The Sokal Affair in Context

1997 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 506-522 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Hilgartner
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Sociology Of Science ◽  
Science History ◽  
Central Lines ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Social Scientific

The failure to consider the Sokal affair in light of other, related episodes has contributed to a wholesale misreading of its significance. The episode has often been offered as evidence for the bankruptcy of a broad and diverse collection offields, variously referred to as cultural studies of science, sociology of science, history of science, and science and technology studies. However, when viewed in context, the Sokal affair illustrates pre cisely why social scientific and humanistic studies of science are necessary. To develop this argument, the author explicitly compares Alan Sokal's experiment with a similar experiment, performed by William M. Epstein and published in this very journal. Comparing the research questions, methods, ethics, and reception of these two experi ments not only reveals the limitations of Sokal's critique but also shows that Sokal has unwittingly endorsed one of the central lines of research in science and technology studies.

Thickening Transregionalism: Historical Formations of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Southeast Asia

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 503-518 ◽  
Author(s):  
Warwick Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Thought Style ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
History Of

AbstractThis article offers an overview of science and technology studies (STS) in Southeast Asia, focusing particularly on historical formations of science, technology, and medicine in the region, loosely defined, though research using social science approaches comes within its scope. I ask whether we are fashioning an “autonomous” history of science in Southeast Asia—and whether this would be enough. Perhaps we need to explore further “Southeast Asia as method,” a thought style heralded here though remaining, I hope, productively ambiguous. This review contributes primarily to the development of postcolonial intellectual history in Southeast Asia and secondarily to our understanding of the globalization and embedding of science, technology, and medicine.

scholarly journals Introduction: Talking STS

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fadhila Mazanderani ◽  
Isabel Fletcher ◽  
Pablo Schyfter
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Fiftieth Anniversary ◽  
Technology And Society ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University

Talking STS is a collection of interviews and accompanying reflections on the origins, the present and the future of the field referred to as Science and Technology Studies or Science, Technology and Society (STS). The volume assembles the thoughts and recollections of some of the leading figures in the making of this field. The occasion for producing the collection has been the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the University of Edinburgh’s Science Studies Unit (SSU). The Unit’s place in the history of STS is consequently a recurring theme of the volume. However, the interviews assembled here have a broader purpose – to present interviewees’ situated and idiosyncratic experiences and perspectives on STS, going beyond the contributions made to it by any one individual, department or institution. Both individually and collectively, these conversations provide autobiographically informed insights on STS. Together with the reflections, they prompt further discussion, reflection and questioning about this constantly evolving field.

Roadkill: Between Humans, Nonhuman Animals, and Technologies

2004 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 277-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Michael
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Cultural Artifact ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Abstract Level ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Hunting Technology

AbstractThis paper has two broad objectives. First, the paper aims to treat roadkill as a topic of serious social scientific inquiry by addressing it as a cultural artifact through which various identities are played out. Thus, the paper shows how the idea of roadkill-as-food mediates contradictions and ironies in American identities concerned with hunting, technology, and relationships to nature. At a second, more abstract, level, the paper deploys the example of roadkill to suggest a par ticular approach to theorizing broader relationships between humans, nonhuman animals, and technology. This paper draws on recent developments in science and technology studies, in particular, the work of Latour (1993) and Serres (1982,1985), to derive a number of prepositional metaphors. The paper puts these forward tentatively as useful tools for exploring and unpicking some of the complex connections and heterogeneous relationalities between humans, animals, and the technology from which roadkill emerges.

Bourdieu’s Rationalist Science of Science: Some Promises and Limitations

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergio Sismondo
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Sociology Of Science ◽  
Pierre Bourdieu ◽  
Evolutionary Epistemology ◽  
Science Of Science ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Political Economies

At several points over his career, Pierre Bourdieu articulated a framework for a sociology of science, derived mostly from a priori reasoning about scientific actors in competition for capital. This article offers a brief overview of Bourdieu’s framework, placing it in the context of dominant trends in Science and Technology Studies. Bourdieu provides an excellent justification for the project of the sociology of science, and some starting points for analysis. However, his framework suffers from his commitment to a vague evolutionary epistemology, and from his correlative and surprising neglect of science’s habituses, with their particular practices, boundaries, and political economies. To be productive, Bourdieu’s sociology of science would have to abandon its narrow rationalism and embrace the material complexity of the sciences.

scholarly journals A Contagious Living Fluid

2002 ◽  
Vol 19 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 107-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joost van Loon
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Pathogen Virulence ◽  
Medical Discourses ◽  
History Of ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Petri Dishes ◽  
Separate Discipline

This article deals with the birth of `the virus' as an object of technoscientific analysis. The aim is to discuss the process of objectification of pathogen virulence in virological and medical discourses. Through a short excursion into the history of modern virology, it will be argued that far from being a matter of fact, pathogen virulence had to be `produced', for example in petri-dishes, test-kits and hyper-real signification-practices. The now commonly accepted objective status of `the virus' has been an accomplishment of a complex ensemble of actors. Indeed, this illustrates why objectification rather than objectivity has become the main focus of science and technology studies. The objectification of `the' virus was by no means a smooth process. It involved more than five decades of highly speculative and fragmented research projects before it became actualized as a separate discipline under the heading of virology. The specific objectification of viruses took place through an inter-disciplinary de-differentiation of research questions, methodologies, techniques and technologies. The main argument of this article is that viruses only became intelligible after the establishment of a virology-assemblage. Its inauguration in the early 1950s was radical and sudden because only then could the various substrands of virological technoscience affect each other through deliberate enrolment, and engender a universal intelligibility.

scholarly journals The Cultural Challenge in Mathematical Cognition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sieghard Beller ◽  
Andrea Bender ◽  
Stephen Chrisomalis ◽  
Fiona Jordan ◽  
Karenleigh A. Overmann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Numerical Cognition ◽  
Mathematical Cognition ◽  
Cultural Dimension ◽  
Science History ◽  
Specific Research ◽  
History Of ◽  
Research Questions

In their recent paper on “Challenges in mathematical cognition”, Alcock and colleagues (Alcock et al. [2016]. Challenges in mathematical cognition: A collaboratively-derived research agenda. Journal of Numerical Cognition, 2, 20-41) defined a research agenda through 26 specific research questions. An important dimension of mathematical cognition almost completely absent from their discussion is the cultural constitution of mathematical cognition. Spanning work from a broad range of disciplines – including anthropology, archaeology, cognitive science, history of science, linguistics, philosophy, and psychology – we argue that for any research agenda on mathematical cognition the cultural dimension is indispensable, and we propose a set of exemplary research questions related to it.

scholarly journals THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND METHODOLOGICAL CONCEPTS OF DESIGN CULTURE

2017 ◽  
pp. 9-12
Author(s):  
Y. O. Bytsykina
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Design History ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Complex Concept ◽  
Design Culture ◽  
History Of

The article is devoted to introducing new theoretical frameworks and methodological concepts from the field known as science and technology studies (STS) and discussing their potential for design history. The concepts of design and culture are analyzed and compared within the article, providing the possibility of developing the complex concept of “design culture”. The study shows that design can be considered as a social and cultural phenomenon, that design historians may find that the sociology and the history of technology can provide an appropriate theoretical framework and methodological repertoire for studying design, not only as the part of art history. The article introduces main concepts from science and technology studies that might be of particular value to design history and culture, focusing on actor-network theory, script analysis and domestication.

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