A turn to ontology in STS?

A thought-provoking gathering took place yesterday (25 June 2008) at Oxford University, organised by the STS group at the James Martin Institute. “Is there a turn to ontology under way in Science and Technology Studies?” – asked the provocation piece written by Steve Woolgar and colleagues. Ted Schatzki, Mike Lynch, Noortje Marres, and Arie Rip laid out their thoughts in response, each presentation accompanied by the comments of two discussants. The papers and the comments can be downloaded from the Saïd Business School website. There are also additional comments by Annemarie Mol and John Law.

Distinktion No 16: The Technologies of Politics

Issue 16 of Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory is out and  it is packed with interesting articles on the technologies of politics, several of them engaging with actor-network theory. Authors include Kristin Asdal, Noortje Marres, Peter Sloterdijk, John Law, Richie Nimmo, Guro Ådnegard Skarstad, and Nigel Thrift.

Bruno Latour to give Henry Myers Lecture 2008

The 2008 Henry Myers Lecture of the Royal Anthropological Institute will be given by Bruno Latour on 25 September 2008 at the British Museum in London. The lecture is entitled “Nature and Creation: What good is it for a man to gain his soul, yet forfeit the whole world?” Further details can be found on the RAI website. Here is the abstract:

On the Horrors of Realism: An Interview with Graham Harman

The most recent issue of Pli – The Warwick Journal of Philosophy has an interview with Graham Harman “On the Horrors of Realism.” Harman speaks to Tom Sparrow about object-oriented philosophy, phenomenology, Kant, Husserl, Heidegger’s fourfold, Meillassoux’s correlationism, Lingis, Derrida and Foucault, DeLanda’s realism and Latour’s relationism, speculative realism, Whitehead, Leibniz, Zubiri, H.P. Lovecraft and China Miéville, and of course metaphysics. Harman speaks of weird things, about the horror of the real.

4S/EASST: Actor Network Theory meets (Post) Phenomenology

The draft programme for the 2008 4S/EASST Conference in Rotterdam is now available from the 4S website [1MB PDF]. There are just too many interesting talks here for us to be able to even begin to list them, so we will stick with highlighting just the one session that is most closely in line with the ANTHEM theme: Session 1.3.16 “Actor Network Theory meets (Post)Phenomenology,” between 13:30-15:30 on 21 August 2008 in Room T3-31. Session organisers: Jack Post and Peter-Paul Verbeek. The talks:

• “I have never been Modern – nor has Postphenomenology been so,” by Don Ihde, State University of New York at Stony Brook
• “Posthuman Perceptions: on hybrids and human-technology relations,” by Peter-Paul Verbeek, University of Twente

International Journal of Actor-Network Theory and Technological Innovation

Two calls for papers from the new International Journal of Actor-Network Theory and Technological Innovation (IJANTTI):

1. for the Special Issue:”Approaches to Technological Innovation,” due 1st August 2008
2. for the regular issue: due 1st September 2008