BOOK REVIEW: 'A Place for Science and Technology Studies: Observation, Intervention, and Collaboration' by Jane Calvert

Aug 11 2025

Ludovico Rella (Durham University) reviews 'A Place for Science and Technology Studies: Observation, Intervention, and Collaboration' by situating Calvert's insights on STS and place through the lens of Geography and space. This is the first of a two-part series, including a forthcoming interview with Dr. Calvert discussing the place of this text within the shifting landscape of STS.

BOOK REVIEW: 'On Hunger: Violence and Craving in America from Starvation to Ozempic' by Dana Simmons

Jun 9 2025

On Hunger: Violence and Craving in America from Starvation to Ozempic (2025; UC Press) is a timely and compelling contribution to Science and Technology Studies (STS) and History of Science (HOS). Extending common threads woven throughout their prior work on vital minimums, Dr. Dana Simmons addresses an enduring pattern in United States history: the production of hunger. This book traces the production of hunger throughout the nineteenth to the present, articulating the ways in which hunger is c...

Excremental Hauntings, or the Waste of Modern Bodies

Nov 4 2024

What does our growing obsession with shit and bodily leakage tell us about being modern, enlightened, and objective? Can we think without the dialectic of the sphincter, that alternation between containment and discharge, sovereignty and submission?

Intervention and Responses: a critical historical period for Feminist Science Studies and STS. By Daiwie Fu. Taiwan: China Times Publishing, 2022, 208 pp.

Sep 30 2024

While today feminist science studies and STS are often considered inseparable, Daiwie Fu examines their once tumultuous relationship. In this post, he offers a brief review of the convergence between feminist studies and STS.

Art and Nuclear Energy: Review of “Picturing the Invisible” Exhibition

Jun 12 2023

In this post, Hannah Star Rogers invites the readers into the growing space of art and STS exhibitions in her review of the show "Picturing the Invisible" curated by Makaoto Takahashi.

What STS can learn from reflections on African philosophy

Jun 27 2022

In this post, David Kananizadeh reflects on decolonizing STS and what Souleymane Bachir Diagne's book "The Ink of the Scholars" might contribute to this debate.

Be Kind Rewind: Backchannels Review of 2021

Jan 3 2022

This post captures the previous year of Backchannels’ publications covered as a curation of lists.

Documentary Review: Coded Bias

Mar 15 2021

When was the last time you were aware you interacted with algorithm? The politics of visibility and invisibility profoundly shape our social lives in ways we are likely unaware of. “Coded Bias” (2020) is a documentary directed by Shalini Kantayya surfacing the vast yet invisible role of artificial intelligence (AI) in the production of racialized and gendered social control.

Critical Practices for Making and Communicating Research: A Review of Kat Jungnickel’s Transmissions

Jan 18 2021

How do you make and communicate your research is the leading question of "Transmissions: Critical Tactics for Making and Communicating Research" edited by Kat Jungnickel. In the book, researchers from a broad range of disciplines present their critical tactics of turning experimental research into unconventional formats and why that matters.

Documentary Review: Seeds of Freedom

Oct 17 2020

In this re-blog, Keerthana Balaji reviews the documentary Seeds of Freedom (2012). This review can help STS scholars reflect on how agricultural research systems shape/are shaped by power and patent regimes that promote some technologies but lock out other socio-ecological innovations.

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