNext20 says:

    thanks for letting me know about the Twitter stream — Sam, do you know how to fix this?

  112. STSNext20 says:

    okay, I think it should work now

  113. STSNext20 says:

    Wynne: we have an ethical responsibility to tell it like we see it

  114. Brian Wynne on the swamp: I’m scholar and activist at the same time. We have an ethical responsibility as scholars to tell it as we see it.

    • Melike Sahinol says:

      ..if you practice science as personal experience, too.

      • Can you expand on that? Science as personal experience?

        • Melike Sahinol says:

          “Wissenschaft als persönliches Erlebnis” – science as personal / individual experience is a booktitle from Hans Jonas. He appeals to the individual responsibility (also refering to Kant’s categorical imperative).

          • I see. Thanks for clarifying.

  115. Wynne: We are continually confronted with ethics. Ultimately: it’s an issue of exposing the challenges for democracy posed by scientization

  116. Melike Sahinol says:

    Q: Is “out there” a resistance to outsourced moralities (=STS scholars as normative agency)?

  117. STSNext20 says:

    Wynne: we have a responsibility of connecting our understandings of science and of publics.

  118. STSNext20 says:

    Wynne seems to be confirming Sheila’s point that STS scholars’ work is itself a political act

  119. Wynne: we don’t have to be prescriptive in the sense of philosophers. But describing what the challenges for democracy are.

  120. STSNext20 says:

    Kysar: integrity of ideas comes, in part, from the integrity of individual

  121. STSNext20 says:

    Wynne: the optimistic note in the ‘Reframing Rights’ — STS helping to articulate another kind of science, another focus for science — this is a democratic agenda

  122. Wynne: STS helps showing that there are alternatives, within and to S&T.

  123. Third panel, on “STS, Politics, and Public Management: Disaster and the Politics of Intervention” just beginning

  124. STSNext20 says:

    Ok! There is now an audio-only feed for those on slow connections! The link is at the top fo the video feed if you reload the page. It’s here too: rtsp://video2.harvard.edu/broadcast/stsconference.mp4

  125. STSNext20 says:

    Ok! Sam Evans back here taking over live blogging for the next session.

  126. Okay, no panel yet. Sorry for false alarm.

  127. Okay, no panel yet. Sorry for false alarm.

  128. STSNext20 says:

    We’re back! This session includes Daniel Barben (Aachen), Andrew Lakoff (USC), and Alan Irwin (Copenhagen Business School)

  129. STSNext20 says:

    We’re back! This session includes Daniel Barben (Aachen), Andrew Lakoff (USC), and Alan Irwin (Copenhagen Business School)

  130. Daniel Barben talking about his position at Aachen University, powerhouse of engineering. “Interdisciplinarity not a big deal there”

  131. STSNext20 says:

    Barben teaches at Aachen University, an engineering university in Germany where classes/projects are interdisciplinary

  132. STSNext20 says:

    Aachen engaged in future studies, which allows him to promote STS

  133. Future studies as a way of promoting STS in German university system

  134. STSNext20 says:

    This session is about: STS, Politics, and Public Management: Disaster and the Politics of Intervention

  135. At stake: Issues of critical analysis, of capacities of practically engaging, politics of intervention. E.g. Earthquake and nuclear crisis in Japan, Libya

  136. STSNext20 says:

    all of the disasters that took place during the book’s process to publication

  137. STSNext20 says:

    what kind of interventions can STS make to thinking about disasters?

  138. Andrew Lakoff: Introducing edited volume on “Biosecurity Interventions: Global Health and Security in Question,” published in 2008

  139. Oh sorry, I think it’s a different book

  140. STSNext20 says:

    Lakoff: hope that the book (inexpensive and short) could influence policy; copies sent to congressional staff members

  141. Did anyone get the correct title?

  142. STSNext20 says:

    book: Disaster and the Politics of Intervention

    Edited by Andrew Lakoff

  143. STSNext20 says:

    Volume concerned with designing successful interventions in disasters

  144. STSNext20 says:

    “social science of disaster” — disasters are influenced by social factors that need to be understood to intervene successfully

  145. STSNext20 says:

    Sheila’s contribution calls for ‘technologies of humility’ (see Nature article: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v450/n7166/full/450033a.html)

  146. Rob Hagendijk says:

    unfortunately the live stream is scrambled and full of echo’s

    • Samuel Evans says:

      make sure you do not have multiple streams going on?

      • Rob Hagendijk says:

        sorry, you were right!

        rob hagendijk watching from amsterdam

  147. Tim Forsyth says:

    Lakoff, Andrew (ed) (2010) Disaster and the Politics of Intervention , NY: Columbia Uni Press.

  148. STSNext20 says:

    Lakoff: passes on to Alan Irwin to comment on success/failure/potential of volume

  149. STSNext20 says:

    shout out to Denmark!

  150. STSNext20 says:

    Lakoff: will focus on the public role of STS

  151. Irwin: 3 points about book: how should we think about disasters? what themes emerge? what does it mean for politics of intervention?

  152. STSNext20 says:

    Irwin’s reference: Guardian article

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/02/natural-disasters-floods-earthquakes-landslides

  153. STSNext20 says:

    tsunami “as beyond the social”

  154. Irwin: We want experts to make sense of situation in Fukushima and other disasters for us

  155. STSNext20 says:

    Irwin: the way disasters are portrayed is increasingly bound up with expert systems.

  156. STSNext20 says:

    disasters become “extrapolations into the future” (Jasanoff”s term)

  157. example of private firefighters in California

  158. STSNext20 says:

    private fire-fighters reminds one of private security firms (e.g. James Ferguson’s work on large corporations in Africa)

  159. similar case: role of military contractors

  160. STSNext20 says:

    Disasters – politics – market

  161. STSNext20 says:

    Interesting: Irwin keeps suggesting that disasters point to the future. How do they do this? I wonder what Barben would say about this, since he’s in future studies

  162. Structuring sessions around books which significant portion of audience hasn’t read doesn’t seem to be the best format to me.

  163. STSNext20 says:

    Irwin suggests that ‘dignity’ is a good counterbalance to ‘risk’

  164. STSNext20 says:

    Although we haven’t read the books, it is important to discuss the latest in STS research. We are, after all, interested in the next 20 years of STS work!

  165. STSNext20 says:

    Irwin: the anticipation of disasters is a challenge to governments. Perhaps the anticipation is the link to the future.

  166. Tim Forsyth says:

    Hello Rob

    • Rob Hagendijk says:

      hi Tim

  167. STSNext20 says:

    Interesting how “otherness” is intended by Irwin and, previously, Kysar, in ethical terms. Kysar as human otherness and Irwin as alternative futures

  168. STSNext20 says:

    Clark: Knowing disasters and how to respond to them becomes endemic to everything a government/public administration does every moment.

  169. Clark Miller makes interesting point about disaster as the exception or a view where disasters are ever-present in the realm of politics and regulation

  170. STSNext20 says:

    Clark: blurring boundaries between natural disasters and human-made disasters (interestingly, the term “tsunami” was used by Japanese to describe Hiroshima and Nagasaki)

  171. STSNext20 says:

    Clark Miller on peculiar temporality of disasters: disasters appear from systems and frameworks that we’re creating all of the time

    • Is this different from Beck’s arguments about risk society? Sounds very similar to me.

  172. Trevor Pinch: two other books on disasters, Challenger Disaster and Normal Accidents

  173. STSNext20 says:

    Trevor Pinch: mentions two books that predicted two accidents in the future. Does this book predict a future disaster?

  174. Melike Sahinol says:

    (future) risk / disaster has supposed to be manageable. risk proposes descision. on my opinion descisions in interdisciplinary and complex fields are always descisions by different epistemic cultures. interdisciplinary issues have to be translated. STS could help to translate.

  175. I’m wondering how a “disaster” is defined?

  176. STSNext20 says:

    Japanese STS scholar: wonders what book can offer to Japanese STS scholars who were asked by Japanese government to help respond to tsunami and nuclear power plant disasters

    • Samuel Evans says:

      That’s Yuko Fujigaki, who will be speaking on Saturday.

  177. Melike Sahinol says:

    I was wondering how people construct certainty 😉

  178. With regard to the disaster in Japan, some friends of mine have started a website for collecting STS and HoS resources on the topic. http://teach311.wordpress.com/

  179. Pantea Bashi says:

    will the live feed be recorded and can be watched later?

