Cluster Blog

Notes on Caring in a Technoscientific World

I recently had the pleasure of attending the Politics of Care in Technoscience, a workshop at York University that explored the concept of “care” in feminist STS. The opportunity to spend several uninterrupted days discussing papers with colleagues is a rare treat, and it made me nostalgic for my first years in grad school where my “job” mainly consisted of absorbing new ideas and discussing them with my peers.

Politics of Care in Technoscience

What does it mean to explore the politics of care in technoscience?  After three stimulating days attending “The Politics of Care in Technoscience Workshop at York University last weekend, I have a preliminary idea: It is about grappling with practical ethics in a messy world.  Since science, technology, and medicine are ine

Network in Canadian History and Environment (NiCHE) goes to India with Situating Science

A blog on the "Sciences and Narratives of Nature: East and West" workshop from NiCHE member and workshop participant Stephen Bocking, Trent University

Blog:

http://niche-canada.org/node/10267

Event information:

http://www.situsci.ca/event/sciences-and-narratives-nature-east-and-west

Facing the Future

The future. An enduring cultural fascination yet an inherently elusive entity. As Jeaneatte Winterson writes, "The future lies ahead like a glittering city, but like the cities of the desert disappears when approached."

Our trans-human futures; our post-human pasts.

Dreams tangled by wires, the transhuman subject is wrapped in a promise: a promise of technological infallibility and inevitable progress. And so the neofuturists proclaim. Such optimisms are crisp and sure, marketed to the priveleged and powerful. Promises sold like catholic indulgences to assuage our guilt of a growing world and a distancing humanity.

Live Blogs via Twitter of Frontiers in Research: Our Post-Human Futures event Nov. 15 2011

The following is a sample of Tweets resulting from Live Blogging of the University of Ottawa's Frontiers in Research : Our Post-Human Future event Nov 15th, 2011. See @situsci for the latest. 

Live Blogs via Twitter of Synthetic Biology Conference Sept 30, 2011

Here are some random samples of the live Twitter conversation by students attending the Synthetic Biology at the Interface of Science and Policy Conference at the Institute of Science, Society and Policy Sept. 30th, 2011. Their blogs are now available to view on www.situsci.ca/blog

For more, follow their Twitter accounts or @situsci

 

Synthetic mythologies.

Gilles Bibeau (2011) reminds us to step down from the altar of genomythology: the dominance of The Gene, fearless flight into a technocratic future, biologist Supermen that save the world.

Dreaming a Recursive Future?

When I think of the word “synthetic”, I generally think of it in opposition to “natural” – terrible synthetic fibre clothing or other artificial things. But the root of the word actually gets much of its meaning in opposition to “analytic”, particularly in philosophy. Analysis is where we break something down in order to interrogate and understand it; synthesis is where we build a whole up from parts. Analytics explores; synthetics exploits.

The Extremes and In-Betweens of Synthetic Biology

When a cartoon is in the early stages of production artists craft the storyline by creating a series of still images. Those images, referred to as “extremes”, depict characters in their most exaggerated positions and are often used in the final stories as visual hooks and punchlines for the audience: anvils are falling on heads; bodies are magically suspended miles above ground; tears are streaming from eyes. Chuck Jones, who famously created the Road Runner and Wile E.

Splice my magnetic poetry: Hopeful Monsters Dream Furiously.

(So let us go then, you and I, 
When the scientists no longer ask us why.)
 
Like magnetic poetry,
strung together: sticky ends,
that even biologists cannot buy.
 
We have forgotten to be playful:
wax our poetic biologies,
sculpt our plasticine bodies,
throw our proteomes carelessly into the wind.
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Liveblog: Synthetic Biology at the Interface of Science and Policy

Here's a liveblog of the colloquium "Synthetic Biology at the Interface of Science and Policy" at the University of Ottawa.

Reading Artifacts III - Material culture, objects as texts, and the wonderful group at RASI 2011

By Charles Bourne

University of King's College, Halifax.

The third of three entries about my experience at the Reading Artifacts Summer Institute this summer, a week-long event at the Canada Science and Technology museum focused on exploring material culture and its related fields.

 

Reading Artifacts II - Tours, Workshops and Lectures with RASI 2011 at the Canada Science and Technology Museum

By Charles Bourne

University of King's College, Halifax.

The second of a few entries about my experience at the Reading Artifacts Summer Institute this summer, a week-long event at the Canada Science and Technology museum focused on exploring material culture and its related fields.

August 15-19, Ottawa.

Reading Artifacts at the Canada Science and Technology Museum

By Charles Bourne

University of King's College, Halifax

The first of a few entries about my experience at the Reading Artifacts Summer Institute this summer, a week-long event at the Canada Science and Technology museum focused on exploring material culture and its related fields.

August 15-19, Ottawa.

Scientific Authority in Democratic Societies: Two Conclusions from Bentley Allan

This June, Alfred Moore and Mark Warren of the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of British Columbia convened a workshop on “Scientific Authority in Democratic Societies.” The central problem confronting the participants was, as the workshop outline said, the “ways in which science, technology and expertise have become politically problematic.” From controversies in the Food & Drug Administration in the United States to contestation over climate change in the international arena, the politicization o

Blogging Opportunities

Interested in Blogging about a Situsci event? We're looking for keen bloggers. Travel grants up to 250$ (up to 500$ for Cluster workshops) available. Keep your eye on this webpage for updates: http://www.situsci.ca/job/blogging-opportunities-travel-grants-upcoming-... Contact situsci[@]dal.ca