STS Theory Studio

Ali Kenner

I did not expect that students would use their potluck dish as part of their final project submission. I should have anticipated that, however. Our engagement with nonhuman actors this term involved a lot of multispecies thinking. We ate heptapod brownies – complements of the movie, Arrival. We learned about bacteria, mold, and transnational technoscience as we sampled artisan cheeses. No one was surprised by how delicious the collaborative pizza turned out. These potluck offerings were STS theory models, in edible form – nourishment for finals week at Drexel University in early December 2018.

Ann Campbell’s theory model, “Multispecies Assemblages of the Capitalocene,” December 2018.

STS Theory Studio is the final graded assignment in the “STS Theories” course I teach – a course which is required for our Master’s in Science, Technology, and Society. Theory Studio makes up 25% of the course grade. It happens over a 10-14 day period that includes the last week of classes and the final exam period. The emphasis, however, is on what happens in our seminar room over a space of about 6-8 hours: small and large group discussion; timed writing activities; concept mapping with paper and writing supplies; and collaborative theory-making. I assign sci-fi movies and novels to prepare students for Theory Studio, as well as a few mini-assignments that provide material for the in-person studio. The aim is to bring story, concept, and physical models of theory into conversation. The Studio sequence roughly happens as follows:

Friday Week 1 — Students receive STS Theory Studio prompts

[Movies or short stories, writing and research activities that draw together and organize material covered in class throughout the term]

Wednesday Week 2 — First, in-person Theory Studio (3.5 hours)

[For example, a writing activity, “If you could be any STS theory, what would you be…”, discussion of the assigned film, followed by a mapping activity that employs quotes from the film and STS texts — executed listening to the film soundtrack.]

Wednesday Week 3 — Second, in-person Theory Studio (4 hours)

[For example, enjoying potluck offerings and presentation of theory models, small group discussion, storytelling using ‘While You Were Out’ notes (see below), followed by a broader course debrief on STS pedagogy and careers futures — because these things should be explicitly talked about in all courses, in my opinion, and not just on the last day.]

Friday Week 3 — Theory Studio portfolio is due

[Students submit a written reflection, in any genre, accompanied by visuals and theory model (if not consumed during the Studio).]

Theory Studio work begins well before the end of the term, like any final evaluation. Students collectively pull concepts and quotes from readings, pooling them into a shared community document that becomes a Studio resource. One year, we printed out all the quotes for Theory Studio and used these snippets to create concept maps, and later, STS time capsules.

Drafting time capsules. December 2016.

Each time I have offered the course, the staging of the Studio, the materials, and the final products have been a bit different. One of the assignments required for the December 2018 Theory Studio was a theory model. As described above, several students used their potluck dish as their theory model. Other students modeled STS theory with art and craft supplies — cardboard, pipe cleaners, photographs, and paint — and also by incorporating other objects, such as a basketball and an iPhone. Some students used standalone physical objects and/or consumer products to narrate their chosen theory.

Drex Drexler’s double-sided theory model using sci-fi. December 2018.

This year, for example, everyone watched Arrival before the first in-person Studio. Although this film was discussed and agreed upon collectively in the weeks leading up to Theory Studio, I was (admittedly) a heavy advocate. We also layered in a second sci-fi movie or written publication that could be put in conversation with Arrival. This was inspired, in part, by Donna Haraway’s “Camille Stories”, from Staying with the Trouble (2016). What does collaborative story building look like in a STS class? Students chose the second sci-fi piece on their own: one person read Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, a serialized comic; another watched “The Monster’s are Due on Maple Street”, an episode from The Twilight Zone; Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh and episodes from Futurama were resurrected too; and of course, students watched various episodes from Black Mirror. In the end, we never made it to the Studio activity where we deployed the second sci-fi media. We simply ran out of time; this happens in Theory Studio, despite my own efforts to carefully time activities (see below). This material did make it into students’ theory models, however, and also our story-building activity.

