What is 4S?
The Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) is an international, nonprofit scholarly society founded in 1975. 4S fosters interdisciplinary and engaged scholarship in social studies of science, technology, and medicine (a field often referred to as STS). Membership in the society is open to anyone interested in understanding developments in science, technology, or medicine in relation to their social contexts.
All About 4S Membership
For renewals, the member directory, and meeting registration, visit the Member Portal.
4S News
4S President’s message – October 2017
10/17/2017
4S Community,
As extreme events surround us (with floods, fires, guns and sexism, among other threats), the significance of STS and 4S is all the more clear to me. We have lots to work on!
Towards this, discussion at the 4S Council fall meeting focused on the long range and big picture, considering an array of...
(...more)New Publisher Discounts
10/03/2017
The MIT Press is now offering 4S members 30% discounts on STS books and individual journal subscriptions.
(...more)Call for Open Panels
10/02/2017
4S Sydney, Aug 29-Sep 1st 2018. Deadline for Submission: November 1st, 2017. Open panel topics, once accepted by the Program Committee, will be included in the general call for papers that will open on Dec 1st.
(...more)4S President’s message – September 2017
09/17/2017
As many of you have have heard me say before, I deeply appreciate the diverse places from which STS comes, and think STS knowledge has great theoretical as well as practical relevance in the contemporary world. I hope to help build 4S community and organizational capacity that supports STS teaching, research and practice in different contexts, while continuing to build STS across borders of many kinds.
(...more)Backchannels
Backchannels provides an outlet for alternative-format scholarly communications, publishing shorter, timelier, media-rich communiques of interest to the global STS community.
Engendering Alice and Bob
Reflections / Quinn DuPont and Alana Cattapan
Quinn DuPont and Alana Cattapan critically engage with the fictional characters of Alice and Bob. Characters that are meant to convey complex concepts – and thereby represent and reinforce gender norms in fields where women are already few.
The Space Between with Elina Mäkinen
Reflections / Aleka Gurel
Dr. Elina Mäkinen discusses her recent ST&HV article, "Action in the Space Between: From Latent to Active Boundaries."Describing and intervening: Exploring the plurality of STS in India
Report-backs / Joseph Satish V
Notes from a workshop and public lecture in the University of Hyderabad in India, where Prof. Wiebe Bijker engaged with themes around science, knowledge and responsible research.
Editorial Director Ken Wissoker on why he loves peer review
Reflections / Ken Wissoker
I always urge a symptomatic approach. Why would someone suggest that something needed to be done at all? What wasn’t working that required a solution? It’s the author’s manuscript!
A Yolngu matha translation for 4S Sydney
Reflections / Michaela Spencer
Michaela Spencer reports back on her experience of creating with Yirriṉiṉba ‘Yinin’ Dhurrkay an abstract in Aboriginal language – and a potential opening within 4S for Yolngu epistemic sensibilities to be listened to and respected.
The Anthropocene in Chile: notes from an experimental thinkshop
Report-backs / Manuel Tironi
Meeting to propose different ways of thinking and discussing the anthropocene in ChileProvincializing STS: an EASTS Forum on how East Asia complicates the STS Landscape
Report-backs / Wen-Hua Kuo
A synthesis of Provincializing Forum its reflections and contributions available until 2 September.The Third Year of #QueerSTS4S and Call for 2018 Organizers
Projects / Mitali Thakor and Stephen Molldrem
We continue to conceptualize these meetups as part of a much broader set of activities focused on building queer approaches within STS and supporting the emotional labor of individuals who are actively involved in this work.
Doing ethnography of and with rocks
Report-backs / Alison Marlin
Alison Marlin uses two ethnographic encounters with rocks – by Helen Verran and Sophia Roosth – to reflect on the stories these seemingly unlively objects may hold.
Self-driving cars with Nassim JafariNaimi: New Research in ST&HV
Reflections / Aleka Gurel
Professor Nassim JafariNaimi discusses her recent ST&HV article, "Our Bodies in the Trolley’s Path, or Why Self-driving Cars Must *Not* Be Programmed to Kill."New in...
Making and Doing Politics Through Grassroots Scientific Research on the Energy and Petrochemical Industries
Sara Wylie, Nick Shapiro, Max Liboiron
Materializing Exposure: Developing an Indexical Method to Visualize Health Hazards Related to Fossil Fuel Extraction
Sara Wylie, Elisabeth Wilder, Lourdes Vera, Deborah Thomas, Megan McLaughlin
Participatory Air Monitoring in the Midst of Uncertainty: Residents’ Experiences with the Speck Sensor
Jacob Robert Matz, Sara Wylie, Jill Kriesky
Compromised Agency: The Case of BabyLegs
Max Liboiron
The Civic Informatics of FracTracker Alliance: Working with Communities to Understand the Unconventional Oil and Gas Industry
Kirk Jalbert, Samantha Malone Rubright, Karen Edelstein
Crowdsourcing Undone Science
Gwen Ottinger
A Wary Alliance: From Enumerating the Environment to Inviting Apprehension
Nicholas Shapiro, Nasser Zakariya, Jody Roberts
Game Design as STS Research
Joseph Dumit
Living with Oil and Gas and Practicing Community Conducted Science
Deborah Thomas
New in...
Technoscience Updates
The most recent postings to the Profession pages, emailed monthly to 4S members.