    • Samuel Evans says:

      Yes it will! It might take a little time to get it up, though

      • Pantea Bashi says:

        great!

  180. STSNext20 says:

    Irwin: interested in how the news seizes on “news from below” — on the stories of individuals rather than having experts (or in addition to having experts).. experts provide the ‘coherent framework’

  181. Hm, Irwin seems to discount first-hand, from below accounts as useful for making sense of a situation if there is no framework for situating them.

  182. STSNext20 says:

    Irwin: stories from below are a challenge to sense-making

  183. STSNext20 says:

    Lakoff: bottom-up processes are already integrated into disaster preparedness systems. The attempt of the volume was to show what has not yet been incorporated into disaster preparedness.

  184. STSNext20 says:

    Barben: panel brings up two issues — what’s the role of legal principles (e.g. precautionary principle) in creating resilience/protection? 2) how can we enhance anticipatory capacities?

  185. Goodbye, fellow-STSers. I have to go do some real work now, unfortunately.

    • Samuel Evans says:

      Thanks for your contributions, Harald

  186. STSNext20 says:

    we continue with the 4th session on economics and sociology

  187. STSNext20 says:

    participants: Joan Fujimura (Wisconsin), Pierre-Benoit Joly (Paris Est and IFRIS), David Stark (Columbia)

  188. STSNext20 says:

    Joly: 20 years ago economics and markets would not be an issue for STS, but the next 20 years must consider it

  189. Sam: Congrats on getting the live feed up and working! It looks great!

  190. STSNext20 says:

    Joly: explains STS approach to the economy/economics.

  191. STSNext20 says:

    materiality and performativity are the two key concepts for understanding economy from STS perspective

  192. STSNext20 says:

    Joly: growing importance of emotions in economics (behavioral economics) has potential to reconstruct economic sphere around this “new” (for economists) understanding of human beings

  193. STSNext20 says:

    Joly: second trend in economics is to design dispositif (apparatuses) to “nudge” by state

  194. STSNext20 says:

    Joly: STS has many concepts that could be integrated into study of economy (civic epistemologies, coproduction, etc.)

  195. STSNext20 says:

    David Stark’s volume, ‘The Performativity to Reflexivity’

  196. STSNext20 says:

    Talcott Parson’s Pact:

    economists get to “work” the economy; social scientists will study the social relations within the economy

  197. STSNext20 says:

    Stark: no one examines “calculation,” even the sociologists. STS (Michel Callon, Donald MacKenzie) move to define the social studies of finance

  198. STSNext20 says:

    Stark: calculation is itself social — not socially embedded

  199. STSNext20 says:

    reference to Donald MacKenzie’s ‘An Engine, Not a Camera’

  200. STSNext20 says:

    Stark references speech acts work of John Austin

  201. STSNext20 says:

    Stark proposes a different sense of performativity; e.g. a financial model is an intervention

  202. STSNext20 says:

    In Stark’s definition, a model is performative when its use improves the predictive performance of the model (e.g. Moore’s Law)

  203. STSNext20 says:

    Stark describes the feedback loop of economic prediction

  204. STSNext20 says:

    materiality of reflexivity is socio-technical

  205. STSNext20 says:

    I wonder to what extent reflexivity that Stark describes in relation to market models is also true of STS research in general..

  206. STSNext20 says:

    explains the graph, the spread plot that traders use to bet

  207. STSNext20 says:

    Whitington: relationship between reflexivity and feedback loops?

  208. STSNext20 says:

    Chris Jones: there is a lot of reflexivity in the field, but how do they represent their work to the world, which is the level of policy?

  209. STSNext20 says:

    *they* refers to scientists, economists

  210. STSNext20 says:

    Stark: the object of study of sociality is being human. Being in the world with objects is to be human.

  211. STSNext20 says:

    Stark is interested in devices that traders come up (devise) to deal with uncertainty, lack of knowledge, risk..

  212. STSNext20 says:

    Stark: we have left out reflexivity as STS scholars. But is this fair??

  213. STSNext20 says:

    Kris Saha: how does the collapse of the financial crisis relate to the Parson’s pact? i.e. how the disciplines were understanding interaction between reflexivity, STS, economics, break of fields…

  214. STSNext20 says:

    Daniel Barben: is Stark reproducing the argument of classic economics that you need diversity to create a market?

  215. STSNext20 says:

    Stark: is it right to think of the individual as the unit of cognition and decision maker? There’s the group of people and the instrumentation. What’s making the decision?

    • Pantea Bashi says:

      Neuroscientists would say the brain is making the decision 😉

  216. STSNext20 says:

    Stark: cognition and action is distributed at the desk. Even the lay out of the room is important for cognition.

  217. STSNext20 says:

    Stark: is the room the cognitive agent? the desk? the individual? cognition is distributed throughout the arbitrage systems.

  218. STSNext20 says:

    Thank you for joining us and hope that you listen-in again tomorrow at 9am.

    – Margo Boenig-Liptsin

  219. Samuel Evans says:

    That’s all for today, everyone. See you tomorrow.

  220. Pantea Bashi says:

    Thank you for your work!

  221. R Douglas-Jones says:

    The sound is good!

  222. STSNext20 says:

    Good morning everyone! Tolu Odumosu here, I will be live bloggin the first session.

    We should be starting in a few minutes

  223. STSNext20 says:

    We are off!

  224. Samuel Evans says:

    Welcome everyone. do have a look at the new provocation page above and give us your thoughts.

  225. STSNext20 says:

    As we go thru logistics, if you are watching with us, please do introduce yourself.

  226. STSNext20 says:

    First session: Defining the Boundaries!

  227. STSNext20 says:

    Suman Seth from Cornell Speaking.

  228. STSNext20 says:

    Line up this morning includes, Kaushik sunder Rajan, David Winickof and Javier Lezaun

  229. STSNext20 says:

    Kaushik is giving a provocation.

  230. Hello. I am Maya. Watching from Brazil. I wonder if we can have access to the document Chris mentioned. I don´t see it in teh webpage. Thanks

  231. STSNext20 says:

    Kaushik: We need to think about Biopolitics “elsewhere” in the world in a non-derivative fashion

  232. STSNext20 says:

    How do we think through technoscience and its interactions with postcolonialism?

  233. Johanna Hoeffken says:

    Hello! Johanna Hoeffken from Maastricht University is lsitening in too.

  234. STSNext20 says:

    MIT’s imaginary can be described as technocratic

  235. Samuel Evans says:

    Hi Johanna! Glad you can join in.

  236. STSNext20 says:

    Kaushik THSTI http://www.thsti.res.in/

  237. STSNext20 says:

    Kaushik: Important institutional differences in technocratic imaginaries of both THSTI and MIT

  238. R Douglas-Jones says:

    On what is at stake, Kaushik mentions taxpayers money, but did he attribute that concern to either of the camps – his Indian Scientists/MIT dichotomy?

  239. STSNext20 says:

    Indian scientists much more aware of STS and coproduction

  240. STSNext20 says:

    subjectivity of Indian scientists as marginal and marked explains their reflexivity somewhat.

  241. STSNext20 says:

    global postcolonial sensibility is NOT equal to anti-colonial inclinations.

  242. STSNext20 says:

    Is a global postcolonial sensibility limited to institutional and sociological critque? What about the epistemic?

  243. STSNext20 says:

    Is scientific universalism undermined by the globalization of science?

  244. STSNext20 says:

    Moving on to David’s response

  245. STSNext20 says:

    David: A lot of the innovative interventionist technologies (cook stoves, etc) are coming from India.

  246. STSNext20 says:

    David: The US community is becoming more aware of the “shift in power” in innovative capacities in this area.

  247. R Douglas-Jones says:

    Winickoff describes an upswell of innovative energy and vitality from “places like India” as a shift in power. Does this not maintain the “elsewheres” that Kaushik is trying to unsettle?

  248. STSNext20 says:

    David do I do STS inspired by Law, or Law inspired by STS? Answer: I do both!

  249. R Douglas-Jones says:

    Winickoff is asking about Kaushikäs positionality and his thoguhts on an anthropologically inflected STS.

  250. R Douglas-Jones says:

    Winickoff : Concepts, themselves, with traditions and long histories.

  251. STSNext20 says:

    Javier speaks

  252. STSNext20 says:

    Javier: Where should STS go in the next 20 years?

  253. STSNext20 says:

    STS is restless and appears everywhere.