This year we added in “While You Were Out” notes as part of our structure. It was an accident, rather than by design at the planning stage: I ran out of post-it notes. Rummaging through the Center for Science, Technology, and Society office supplies, I found half used pads of “While You Were Out” notes, which promptly (about twenty minutes before the Studio started) became the centerpiece for our storytelling activity. Students were assigned spatial sections of the classroom wall; in these assigned sections, students left each other “While You Were Out” notes that continued a line of thought from the writing activity in week one or the presentation of theory models, or from the movie or a course reading. These also started conversations as well. Students began responding to each other using this twilight technology. Sometimes the students acted as the notetaker for someone else’s message; the callers included Sheila Jasanoff, Camille from Staying with the Trouble, a CCTV camera, and the pear from the collaborative pizza.

Using ‘While You Were Out’ notes (a twilight technology) to build stories. December 2018.

The idea for Theory Studio was inspired by my time working as a teaching assistant with Dean Nieusma in Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Program in Design, Innovation, and Society, and particularly the feeling of a studio and the kinds of engagement that are possible in that timespace. Keith Murphy and George Marcus’s ethnocharette (2013) gave me ideas for Studio structure and activities, as well as outcomes. But Theory Studio also responds to the context that I’m teaching in, a Master’s program where we have a mix of students who have a variety of career trajectories: some going on to Ph.D. programs and others who will leave academia after the Master’s to work in other industries, or in some cases, who are already working professionals. My classes are often composed of a few full-time M.S. STS students, a few undergraduates who are minoring in STS or are enrolled in our B.S./M.S. program, and then about a third of the students come from other degree programs. This last group of students are looking for STS tools — methods and concepts — to bring back to their home disciplines and the work they’re doing there. It took me two years to realize that structuring assignments towards dissertation prep or a qualifying exam was not appropriate for the majority of our students. Our student community needed an evaluation structure that was open and flexible to their varied career trajectories, and relationships to STS.

Sharing language from Arrival, as well as STS concepts. December 2018.

Theory Studio engages different sensory registers as we walk around the classroom space — often in patterned ways as we move between materials and ongoing conversations. We share food and listen to music. Some segments of the Studio are done in silence, but this is a not-unfamiliar soundscape in academia, recalling the quiz or exam. But Theory Studio asks, what kinds sensory registers might we work and learn in?

While Theory Studio sounds like fun and games — and it is — it also requires the trust of students. How is Theory Studio graded? What does an assessment rubric look like for such an experiment? This two-week long activity is in many ways a performance. But it’s a performance that applies theory, presents and curates source material, interprets and creates materials, and is executed in collaboration.

I want to thank all the STS Theories students who have taken this course with me; it is an exercise in trust and communication laden with power and stakes. Theory Studio at root was inspired by our time together in class discussion and your work in course assignments. Thank you all for your work on this project, STS Theory Studio.

Texts Thought With

Dumit, J. (2014). Writing the implosion: teaching the world one thing at a time. Cultural Anthropology, 29(2), 344-362.

Fortun, K. (2009). “Figuring out ethnography.” Fieldwork isn’t what it used to be. Cornell University Press, Ithaca.

Haraway, D. J. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.

hooks, b. (2014). Teaching to transgress. Routledge.

Murphy, K. M., & Marcus, G. E. (2013). Epilogue: Ethnography and design, ethnography in design… ethnography by design. Design anthropology: Theory and practice, 251-68.

Salter, C., Burri, R. V., & Dumit, J. (2017). Art, design, and performance. The handbook of science and technology studies, 139-67.

Ali Kenner is an assistant professor of Politics and Science, Technology, and Society at Drexel University, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US. She is the author of Breathtaking: Asthma Care in a Time of Climate Change (University of Minnesota Press, 2018), and is the director of the Philadelphia Health and Environment Ethnography Lab. Her most recent project investigates experiences and responses to climate change in the city of Philadelphia.

Published: 04/22/2019