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