  254. STSNext20 says:

    Javier: Kaushik asking us to follow the lifesciences in the post-genomic era

  255. STSNext20 says:

    Javier: Follow the global postcolonial sensibility because it provides fodder for examining possibile disruptions in universalism.

  256. STSNext20 says:

    Javier: If we are to follow Kaushik, we need to remember that there is no free travel.

  257. STSNext20 says:

    Javier:What is the difference between an anthropology of science and technology, and STS inflected with anthropological overtones?

  258. STSNext20 says:

    Javier: The main question is where to go with which new companions and how to get there.

  259. STSNext20 says:

    Suman summarizes provincializing europe by Chakrabarty

  260. STSNext20 says:

    Isn’t it a neo-liberal claim to count MIT and IMTFI as fully representative of the global?

    • R Douglas-Jones says:

      or rather, counts as analysis of the “global”. Iäm not sure either claimed fully representativeness…

  261. STSNext20 says:

    Chakrabraty’s critque of incommensurability is itself relativizing – Kaushik

  262. STSNext20 says:

    I am open to voicing your questions!

    • R Douglas-Jones says:

      Thanks! Still digesting KSR-speech!

  263. To David Winickoff: is it possible to be a constructionist policy-maker? Policy-making involves realpolitik, strategic analysis of interests involved and some amount of conflicting. Is STS realist(ic) enough to participate in policy-making and make a difference?

    • STSNext20 says:

      Thanks David.

      • thanks for voicing the question

  264. R Douglas-Jones says:

    Fascinating exchange between Jasanoff and Suman on where history/STS might be seen to fail as a project in the kinds of questions it is able to ask and its own form of knowledge production. Arguing around Chakrabarthy, Suman would like to see (more?) problematization of structuring assumptions, Jasanoff is pointing out that it is through perhaps what Suman is calling “arrogance” that what might previously not have been considered possible becomes so : eg long duree, subaltern studies and sitse of memory projects in history.

  265. R Douglas-Jones says:

    Javier is picking up the Suman provocation again.

    • R Douglas-Jones says:

      STS as mode of attentiveness, and looking head on at issues of incommensurability. What was posed as a weakness can be seen as a strength. Why what was posed as the end can be positioned as the beginning.

      • R Douglas-Jones says:

        Suman shifting from incommensurability to relativism, itself as a concept we can historicize.

  266. R Douglas-Jones says:

    Thanks Tolu!

  267. STSNext20 says:

    Thanks to all! We will be back in 15 mins

  268. STSNext20 says:

    Second panel is underway: STS on Difference

  269. STSNext20 says:

    Complexity of co-construction of users and technologies as a place to study difference

  270. STSNext20 says:

    Greene: How does STS configure difference differently?

  271. Banu Subramaniam says:

    the videos and audio feed stopped working for me towards the end of the last panel. is it just me or is there a technical problem?

    • R Douglas-Jones says:

      Working for me…try the audio only?

      • Banu Subramaniam says:

        yes, i did. neither is working. it says “server not found” — it worked

        fine yesterday and all morning upto that point.

        so i am puzzled. thanks. i’ll see what i can do my end

        banu

  272. Samuel Evans says:

    Steve Epstein’s slides are available here: http://goo.gl/AeYhs

    • R Douglas-Jones says:

      Brilliant. Thanks Sam.

  273. STSNext20 says:

    One are for discussion: Identity politics and how they relate to science and technology

  274. STSNext20 says:

    How are “race” and “sex” operationalized in medical research?

  275. STSNext20 says:

    Take a look at Epstein’s slides for STS literature on difference.

  276. Having challenges with the feed? Try refreshing the page.

  277. STSNext20 says:

    Epstein uses difference in his work as an actor’s category.

  278. STSNext20 says:

    What about religious identities in STS scholarship? Has this dimension been given enough attention?

  279. STSNext20 says:

    We turn to some data… Please refer to Epstein’s slides.

  280. STSNext20 says:

    What about social class in STS literature?

  281. STSNext20 says:

    Is STS scholarship on difference impacting other disciplines?

  282. STSNext20 says:

    Epstein is setting up the panelist to hopefully discuss how STS scholarship on difference can pollinate research in other domains.

  283. STSNext20 says:

    On the panelists…

  284. STSNext20 says:

    Nelly Oudshoorn: co-production of technoscience and bodies

  285. R Douglas-Jones says:

    Nelly points out that the time for discussion has been foregrounded. This might seem mundane, but I was thrilled that there was so much space for questions and talk after this morningäs first panel.

  286. STSNext20 says:

    Nice! Nelly provided a connection to the previous panel – difference ties into how the “other” is understood and constructed.

  287. STSNext20 says:

    Should we rethink our own vocabulary? Should we be talking about diversity and not difference?

  288. Hi, joining in again from Maastricht, NL. I think it is remarkable that Nelly notes that she is invited to do the same kinds of debates now as she was in the 1970s. Does that mean she believes STS has been unable to get any messages across? How do other virtual participants feel about this?

    • R Douglas-Jones says:

      Iäd suggest she was reflecting on how things emerge and re-emerge at particular times, less about whether or not any message got across (across where, to whom, what are the constants in time that we might want to imagine?) or not.Thereäs another question of difference, the shifting arenas into which “messages” fall?

  289. STSNext20 says:

    Themes: We should study age as a category, and turn to other locations where the production of knowledge is connected to difference.

  290. STSNext20 says:

    Sherine Hamdy: Question of how religious knowledge (as an alternative rationality) comes to shape notions of difference?

  291. STSNext20 says:

    Sherine: Religious knowledge influences cost-benefit analysis of science and technology.

  292. R Douglas-Jones says:

    Mike Lynch responding to Steve in a way that is “not defensive”!

  293. STSNext20 says:

    Comment from the audience: Religion has influenced the analytical approach of STS scholars.

  294. STSNext20 says:

    STS has dissected the “religion” of science, but have we understood religion?

  295. R Douglas-Jones says:

    What is rational and what is not, what is cultural and what is not – Sherine is thinking along with Suman on what STS approaches have implicit within them.

  296. STSNext20 says:

    Observation: I wonder if we can relate the question of STS analysis of religion and difference to Suman’s previous question about whether there are domains where STS can fail?

    • R Douglas-Jones says:

      Perhaps it is the phrasing as “fail” that people are reacting to negatively? Examinations of failure, as STS scholars know more than most, can be fascinating. Just seeing a “fail”, and seeing just a “fail” are different thigns (ie being able to vs only being able to)

      • R Douglas-Jones says:

        Ok, she is disagreeing with this – concern with intergenerational transmission within the discipline and the reinvention of the wheel. “Rehearsal of the same debate all of the time – what can we do here to reframe it?”

  297. STSNext20 says:

    More productively, why has STS not taken on religious rationality more?

    • R Douglas-Jones says:

      Yep,there is clearly a thread of limits/edges which applies as much to the engagement with different differences as to the way in which we have dealt with the possibilities of alterities, or alternative ontologies.

  298. STSNext20 says:

    Nelly: STS should reflect on generational understandings and analysis of difference.

  299. STSNext20 says:

    From the audience: Who should our intellectual companions be to further analysis of difference?

    • R Douglas-Jones says:

      Nelly : human geographers , for their focus on the places and spaces of knowledge production.

  300. Hello everyone. Seems like I’ve missed a lot this morning.

    • R Douglas-Jones says:

      It has been brilliant so far!

  301. STSNext20 says:

    The travel metaphor is doing a lot of work.

  302. STSNext20 says:

    Brian Wynne: Challenge to the panelists to expand their notions of difference.

  303. STSNext20 says:

    What about cases where difference has been denied?

  304. STSNext20 says:

    Nelly: Methodological point. Analysts should not go into a sociotechnical domains with an idea of difference.

  305. STSNext20 says:

    From the audience: What about difference beyond humans?

  306. STSNext20 says:

    Sherine: What about non human actors that are limiting human agency?

  307. R Douglas-Jones says:

    Sherine is considering how and when in bioethics, differences are put in categories such as the social or cultural “difference”, a move which relies on a ground of universalised concepts of the body. She is observing that a biological ground is assumed to be the same (eg. that a body doesnät really need two kidneys) may not be (eg. because of high rates of schistosomiasis or other compromising factors) thus the notion of acceptable harm changes. It was in response to a point about differences which are denied/made less visible, and the STS role in that situation.

    • I really liked this as an example for the entanglement of the biological and the social/cultural.

