Dear colleagues,
<br>
<br>We are seeking abstract submissions for our track at the 7th STS Italia
<br>Conference 7th
<br>STS Italia Conference to be held in
<br>mid-june 2018 in Padua (Italy). The track (text below) welcomes contributions
<br>on the role of fiction in promising technoscience, on sci-fi as popular
<br>exploration of science and technology and on the relationships between
<br>technoscience and SF in general.
<br>
<br>If you are interested in participating, note that there are only few days
<br>remaining to submit an abstract, as the call closes by February 10th!
<br>
<br>Thanks!
<br>
<br>***
<br>
<br>TRACK 20 > Science Fictions: Promising Technoscience, Performing Pop Culture
<br>
<br>Convenors: Marc Audétat (University of Lausanne); Olivier Glassey (University
<br>of Lausanne); Paolo Magaudda (University of Padova); Philippe Sormani
<br>(University of Lausanne & IMM-CEMS, EHESS, Paris)
<br>A Great divide seems to separate the world of Science, associated with reality
<br>and facts, and the symbolic universe of Science Fiction (SF), associated with
<br>utopia and imagination. For Isabelle Stengers (2016), this divide has been
<br>reinforced by the social sciences as they have excluded thought experiments
<br>from their core methods, thought experiments that in turn characterize
<br>numerous SF novels, films, TV series, plays, and so forth. Interestingly, some
<br>SF indeed has played, and is still playing, that missing role of exploration
<br>and experiment of thought, thus exposing “the boundary” between SF and
<br>science “as an optical illusion” (Haraway 1991). The promises associated
<br>with Artificial Intelligence (AI) today offer a good example, as these
<br>promises mix Science and SF, give voice to various utopian and dystopian
<br>views, and thereby contribute to define what AI could mean for industries,
<br>employment, daily life, and so on.
<br>
<br>In STS, technoscientific promises and future expectations have been studied
<br>over recent decades as contributing to the re-enchantment of science, its
<br>hypes and requirement cycles, as well as the orientation and coordination of
<br>research and funding (Audétat et al. 2015). However, less has been said
<br>about the borrowings and fictional representations these promises trade upon,
<br>or actually constitute. The same point holds for the role of imaginaries, and
<br>most of all, the circulation of technoscientific ideas throughout society and
<br>its rewriting from cultural perspectives – in short, “pop culture”
<br>(e.g., Magaudda 2012). Therefore, this track aims at bringing together
<br>contributions that explore how fictional representations and imaginaries
<br>contribute to the articulation of technoscientific promises and, more broadly,
<br>the shaping of technoscientific processes. The track welcomes case studies
<br>notably (but not exclusively) on the role of fiction in promising
<br>technoscience, SF as popular exploration of science and technology, the
<br>complex and interwoven relationships between technoscience and SF where
<br>innovations are negotiated, as well as alternative and experimental modes of
<br>co-designing expectations and scenarios of future technoscience(s).
<br>
<br>Taking its cue from Arie Rip’s (2006) suggestion that we recognize
<br>technoscientific promises as part of a literary genre, the track calls for
<br>mutual enrichment and renewed alliances between STS and cultural and media
<br>studies, enhancing the critical understanding of rhetorical strategies and
<br>symbolic genealogies of fictional narratives of technoscience. In so doing,
<br>the track invites a conversation between STS, cultural and media studies, as
<br>well as literary criticism and related perspectives across the social and
<br>human sciences.
<br>_______________________________________________
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