[Air-L] 4S 2017 CfP: STS, Critical Design, and the Critical Digital Humanities

[Malazita, James Wilson]

Call for Papers: STS, Critical Design, and the Critical Digital Humanities
Society for Social Studies of Science 2017, Boston, MA

Deadline: March 1

Organized by: James Malazita (malazj at rpi.edu<mailto:malazj at rpi.edu>), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

This track aims to bring together scholars working at the intersections of Science and Technology Studies, politically-engaged Design and Making work (including Speculative and Critical Design & Making), and the Critical Digital Humanities, in order to share perspectives on the methods, challenges, and stakes of “doing” STS and the humanities in material and digital form. This track is envisioned as a critical complement to the “Making and Doing” event—while the Making and Doing event affords the ability for scholars to showcase their design work, this track affords space for critically reflecting upon the spaces, ideologies, mediations, and politics embedded within and enacted through the intersections of critical scholarship and materially-engaged design work. Possible paper topics include critical analyses of current and previous critically-engaged design and digital projects (including the presenter’s own); reflections on the institutional, infrastructural, and ideological constraints of doing alternative and materially-engaged scholarship; issues of the power and position of scholars designing and making in academic and non/tangentially-academic spaces; potentials and risks of doing interpretive and critical scholarship via technologically-mediated design work; and future directions for STS and humanities design. We are particularly interested in critical perspectives on design from feminist, postcolonial, and queer standpoints, and in design and DH projects, spaces, and methods that specifically address questions of power, oppression, access, ontology, and materiality. We also extend invitations to “making and doing” scholars engaged in related work in intersecting fields, including Media Studies, Literature & Science, and Design.

Abstracts must be submitted through the conference system no later than March 1, 2017.

Submission information can be found at http://www.4sonline.org/meeting, Panel #77. Please email James Malazita, the organizer of this panel session, at malazj at rpi.edu with questions. Please note that The Society for Social Studies of Science has final say over acceptances and panel organization.