  308. STSNext20 says:

    What gets called science and what gets called religions – take different shapes and do different social work depending on the context. – Sherine

  309. The conceptions of difference on this panel are too narrow. Classifying something as different is a itself an epistemic act. Differences between normal and pathological are fundamental to medical knowledge. Differences between genetic and epigenetics are fundamental to some fields of biology. Could you have STS without difference? It’s part of how we generate and operate with particular ontologies.

    • STSNext20 says:

      Difference is also needed for building disciplines.

  310. Anonymous says:

    I haven’t heard anyone mention differences in “ability” (particularly neurological and psychiatric disabilities and disorders), though there is certainly some STS (and STS-related) work that problematizes how ability differences are framed, both in the sense of their being “constructed” and/or in the sense of their being “denied.” I’m thinking of Chloe Silverman’s work on autism and Emily Martin on bipolar disorder, among other

    projects. Any thoughts on the place — current or potential — of this kind of work within STS?

    – Suzanne Kirschner

    College of the Holy Cross and

    Harvard University (Visiting Scholar spring 2011)

  311. I agree, classification and difference are at the heart of STS, and I think Jeremy’s point about the difference/similarity between GMOs, pharmaceuticals etc. pointed away from the use of “actor categories” towards these questions. However, it’s also interesting to see how sociological differences are inflected through an STS perspective.

  312. STSNext20 says:

    Epstein: calling for reflexivity in the categories we analyze.

  313. R Douglas-Jones says:

    It seems that there would be scope to go through this panel and look at the different ways that people are talking about difference – on reflexivity inthe categories we analyze and use for analysis. They could be scaled : the (scalar) difference between the kind Suzanne is missing vs the kind that is raised as a distinguisher between disciplines. Bateson would be laughing.

  314. STSNext20 says:

    Winickoff to the panel: What do you recommend for the codification of difference in legal and policy contexts?

  315. R Douglas-Jones says:

    Haraway did not teach Kaushik *how* to ‘do gender’ but simply told him, when he asked, that he ought to “be attentive”, and hold a certain kind of vigilance.

    • I’d say that “modes of attentiveness” are part of what constitutes a discipline.

      • R Douglas-Jones says:

        Yes, so are these modes something the disciplines could positively share, use as ground? I am interested in the recurrent thread of anthropology, being an anthropologist.

        • One way to get at that would probably to look at the core syllabi posted on this website and trying to see what they have in common. The modes of attentiveness of anthropology, in my account, would certainly be an important part of it.

  316. STSNext20 says:

    From the audience: drawing attention to how categories are going digital. Should this be an issue for STS? Should surveillance studies be included in STS scholarship?

  317. It’s too bad that Annemarie Mol is not speaking at the conference. She might have provided interesting insights.

    • R Douglas-Jones says:

      We need to get her online!

  318. STSNext20 says:

    Sherine: Suggestion to change approach to bodies and health management from patient rights and consumerism to a greater emphasis on “tinkering” care.

  319. STSNext20 says:

    Thanks for joining us! We will be back at 2:15 to discuss:

    “STS and the Public Sphere”

  320. Samuel Evans says:

    We’re asking participants here and around the world to give us their ideas, in 60sec or less, on three questions: 1) Why do you think STS matters (to you, to anyone)? 2) Hid did you come into STS? 3) What new problems or challenges do you think STS needs to address?

    Feel free to video your own (60sec!) thoughts and share them with us.

  321. Alright, time for a break. Back at 2:15 :: STS and the Public Sphere

  322. STSNext20 says:

    Welcome back! I’m Margo Boenig-Liptsin, one of Sheila’s students, and I will be in charge of the live blog for this session.

  323. STSNext20 says:

    Participants of this panel includes John Dryzek, Sheila Jasanoff, Myles Jackson, and Brian Wynne

  324. STSNext20 says:

    Jasanoff discusses her methods in organization of the conference: “Provocations”

  325. STSNext20 says:

    Jasanoff”s theoretical contribution to the public sphere

  326. STSNext20 says:

    public engagement v. public sphere

  327. STSNext20 says:

    “the public” — as understood by Dewey — the phantom, incapable of informed self-governance

  328. STSNext20 says:

    on the other hand, Congress understands public as capable of understanding highly technical issues

  329. STSNext20 says:

    Jasanoff: it matters how we imagine “the public”

  330. Samuel Evans says:

    As new viewers come online, do introduce yourselves! And feel free to contribute your thoughts.

  331. STSNext20 says:

    This morning’s “elsewhere” to start from was India, Jasanoff’s “elsewhere” is the law

  332. Hi Sam. I’ve been around for a while – only left you for dinner when you had lunch

  333. STSNext20 says:

    STS helps to “thicken” understanding of the public. STS shows that collective preferences are tied up with understanding, not existent a priori

  334. STSNext20 says:

    “potential publics” ready to be engaged

  335. STSNext20 says:

    liberal view of the public: group of individuals OR collective view of public, unified by shared norms

  336. STSNext20 says:

    STS takes seriously the way the public is co-produced by science and technology

  337. STSNext20 says:

    the problems of STS with regard to publics: our focus on technology can narrow our attention to the political

  338. STSNext20 says:

    STS focuses on technoscientific moments, where we are following the science and technology

  339. STSNext20 says:

    we need to take into consideration why publics are constructed and for whom (in relation to power)

  340. STSNext20 says:

    what are publics useful for?

  341. Could the slides Sheila is apparently using be made available?

    • Samuel Evans says:

      I know, but I wasn’t able to get Sheila’s slides before the talk. We’ll try to get them up soon

  342. STSNext20 says:

    what construction of the human does “nudge” theory assume?

  343. STSNext20 says:

    Myles Jackson, historian of science

  344. Great, thanks

  345. STSNext20 says:

    historians of science are interested in public sphere as communication, openness of shared knowledge

  346. STSNext20 says:

    Jackson: interested in communicability of scientific knowledge

  347. STSNext20 says:

    scientific knowledge historically contrasted with secretive, private artisan knowledge

  348. STSNext20 says:

    scientific knowledge as enabling a “public sphere from below”

  349. STSNext20 says:

    Jackson contrasts this historical view of shared scientific knowledge with recent scholarship that emphasizes the secretive consequences of patents

  350. STSNext20 says:

    Jackson: there are institutions/organizations that promote openness of science and technology knowledge

  351. STSNext20 says:

    Jackson assumes that sharing is a scientific norm — is this historically true, when you look beyond the statements of scientists to their practice?

  352. STSNext20 says:

    Brian Wynne: post-scientific life began in Edinborough

  353. STSNext20 says:

    Wynne: interested in looking at scientific knowledge in public arenas

  354. STSNext20 says:

    Wynne: how do we know what the public is actually concerned about?

  355. STSNext20 says:

    Do we seem to presume what they care about or do we begin with the understanding that we don’t know?

  356. STSNext20 says:

    Wynne: publics rarely claim to know better than the expert scientists

  357. STSNext20 says:

    Wynne: it is also rarely recognized that public knowledge is of a different kind than the scientists’

  358. STSNext20 says:

    Wynne: if we conceive of consulting with public only about risk and safety, then we already assume that the public can only comment on these aspects of science and technology.

  359. STSNext20 says:

    Wynne: Difference and disagreement of the public is thought of as a deficit by policy makers and scientists (this is the “deficit model”)

  360. STSNext20 says:

    Wynne: the scientization — science informing identity on publics– of public arena

  361. STSNext20 says:

    * “imposing” instead of “informing” (see previous post)

  362. Rob Hagendijk says:

    who is this?

    • Samuel Evans says:

      Hi Rob! I hope things are going well in Amsterdam. Do let us know if you’d like to ask a question.

  363. STSNext20 says:

    Clark Miller (ASU):

  364. Samuel Evans says:

    Welcome to our viewers from Asia! Do get involved and post any questions you would like asked. We’ll do our best to get a mic and ask them.

  365. STSNext20 says:

    Miller: the only kind of contestation that is legitimate in court is epistemic

  366. STSNext20 says:

    Miller: the problem is about the institutional dimension of democratic practices (e.g. court system), not cognitive or epistemic deficit

  367. STSNext20 says:

    Wynne: I was describing an institutional-cultural condition — it’s not a purely cognitive issue, but a cultural one

  368. STSNext20 says:

    Climate issue can provide an entry to discussion of public and science

  369. STSNext20 says:

    Jasanoff: nation by nation responses to “climate gate” reveal broader national cultural identities

  370. STSNext20 says:

    Wynne: why has anthropogenic description of climate change been unproductive to rial the public?

