Dear colleagues,
this is a gentle reminder to hand in abstracts to our open panel
“Diffracting chemistry: Challenged critique, novel collaborations,
alternative ethics” during the sts-hub in March 2025 in Berlin:
https://sts-hub.de/25/
Deadline is this Thursday, 31st of October.
Please send via e-mail to: patrick.bieler@tum.de
We look forward to your presentations and our exchange!
All best,
Nona & Patrick
OPEN PANEL: Diffracting chemistry: challenged critique, novel
collaborations, alternative ethics
Convenor(s): Patrick Bieler (TU Munich), Nona Schulte-Römer (HU Berlin)
Abstract: The production of artificial chemical substances in late
industrial societies has pushed humanity “outside the safe operating
space” (Persson et al. 2022). This has lasting implications for human
and planetary health as well as social formations (e.g. Murphy 2017;
Shapiro/Kirksey 2017). However, outside of these critical assessessments
of chemicals, in this panel we query: what does it mean to acknowledge
our lives are entangled with anthropochemicals all the way down
(Papadopoulos 2022)? We propose to tackle this question along three
reflexive paths (which are not exhaustive, of course): First, how do we
reflect in how far STS’ common forms of deconstructive critique are
themselves embedded in and shaped by 'petromodernity' (Klose/Steininger
2024), and what is the consequence thereof? Second, how do we remain
sensitive to the logics and politics of scaling by which molecules come
to shape large technological systems and societies (and vice versa)?
Third, how can we initiate a collaborative socio-chemical project that
aims to transform the chemical foundations of late industrial societies
from within through generative critique and experimental practices?
These questions open up chemicals as specific entities that are ‘good to
think with’ (Boudia et al. 2021). They help us to critically diffract
pressing questions of socio-technical, moral and natural order,
North-South relationships, metabolic ethics (Landecker/Kelty 2019),
knowledge and ignorance (Frickel/Elliog 2018) and the reconstitution of
life itself and forms of sociality at the molecular level.
--
Patrick Bieler
Postdoc Researcher
Anthropology of Science and Technology
Technical University of Munich (TUM)
TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology
Department of Science, Technology and Society
Augustenstr. 46, 80333 München
Room 550 | +49(0)89 289 29233
https://www.sts.sot.tum.de/
https://knowledgeafterprogress.org/
Latest publications:
Patrick Bieler (2024): Urbane Psyche: Alltagsgestaltung und Biopolitik in Berlin aus ethnografischer Perspektive. Frankfurt a.M./New York: Campus.
E-Book (open access):https://www.campus.de/e-books/wissenschaft/kulturwissenschaft/urbane_psyche-18238.html
Jörg Niewöhner & Patrick Bieler (2024): Knowledge after Progress: Re-assembling life through socio-molecular studies.https://biosocieties.org/knowledge-after-progress/
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