4S Mission
Fostering interdisciplinary and engaged scholarship in social studies of science, technology, and medicine across the globe.
Latest 4S News
4S Palestine Forum | Contributions Call
Published On: Jul 30, 2024
The 4S Palestine Forum, launched earlier this year as the initial project of the Working Group on War and Genocide that was initiated at 4S Honolulu in 2023, is welcoming further contributions.
Please submit new short blog-style entries, as well as references to published work, syllabi, and other resources by writing info@4sonline.org.
View the Palestine Forum in its entirety here: https://www.4sonline.org/palestine_forum.php
CfP | InterAcademy Partnership Competitive Grants
Published On: Oct 18, 2024
Deadline: Dec 2, 2024
The InterAcademy Partnership (IAP) invites proposals from IAP member academies and regional networks, for projects that would help advance IAP’s mission and strategic goals. Proposed projects should preferably be collaborative across member academies and regional networks. Priority will be given to project proposals that aim to establish or continue support for collaborations across disciplines (for example, collaborations across academies of science, medicine and engineering), especially ...
CfP | Medical and Health Humanities: Global Perspectives 2025
Published On: Oct 4, 2024
Deadline: Dec 15, 2024
The 3rd international conference on Medical and Health Humanities: Global Perspectives 2025 in Doha, Qatar on February 7-8, 2025 invites abstracts for oral presentations and posters on the topics of: narrative medicine, medical sociology, philosophy of medicine, medical ethics and narrative ethics, literature and medicine, arts therapies and arts-in-health, healthcare communication, the history of medicine and other humanistic initiatives in health and medicine.
Abstract Submission Deadline: ...
4S Publications
Science, Technology, and Human Values
For more than forty years, Science, Technology, & Human Values has provided the forum for cutting-edge research and debate in the field of science and technology studies.
Co-developing Materials in the Metamorphic Zone: Extending Bacteriocentricity
Tiago Moreira
Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
Engineered living materials (ELMs) are composite technologies that respond to environmental cues, and are able to remodel, self-organise and self-heal. Proposed as a fusion...
Theaters of Algorithmic Transparency and the Politics of Exemplarity
Loup Cellard
Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
This article shows how transparency practitioners seeking to enhance the understandability of French housing tax algorithms produced slow disclosures they claim to be “exemplary.”...
Training Future Comrades: Gender Pedagogy and Model Train Sets in the German Democratic Republic
Mario Bianchini
Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
This article investigates how model train sets became a medium for the marketing and development of East German technological utopianism, particularly in order to recruit...
Geological (Dis)orientations: Training Sites, Storytelling, and Fieldwork in the Chilean Andes
Martín Fonck
Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
This article explores place-based geological storytelling by examining the role of training sites in the geoscientific learning process. Based on ethnographic work conducted...
Translating Law and Code in Government: Algorithmic Decisions and Their Legal Effects in Canada
Mike Zajko
Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
This article analyzes the translation of law into computer code and the use of automated decision-making systems in government to make legal distinctions. Specifically,...
Engaging Science, Technology and Society
Engaging Science, Technology, & Society is an online, open access publication of The Society for Social Studies of Science.
Caring for Scholarship in Transition
Published On: Apr 15 2024
Ali Kenner, Clément Dréano , Noela Invernizzi , Duygu Kaşdoğan , Aalok Khandekar , Angela Okune , Grant Jun Otsuki , Sujatha Raman , Tim Schütz , Federico Vasen, Amanda Windle , Emily York
This editorial briefly reflects on the idea of transition—a theme that cuts across energy systems, migration, and education, to name a few—and is likely familiar to many readers. In this issue, we focus on transition within...
Collaborative Ethnography and Matters of Care in Counterspaces
Published On: Apr 22 2024
Coleen Carrigan, Joyce Yen, Cara Margherio, Christine Grant, Claire Horner-Devine, Eve Riskin, Julie Ivy, Burren Peil
This paper offers a reflexive analysis of an interdisciplinary and cross-race collaboration to advance equity in engineering called LATTICE (Launching Academics on the Tenure-Track: an Intentional Community in Engineering). We...
Algorithms in the Margins: Organized Community Resistance to Port Automation in the Los Angeles Harbor Area
Published On: Apr 22 2024
Taylor M Cruz, Jaewoo Park, Emily Moore, Austin Chen, Andrea Gordillo
Public deliberations on artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) provoke strong interest in automation, or the perceived displacement of human labor due to general technological advances. Social science scholarship...
Maintenance and Its Knowledges: Functional Exploration, Biographical Supervision, and Behavioural Examination
Published On: Apr 22 2024
Jérôme Denis, Daniel Florentin, David Pontille
This introductory article to the thematic collection entitled “Maintenance and its Knowledges” makes a significant departure from breakdown-centred studies. It foregrounds the epistemic virtues of maintenance, a practice that...
4S Blog: Backchannels
Zines as communication tools to engage the public in debates about technology
Bee smellscapes: olfactory relations in urban everyday ecologies
Excremental Hauntings, or the Waste of Modern Bodies
Border leakages: counting deaths in the Mediterranean
Backchannels content is contributed by our members to highlight news relevant to their work.
Making and Doing: STS Beyond the Four Corners of the Paper
4S on Twitter
Tweets by 4sWebSTS News
Items submitted by the community and emailed to members monthly.
4S Palestine Forum | Contributions Call
Please submit new short blog-style entries, as well as references to published work, syllabi, and other resources by writing info@4sonline.org.
View the Palestine Forum in its entirety here: https://www.4sonline.org/palestine_forum.php