  371. STSNext20 says:

    Jasanoff: the fact that the IPCC has had so little effect is being blamed on the public.

  372. STSNext20 says:

    Jasanoff: little evidence indicates that the public is actually against action on climate

  373. STSNext20 says:

    Allistair: studying STS can be thought of as the study of science, technology, and the public sphere. So what is the difference?

  374. STSNext20 says:

    Wynne: scientists in labs always imagining an audience (funders, patrons, patients, customers..)

  375. STSNext20 says:

    Allistair: is there still a role for lab studies?

  376. STSNext20 says:

    Jasanoff: lab studies is the basic method of STS. Of course, one should still continue to do them in interesting areas of S&T development.

  377. STSNext20 says:

    Jasanoff: but new issues might draw us attention, e.g. ethics and values

  378. STSNext20 says:

    Jasanoff: we can adopt a more expansive sense of “lab”

    • Jamie Cohen-Cole says:

      Without assuming that, as lab studies have, that the public is, somehow outside the lab.

  379. STSNext20 says:

    Jasanoff: we have to not just go where S&T is producing the latest and greatest invention.

  380. STSNext20 says:

    Ulrike Felt (U of Vienna)

  381. Rob Hagendijk says:

    Everything Ok here. The flow is having a little compression every 1/2 minute but I am not really missing any words.

    • Samuel Evans says:

      ok. you could always mute the video feed and take the audio from the audio-only feed :-)

  382. STSNext20 says:

    Jasanoff: what we can do as STS scholars is to “nudge” — use the existent structures to our advantage

  383. Rob Hagendijk says:

    tried but that does not work for me right now the system says

  384. STSNext20 says:

    Wynne: framing of public becomes a justification for the neglect of the public concern

  385. Rob Hagendijk says:

    quite right Brian!

  386. STSNext20 says:

    Ulrike Felt: need to think about how to scale up our efforts

  387. STSNext20 says:

    Question: there’s been an incorporation of info and communication technologies into the public sphere and scientific knowledge production. given this development, are you still seeing deficit structure models?

  388. STSNext20 says:

    Jasanoff: we should be careful about how the questions of technological democratization are put in the first place.

  389. STSNext20 says:

    Jasanoff: American preferences to construct agora as market rather than political forum results in construction of user as a consumer rather than citizen

  390. STSNext20 says:

    Jasanoff: we should first find out the historical facts of WikiLeaks and then start asking questions about tech democratization

  391. Samuel Evans says:

    Kaushik Sunder Rajan is speaking

  392. STSNext20 says:

    Kaushik: are different publics the products of the different underlying structures?

  393. STSNext20 says:

    Wynne: society as the new laboratory — when we conduct experiments in a lab, we don’t know what questions the experiments will pose. If we’re experimenting in the field, we should think about the question for the experiment more.

  394. STSNext20 says:

    Ted Porter: what are the objections to the deficit model? It seems that one is that deficit is not just what the public doesn’t know, but that there’s misinformation in the public sphere.

  395. STSNext20 says:

    Jasanoff: we need to think about the interpretive framework — why were the statistics not trusted? why was the confidence over rated?

  396. STSNext20 says:

    Jasanoff: yes, one should worry about misinformation circulating, but doesn’t that put us back to the question of designing the kind of figures/institutions that we trust

  397. STSNext20 says:

    Jasanoff: we need to take into consideration the discourses and practices of the experiment as well as the realism.

  398. STSNext20 says:

    Thanks for listening and see you in 15 minutes. – Margo

  399. Samuel Evans says:

    If you want to load up Trevor Pinch’s slides, they are here: http://goo.gl/PsZvy

  400. STSNext20 says:

    We are back!

  401. STSNext20 says:

    Langdon Winner introduces the panel and goes back 40 years, not 20.

  402. STSNext20 says:

    Trevor Pinch begins his provocation…

  403. STSNext20 says:

    Trevor: In STS we like having fights and disagreements. This is a strength, not a weakness.

  404. STSNext20 says:

    Long debates over the role of the ampersand

  405. Samuel Evans says:

    Trevor gives a history of the founding of the STS Department at Cornell

    • Samuel Evans says:

      with an emphasis on the car-parking debate that overshadowed the decision to create the STS department. Everyone wanted to talk about cars, so they created the department with barely any debate!

  406. STSNext20 says:

    STS can never take stability for granted

  407. STSNext20 says:

    opening the black box has shown that politics can be found in the hardest of artifacts.

  408. STSNext20 says:

    Power lies with the small stuff of life as well as with the big stuff.

  409. STSNext20 says:

    STS still has to show (sociology) how materiality and technology are embedded in classic social theories

  410. STSNext20 says:

    David Kaiser is on now.

  411. Samuel Evans says:

    David Kaiser’s slides are here: http://goo.gl/t5PUu

  412. STSNext20 says:

    scientific consensus is messy and usually the matter of face to face conversations

  413. STSNext20 says:

    David Kaiser on cold war bubble: graph of US PhDs in physics compared to graph of financial crisis.

  414. STSNext20 says:

    Importance of paying attention to scale in opening the black box.

  415. STSNext20 says:

    Production of similarity in the rapid growth of physics departments was done through detailed micro practices like swapping syllabi.

  416. STSNext20 says:

    Antoine Picon is on now.

  417. STSNext20 says:

    Picon: Have we really opened the black box?

  418. STSNext20 says:

    Picon: Reading STS, it sometimes seems too abstract.

  419. STSNext20 says:

    Picon: STS has not sufficiently impacted the social sciences.

  420. STSNext20 says:

    Picon: Even the thick descriptions are not sufficiently descriptive from a technical viewpoint.

  421. STSNext20 says:

    Picon: STS appears pre-occupied with simple and simplified technical examples e.g. Latour’s hotel keys.

  422. STSNext20 says:

    Brian: STS and SCOT is about roads not taken..

  423. STSNext20 says:

    Picon: solution to my provocation may lie in new modes of co-operation

  424. Samuel Evans says:

    Morning everyone. We are having a slow start this morning, but things should be beginning in a few minutes.

  425. STSNext20 says:

    Welcome to the third and final day of STS: The Next Twenty. The first panel this morning will start shortly, which will look at “The Core of STS: Where are we? Where are we headed?”

  426. Good morning. For me the sounds is very faint again. Am I the only one?

    • I am having the same problem. Can’t hear what Clark’s saying at all

  427. STSNext20 says:

    We apologize if there is some feedback on the audio. we are working on it and should have it sorted at the beginning of the next session.

  428. STSNext20 says:

    Kris Saha points out that we will be having a discussion this lunchtime on the provocation document: http://stsnext20.org/a-provocation/

  429. STSNext20 says:

    If you want to provide feedback, do so either on the document itself, via the email on that page, or commenting here during the lunch.

  430. STSNext20 says:

    Clark Miller begins the session

  431. STSNext20 says:

    When building a field we need to focus on the ideas of the field, but also its pedagogy. Today looks at the latter

  432. STSNext20 says:

    The problem with being in a different place every day! We’re troubleshooting it now. Apologies.

  433. STSNext20 says:

    Once every twenty years, is probably not too often to have a reflection on the core of the field. This panel provides a representation of that core.

  434. That’s much better. Thanks!

  435. STSNext20 says:

    Steven Hilgartner take over

  436. STSNext20 says:

    Hilgartner describes the different ideas of the “core”

  437. Much better now. Thanks for showing the slides!

  438. STSNext20 says:

    Saying that STS is an independent discipline doesn’t say that members of it can’t be members of other disciplines as well.

  439. STSNext20 says:

    Hilgartner goes through the “of” models

  440. STSNext20 says:

    STS should try to move up the gradient of institutional strengthen, and to do that, we need a “core” of people involved.

  441. STSNext20 says:

    This core of STS is most evident in pedagogy, and Hilgartner wants to talk about Cornell as an example.

  442. STSNext20STSNext20 says:

    you can find Cornell’s core syllabi here: http://stsnext20.org/syllabi/

  443. STSNext20 says:

    STS has a tendency to not play up its own intellectual coherence. But it is comparable to other established disciplines.

  444. STSNext20 says:

    You can find out more about where Cornell grads have gone here: http://www.sts.cornell.edu/peoplealum.php

  445. STSNext20 says:

    Ulrike Felt takes over

  446. STSNext20 says:

    Ulrike is ambivalent on talking about cores.

