2009 Annual Meeting

October 28 – November 1, Washington, DC

Submission deadline passed

Location

Join us at the Hyatt Regency, Crystal City, in Arlington, Virginia, just across the river from Washington, DC, conveniently located on the Metro line and close to Reagan National Airport.

Registration

Registration is now open on the 4S members portal. Register early and save. Non-members, join 4S while registering and save money. Members, renew while registering and avoid a separate transaction later.

	Early	After July 1	On-site
Professionals	$150	$225	$300
Students	$100	$150	$200

Travel to Washington

It is highly recommended that you fly into Washington/Reagan National Airport(DCA). This airport is near the city center and only 5 minutes from the hotel. There is also a free shuttle to and from the conference hotel. Please avoid flying into either Dulles Airport (IAD) or Baltimore/Washington Airport (BWI) as travel to the hotel can take hours and/or be costly. If you must fly into one of these airports, see ground transportation information for Dulles or Baltimore/Washington.

Lodging

The meeting will be held in its entirety at the Hyatt Regency, Crystal City, which is by far the most convenient hotel to the location. To get the special 4S hotel rate ($159, single or double occupancy), enter 'G-SSSS' (in the group/corporate # field) or call the central reservation line at 1-800-233-1234 and ask for the SSSS conference to get the special rate.

Travel $ for students

Please consult the travel grants page.

Exhibitors

The Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) is the oldest and largest scholarly association devoted to studying science, technology and society. The annual meeting attracts up to 1,000 scholars. Many attendees look forward to the the book exhibit for finding new books for class, for their research, and for staying current in the field. Visit the Exhibitors page for information on how to participate.

Mentorship Program

The 4S student section ("6S") is involved in ongoing efforts to mentor new faculty and students, and the Mentorship Program has become a popular part of the Annual Meeting. The goal of the project is to facilitate mentoring of individuals who are new to the conference and/or to the Society. A mentoring relationship assumes a minimum of one conversation at the annual meeting. We hope that mentoring relationships will also continue with at least two follow-up phone calls or emails during the following 12 months.

Once you are registered for the meeting, fill out the interest form at http://4sonline.org/submission/Mentorship.php.

We will match less experienced scholars with more experienced scholars and make an effort to assign mentors outside of one's university. We hope that the mentoring project will allow new scholars to feel more at home in the STS community.

Call for papers

Submissions are now closed. If you have already submitted a paper or session, you can log in to the abstract management system to edit your contact information, but you cannot edit or delete what you have already submitted. Please direct all correspondence to the Program Chairs at meeting@4sonline.org.

This year’s conference will not have a predetermined theme. Consequently, proposals for sessions and papers should emphasize how they will make innovative and timely contributions to any theme relevant to science and technology studies (STS).

Guidelines

Given the growing size of the 4S conferences and the desire to be as inclusive as possible, the program committee will need to make full use of the available time slots. Therefore, individuals may be listed for a paper presentation and one other role (such as session chair or discussant but not a second paper) for a maximum of two appearances.

Paper abstracts may be submitted individually or by a session organizer. Submissions are in the form of abstracts of 500 words or less, and must include a summary of the paper’s main arguments and methodology, as well as a brief statement on the contribution to the STS literature.

Session proposals should be limited to 500 words total, and should contain a summary and rationale for the session, as well as a brief discussion of its contribution to STS. Session proposals should list names of all session organizers and panelists, including institutional affiliations and (electronic) addresses. Session proposals should be based on the assumption of two-hour time slots with twenty minutes per presentation. A typical session may have five papers, one discussant, and a ten-minute open discussion slot. You must have a minimum of three complete paper abstracts in order to submit a session proposal. The program committee may assign additional papers to proposed sessions.

Proposals for double and triple sessions on a single topic may receive a request to consolidate the topic into one panel or to break the multiple sessions into different topics.

The meeting welcomes papers, sessions and events that are innovative in their delivery, organization, range of topics, type of public and which bring new resources to the STS community to explore these new relations and themes. Apart from traditional research papers, the conference will also welcome proposals for sessions and papers using ‘new media’ or other forms of innovative presentation.

New session format

This year, for the first time, the 4S is including a new “workshop” format. This is an opportunity for informal presentations, with presenters and other attendees seated around tables. This format is ideal for a more interactive presentation of preliminary ideas and work in progress. Authors and session organizers should indicate if they would like to be part of a workshop table. Submissions for “workshop” presentations are included under the one first-authored submission limit, stated above. It is also possible for sessions to be proposed as workshop tables.

Contact info

For more information, contact the 4S program co-chairs, Barbara Allen and Daniel Breslau, at meeting@4sonline.org.