  447. STSNext20 says:

    She discusses the Vienna STS degrees, but first looks back to the last two days of the meeting

  448. STSNext20 says:

    A common idea is that what makes STS is it’s boundary-less-ness. Another is the reflexive question of the core of STS: how could our core come about?

  449. STSNext20 says:

    over the last two days, we have also spoken much in spacial metaphors, travel, companions, intellectual homes, deserts, garden of eden, and more.

  450. STSNext20 says:

    Institutionalizing creates needed space to open up and further develop.

  451. STSNext20 says:

    Non-agreement needs institutionalization because it allows us to have battles without threatening our general livelihood.

  452. STSNext20 says:

    [from the blogger] Welcome to our friends in Vienna! Do contribute to the discussion if you’d like!

  453. STSNext20 says:

    The Viennese department of STS has existed since 1987.

  454. STSNext20 says:

    You can view more about many STS programs around there world on our STS World page: http://stsnext20.org/sts-world/

  455. STSNext20 says:

    If you want to add your program, do send an email to sts@hks.harvard.edu

  456. STSNext20 says:

    The yearly discussions on pedagogy in Vienna is a classic case of boundary-drawing on the core of STS

  457. STSNext20 says:

    three foci to organize teaching around: knowledge cultures; arenas of interaction; and politics of knowledge and instutitions

  458. STSNext20 says:

    The need is to develop the core of STS in a way that it does not become a millstone around the necks of the students.

  459. STSNext20 says:

    The purpose is to develop critical sensibilities, to make connections between seemingly disconnected entities, and to experiment with teh “how” of questions.

  460. STSNext20 says:

    Yuko Fujigaki now takes the podium.

  461. STSNext20 says:

    Yuko and Steve’s slides are available on the Program page: http://stsnext20.org/program/

  462. STSNext20 says:

    Yuko’s main point of discussion is on STS education in Japan.

  463. STSNext20 says:

    Yuko goes through the historical development of Japanese STS, culminating in the 4S in Tokyo last year.

  464. STSNext20 says:

    There is no big STS center in Japan, but there are strong connections between the centers.

  465. STSNext20 says:

    [from the blogger] We encourage our Japanese colleagues watching to say hello and comment on the discussion!

  466. STSNext20 says:

    Yuko turns to the tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan. STS researchers are no analyzing the events.

  467. Hi. As a half insider of Japanese STS community, I agree with Yuko that many educational themes in Japan have been closely related to ‘social problems’, or ‘failures of science’. I guess this is another reason why public engagement and ethics are dominant areas in Japanese STS.

  468. STSNext20 says:

    We now turn to conversation from the floor.

  469. STSNext20 says:

    question from the floor. Should there be a commitment from STS departments to hire STS graduates?

  470. STSNext20 says:

    Ulrike answers: as you have seen, there are very different visions over what the field is. Perhaps it is good that they go into other fields and spread STS that way.

  471. Fallon Samuels, PhD candidate @ Harvard: Can a mic be given to audience members? If not, can the questions and comments be reproduced here? (we cannot hear them) Thanks!

  472. STSNext20 says:

    Steve Epstein asks: He’s not happy with the definition of the core as a process of boundary-drawing on who is in an out. Second question on institutional models of STS: do dual-citizenship models multiple the possibilities for graduating PhDs? Are the models useful in bringing STS back to other disciplines, reshaping those disciplines to more STS angles?

  473. STSNext20 says:

    Hi Fallon, we have a mic now. and I am reproducing the questions. If they are not showing up, try refreshing your browser.

  474. STSNext20 says:

    Stephen Hilgartner answers the collective definition issue: people who are going to be within the field need to know the various histories we have gone through. There isn’t one history, but the various histories can be collectively defined.

  475. STSNext20 says:

    Clark Miller adds: when he was at Wisconsin, they hired many people in other departments, but they were mostly interdisciplinary departments. There, it was the STS unit that was the core many of these people identified with.

  476. STSNext20 says:

    Is the sound better on the questions?

  477. sound on the questions is great now for me

  478. Anonymous says:

    Yes, now it’s much better. Thanks.

  479. yes, with the passed mic it is.

  480. STSNext20 says:

    Comment from Sheila Jasanoff: She had to formally renounce her Indian citizenship upon her return to India recently. The Indian government is paranoid about the possible terrorist coming in. There is rarely a symmetry between things presented as “dual”

  481. STSNext20 says:

    Jay Aronson from Carnegie-Mellon: making sure there are post-grad and grad opportunities is key. The unevenness in difference: there are no sociologists at Carnegie-Mellon. We need to be flexible in our models, as people come to STS from many different places. But we do need places like Cornell and others to get a strong STS training.

  482. Good point Jay’s making – STS needs to be present and visible in order to attract possibly interested students

  483. STSNext20 says:

    Arthur Daemmrich: Do we want to build a Gates Foundation or a Ford Foundation model? If it’s the Ford model, we need disciplines.

  484. STSNext20 says:

    Greg Eghigian, Former director at Penn State: understanding STS in an age of entrenchment. The reasons why Penn State dropped STS. why were the projects cut? They were all interdisciplinary, and were seen as “luxury items”. Despite what the SSRC and NSF say the disciplines seem to reign supreme in hard times. Is STS just a luxury enterprise? Having tenured lines didn’t protect us.

  485. STSNext20 says:

    Final comments from the panel.

  486. I support the point Jay made that we need to think about how other people see us. Sociologists or anthropologists may not have ‘agreed’ cores of their field, but we seem to assume that they do and they are institutionally or disciplinary secured. We need to be identified by others as a field first and if we are not happy with the way we are identified then each of us can send stronger messages about what we do or what our sensibilities are about. Having wrote this, I am not 100% sure who ‘we’ are…

  487. STSNext20 says:

    Yuko: in Japan, the resources devoted to STS is increasing.

  488. STSNext20 says:

    Ulrike: we are moving in different directions, but as a result we need to be attentive to stabilizing the field in one way or another. We need to be careful in how we talk about our field. We can use our own political knowledge to position ourselves.

  489. STSNext20 says:

    Steve: We have to make the case that STS needs to be part of the core mission of the University. It is inconceivable to me that if we were to reconstruct the university today that we would not have a department of science and technology studies.

  490. Anonymous says:

    Sarah Wagner @ UNC Greensboro: I heartily agree with Arthur Daemmrich, but see it from a slightly different view. In the NC system’s stated logic in staving off cuts, emphasis has been less on disciplinary entrenchment than community engagement–that is, how is our research relevant to local, region communities? STS has much to offer public policy debates because of its dynamic interdisciplinary perspectives.

  491. STSNext20 says:

    Thanks for your discussion! We will have a short break.

  492. STSNext20 says:

    Welcome back! Our next panel looks at “STS and Careers: Have we come home?”

  493. STSNext20 says:

    Ben Hurlbut begins the discussion.

  494. STSNext20 says:

    The panel consists of early career STS Scholars, from the newly tenured, to the just getting started.

  495. STSNext20 says:

    Jay Aronson takes over. He is now Associate professor of STS at Carnegie Mellon, thought that’s an unofficial title. He deals with civilian casualty in times of conflict.

  496. STSNext20 says:

    He doesn’t consider himself to be a theoretical core, but definitely as the next generation of STS Scholars. He likes being able to choose approaches from many disciplines.

  497. STSNext20 says:

    STS provides a sense of freedom that other fields don’t offer. For example, being able to work on social forms in many different fora.

  498. STSNext20 says:

    Jay discusses the usefulness of having places like Harvard were scholars can come to recharge their skills and passion for STS.

  499. STSNext20 says:

    Brice Laurent now takes over. He is both an STS scholar and a civil servant.

  500. STSNext20 says:

    In new problems within the French government, there is a strong push to defining the relevant science in conjunction with defining the problem to be dealt with. This provides space for STS to enter and contribute to the discussion and policy debates.

  501. STSNext20 says:

    The Center for Sociology and Innovation is a unique place for STS in France.

  502. STSNext20 says:

    Shobita Parthasarathy begins with her path towards STS, which started in Biology.

  503. STSNext20 says:

    It wasn’t until she was on a Presidential Commission that she encountered STS. Until then, she didn’t think about disciplines as different places with different trainings

  504. STSNext20 says:

    At Cornell, she gained the language to talk about the experiences she had in Washington.

  505. STSNext20 says:

    There are important formal institutional connections, but we should also focus on the need to strong informal networks.

  506. STSNext20 says:

    STS multiples the options in the professional school arena that we should recognize. Shobita eventually got a jon in a policy school, and hasn’t changed the type of work she does. That doesn’t mean it hasn’t changed her priorities, but she is still thinking in STS ways.

  507. STSNext20 says:

    Her role now involves a lot of translational work, and the fact that STS has footholds in many field is a resource.

  508. STSNext20 says:

    Anne Pollock now begins her thoughts.

  509. STSNext20 says:

    “Race, biology, and American culture”, the position she got, sounded like an interesting description of her dissertation title. She didn’t want to label herself as a sociologist, so the STS program was a good fit.

  510. STSNext20 says:

    A central question for her: how do we tell stories about technology as we tell stories about race and class?

  511. STSNext20 says:

    Anne describes current moves within the STS program, which includes the move towards a certificate program. But it is still a work in progress.

  512. STSNext20 says:

    Kris Saha takes over.

  513. STSNext20 says:

    He spends most time in the lab looking at who has the power to create knowledge.

  514. STSNext20 says:

    To do his work effectively, he feels he needs to find a home in STS. But he has yet to see a position open for STS and engineering, or STS and stem cell research.

  515. STSNext20 says:

    Sonja Schmid rounds out the panel. She went through Ulrike’s program in Vienna.

  516. STSNext20 says:

    She then got on to the PhD program at Cornell, which allowed her to combine interest in technology with understanding complex cultural phenomena in a critical way.

  517. STSNext20 says:

    She is now in the STS department at Virginia Tech, which is largely engineering. Every year there are a few STS courses that the engineers take that are very popular. The STS department also recently launched an undergraduate major.

  518. STSNext20 says:

    She is now in the STS department at Virginia Tech, which is largely engineering. Every year there are a few STS courses that the engineers take that are very popular. The STS department also recently launched an undergraduate major.

  519. STSNext20 says:

    Sonja describes the relationship Virginia Tech has with the Washington DC community, where they have a satellite campus.

  520. STSNext20 says:

    Sonja describes the relationship Virginia Tech has with the Washington DC community, where they have a satellite campus.

  521. STSNext20 says:

    If there are questions the online audience would like to ask, please share them.

  522. STSNext20 says:

    Anne Pollock says that Georgia Tech as a strong STS community even though there is little institutionalization.

  523. STSNext20 says:

    Shobita: the problem lies in training the next generation of STS scholars.

  524. Kris’ comments have highlighted precisely the point that Sheila made in the last sesson about the asymmetry of dual citizenship.

  525. STSNext20 says:

    Kris comments: he benefited from at least having the STS program at Berkeley (where he did his PhD). It was an important space to connect with scholars in the field.

  526. STSNext20 says:

    Sonja add: these spaces are important for both faculty and students. This is why institutionalization matters.

  527. STSNext20 says:

    Ben asks: what role do you see for the disciplinary identity of STS in your toolkit for positioning yourself?

  528. STSNext20 says:

    Kris replies: the metaphor of translation is appropriate. “Science policy” is a more recognized term, but he can point to the outputs from the community, which people in other disciplines can connect with.

  529. STSNext20 says:

    Shobita adds: in running the STP program, she varies in labeling her lectures as STS, but STS ideas inflect all her teaching.

  530. STSNext20 says:

    Question from the floor, from Nicolle, a colleague at Cornell: she struggles with explaining the value of what she does.

  531. STSNext20 says:

    Shobita responds: students assume a traditional deficit model. If that’s what brings them in the door, that’s ok, but we then try to work with (re)shaping that perspective.

  532. STSNext20 says:

    Cormac O’Raifeartaigh asks a question: The lack of penetration of STS into science is still striking. Much of the last few decades of STS scholarship is ignored (after the Science Wars).

  533. STSNext20 says:

    Ben asks for Cormac’s reflections on his year at Harvard

  534. STSNext20 says:

    Cormac: my colleagues and I hugely underestimate the amount of knowledge that STS has built up. The lack of understanding is often on the scientist’s side rather than the STS scholar’s side.

  535. STSNext20 says:

    Thomas Pfister asks Brice: From your bureaucratic experience, did you find that STS might be an instrument to discipline the science?

  536. STSNext20 says:

    Brice replies: STS is more identified in France as a field of expertise that needs to be included in policy making.

  537. STSNext20 says:

    Mark During comments on experience with practitioners: in interacting with them, the concept of ethics cuts across to a lot of issues. A key to that process is to bring in STS. It is a body of expertise that provides a new and interesting perspective from the viewpoints of practitioners at all levels.

  538. STSNext20 says:

    Jay responds: he’s be working with practitioners, and the minute you start probing them, they see it as very political. Ethics is an interesting way in, but ethical questions are political questions. That’s both bigger and more basic that STS in many ways.

  539. I would like to ask a more career-related question, since all of these panel members are at an early stage in their career. How do they see their own career develop in the next few years, between the pressures of teaching, engaging with both scientists and the public ‘out there’, application for funds, etc. and how do they see their position in relation to the further establishment of the field/discipline of STS – which is presumably something they will be responsible for?

    • STSNext20 says:

      Erik, where are you watching us from?

      • STSNext20 says:

        Sorry we didn’t get to your question Erik.

        • I am watching from Maastricht, the Netherlands – though I’m currently working with Daniel Barben in the “institutional desert” in Germany. And never mind about the question – I found the discussion very interesting anyway.

  540. STSNext20 says:

    Shobita responds: Does not want to lose her STS training in a policy sphere.

  541. STSNext20 says:

    Trevor Pinch: is it Science and Technology Studies, or Science, TEchnology, and Society?

  542. STSNext20 says:

    Jay and Shobita don’t really think it matters.

  543. STSNext20 says:

    Anne points out that many in her area actually use Science Studies

  544. STSNext20 says:

    Javier Lezaun asks: many on the panel when through post-doc positions, but didn’t talk about it. Also, regarding research funding bodies, they are fragile elements. What are your reflections on interacting with them?

  545. Interesting question by Javier – it is my impression in continental Europe as well, that the postdoc phase is the most tricky one in establishing an STS career!

  546. STSNext20 says:

    Ben and Jay say that their funding time was critical in their career development.

  547. STSNext20 says:

    Shobita adds: her postdocs were instrumental in allowing her to write her book. The feeling, though, is that there were a lot of postdocs, but not many tenure-line postions.

  548. STSNext20 says:

    Kris has a postdoc from Zurich, which really carved out space for his STS work.

  549. STSNext20 says:

    Sonja had two postdocs. It was a good time to extend and solidify her networks, and helped create her home. It also allowed her to make STS recognizable to other communities like security studies, that did not have a prior awareness of STS.

  550. STSNext20 says:

    Alister Isles questions: how can we create new homes for STS?

  551. STSNext20 says:

    Shobita comments: centers don’t necessarily create strong roots. Secondly, if we make centers that revolve around hot topics, they need to be constructed carefully to ensure they still contribute to the larger community.

  552. STSNext20 says:

    Jay: It’s not the role of the profession, necessarily, to create the jobs. It is, however, the role of scholars or trained practitioners to point to the value of an STS training.

  553. STSNext20 says:

    As the panel comes to a close, it’s time for the presentation of the poster prizes.

  554. STSNext20 says:

    Kris Saha and Sheila Jasanoff present the awards.

  555. STSNext20 says:

    Next we’ll be talking about the provocation document. Do read it over and provide any comments: http://stsnext20.org/a-provocation/

  556. STSNext20 says:

    Back at 12:50 EDT.

  557. STSNext20 says:

    We are back to discuss the provocation document

  558. STSNext20 says:

    It can be read at http://stsnext20.org/a-provocation/

  559. STSNext20 says:

    What do we share as a community? Is STS more than simply the sum of a variety of disciplinary perspectives?

  560. STSNext20 says:

    What is the relationship between the center and the periphery of STS?

  561. STSNext20 says:

    Andy Lakoff: What compromises are we willing to make to assist with STS’s institutionalization

  562. STSNext20 says:

    Clark Miller: This document ought to make a strong statement about funding for STS research.

  563. STSNext20 says:

    Clark Miller: We need to an actor network analysis of NSF funding for STS

  564. STSNext20 says:

    Sheila: How have the large order of about $1M investments in STS worked out? Cornell (STS), UCSD etc

  565. Rob Hagendijk says:

    unfortunately the current speaker cannot be heard on the video

  566. STSNext20 says:

    Current Speaker is from the NSF

  567. STSNext20 says:

    Discussing the political attacks on social science funding at the NSF.

  568. Samuel Evans says:

    sounds fine from my end. did you try reloading?

  569. STSNext20 says:

    We (STS) needs to make a case that we are making a difference to ensure continued funding

  570. STSNext20 says:

    Chris: What are the types of impact descriptions that would be useful?

  571. Rob Hagendijk says:

    reloading does not make a diference Sam (funny I see you. Hi!))

  572. STSNext20 says:

    Question: Does NSF have a reporting mechanism in place to record funded research impacts?

  573. Samuel Evans says:

    Is anyone else having this problem? It seems fine from my end

  574. No problems here

  575. STSNext20 says:

    Tomas: Important to keep contact with funding agencies even when one is not actively submitting grant applications.

  576. STSNext20 says:

    Alan Irwin: In Europe the humanities are feeling pressured.

  577. STSNext20 says:

    In Europe the humanities have a more expansive vision in terms of making a difference and are making broad social arguments

  578. STSNext20 says:

    Alan: How could we have a more expansive vision articulated in the provocation document?

  579. STSNext20 says:

    Nelly: Reinforces the point that STS needs to keep contact with funding agencies and be in conversation with them.

  580. STSNext20 says:

    To all watching, please feel free to leave commentary on the provocation page.

  581. STSNext20 says:

    Ben: Deep dependency created if STS has to attach itself and cling to whatever science is in the ascendancy

  582. STSNext20 says:

    Ben: Is it possible to maintain independence and expand our claims of expertise in these funding mechanisms?

  583. STSNext20 says:

    Trevor: Economists while reviewing their own work are very positive while STS reviewers may tend to be less effusive. Is this a problem?

  584. STSNext20 says:

    Sheila: STS scholars need to love each other more in their reviews. Historians do and tend to do better

  585. STSNext20 says:

    Observation: the question isn’t about relevance, it is about added value!

  586. STSNext20 says:

    Jonathan Marks: The real challenge for STS is to find a way to respond to requests to collaborate and participate without being seen as in service to others.

  587. STSNext20 says:

    we will be back in 10 minutes

  588. STSNext20 says:

    Next session beginning with introductory remarks.

  589. STSNext20 says:

    John Beatty: A surprising thought–at UBC, the new horizon is integrating philosophy into a leadership role with STS.

  590. STSNext20 says:

    John Beatty: Although there are intellectual challenges with integrating philosophy into STS, some of the difficulties are personality-based. Some philosophers just don’t want to play ball. But if they do, there are opportunities for productive collaboration.

  591. STSNext20 says:

    Question for those following the live feed: what role should philosophy play in STS?

  592. STSNext20 says:

    John Beatty: this is not your father’s Oldsmobile—this is a new philosophy!

  593. STSNext20 says:

    And the conference goes multimedia with our first full video courtesy of Stefan Helmreich.

  594. Samuel Evans says:

    The video can be found here: http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/9502-dv-lab-2011

    And here’s the website of his program: http://web.mit.edu/unseen/

  595. STSNext20 says:

    Myles Jackson: STS at NYU has been indelibly shaped by the memories of the Sokal affair.

  596. STSNext20 says:

    Jackson: New undergraduate program being developed at NYU–STEMS (science, technology, environment, and medicine).

  597. STSNext20 says:

    Jackson: what is the moral responsibility of producing graduate students at a time when there are not a lot of available faculty positions?

  598. STSNext20 says:

    Lakoff: the ecology of Southern California—an island on the land—offers interesting opportunities for STS insights.

  599. STSNext20 says:

    Lakoff: New programs being developed in STS at USC: an undergraduate minor and a graduate certificate.

  600. STSNext20 says:

    Lakoff: STS scholars can strategically use the fact that scientists are very worried about issues such as the public understanding of science.

  601. STSNext20 says:

    Clark Miller: ASU is taking seriously 2 fundamental STS propositions. The first is that the university is a site where the modern world is being constituted and is adjusting what it is doing accordingly.

  602. STSNext20 says:

    The second is that we should challenge the idea that the university should have a single model. It’s odd that the United States has 150 Research 1 universities organized along the same model. ASU is seeking to create new models, and STS has been centrally involved.

  603. STSNext20 says:

    Miller: by creating new types of programs, ASU is training STS-informed students who are going into a broad array of academic, public, and private sector positions. This is an interesting way that STS ideas can be spread.

  604. STSNext20 says:

    Manjari Mahajan: what is striking so far is the variety of models presented. What kinds of opportunities are created in centers that might not exist in a department?

  605. STSNext20 says:

    David Winickoff: There is a new effort to create STS at Berkeley that is focusing on pedagogy. This is a different approach than he has seen taken by other institution

  606. STSNext20 says:

    Jasanoff: One of the insights of STS is that knowledge is being created in new ways as universities change and disciplines change. What implications does this have for the practice and institutionalization of STS?

  607. Samuel Evans says:

    Xaq Frolich asks: how might the discussion here (which is US-focused) relate to creating centers abroad?

  608. Samuel Evans says:

    Rob, do you have an answer?

  609. Samuel Evans says:

    How about some input from our colleagues watching in Portugal, Taiwan, India, and Italy?

  610. Samuel Evans says:

    If you are having trouble with the video feed, try this link: http://cm.dce.harvard.edu/1999/01/89004/liveClassroom.shtml

  611. STSNext20 says:

    Richard from York, Toronto: Most comments are about research or graduate studies. What about undergraduate programs and how might they fit into our conversations?

  612. STSNext20 says:

    Kaushik Sunder Rajan: Thinking about STS in India, one realizes there is very little institutional standing of the field as we know it in the west, but that there is very vibrant engagement with the issues STS scholars care about.

  613. STSNext20 says:

    Kaushik Sunder Rajan: Thinking about STS in India, one realizes there is very little institutional standing of the field as we know it in the west, but that there is very vibrant engagement with the issues STS scholars care about.

  614. Samuel Evans says:

    After a quick coffee break, we’ll be back for the concluding wrap-up with Mike Lynch

  615. Samuel Evans says:

    Again, for those experiencing a problem with the live feed, we encourage you to try the alternative feed: http://cm.dce.harvard.edu/1999/01/89004/liveClassroom.shtml

  616. Samuel Evans says:

    The main live stream is now back online. If you want to pre-load Mike Lynch’s slides, you can grab them here: http://goo.gl/YrO4r

  617. STSNext20 says:

    We are back!

    Last Session

  618. STSNext20 says:

    Mike Lynch presents an editorial view of STS

  619. STSNext20 says:

    He will be speaking about trends in STS

  620. STSNext20 says:

    STS moving away from HPS towards anthro. and cultural studies

  621. STSNext20 says:

    Previous contentious arguments are fading into the background.

  622. STSNext20 says:

    STS literature is engaging the ‘global south’ but most of this work is being published by scholars outside of the ‘global south’.

  623. STSNext20 says:

    Great point by Michael Lynch: interconceptuality not interdisciplinarity.

  624. STSNext20 says:

    Michael Lynch: STS is unified in Hybridity

  625. STSNext20 says:

    How should STS deal with political crtique that focuses on scientific uncertainty?

  626. STSNext20 says:

    Mike Lynch: symmetry and impartiality mean that STS could crtique the construction of uncertainty as well as certainty

  627. STSNext20 says:

    Mike Lynch the agenda of the last 20 years was set by writings in the previous 20

  628. STSNext20 says:

    Ulrike Felt (outgoing Editor of STHV) responds to Mike Lynch

  629. STSNext20 says:

    Questions from our virtual audience?

  630. STSNext20 says:

    Goodbye everyone!

    Thanks for participating!

  631. Thanks to Sam and all the other livebloggers. It was really valuable to be able to follow the conference virtually!

    • Fully agree! Thanks for making our virtual presence possible.

  632. Any estimates when the recordings will be made available?

  633. Ling-Fei Lin says:

    Right, Thank you so much for your efforts to make the live feed/blogging available to us!

  634. Samuel Evans says:

    Yes, there will be recordings posted. We’ll try to get them up as soon as possible, but will likely be at least a week.

  635. Samuel Evans says:

    Thanks to all of our virtual participants! If you have comments on the Provocation, to share them. We’ll also be putting up the provocations from the Friday panels at some point.