STS News

Submitting items to 4S and Technoscience Updates

Please help 4S serve the STS community. Send items for the STS News pages and the Technoscience Updates newsletter using the following Form. Any problems, do email: stsnews@4sonline.org. Items may be edited for length. Please include a URL for the complete and authoritative information.

The monthly deadline for inclusion in the newsletter is the 12th.


4S members receive a monthly digest of the news in these pages via email. Join today.


CfP | "Negative Space" multidisciplinary special issue

Published On: Apr 8 2025

Deadline: May 15, 2025

This proposed special issue invites contributors to explore how “negative space”, whether as a theoretical heuristic or research methodology, produces new meanings, responses, and relationships. In visual arts, negative space refers to the constitutive background, or the surrounding imprint that helps to shape the foregrounded subject or object in a visual field. Inspired by this concept, this special issue brings together multidisciplinary researchers and artists who engage with the political implications of reorienting our gaze away from the so-called “positive space”...

New Book | Indigenous Currencies: Leaving Some for the Rest in the Digital Age

Published On: May 8 2025

Indigenous Currencies follows dynamic stories of currency as a meaning-making communication technology. Settler economies regard currency as their own invention, casting Indigenous systems of value, exchange, and data stewardship as incompatible with contemporary markets. In this book, Ashley Cordes refutes such claims and describes a long history of Indigenous innovation in currencies, including wampum, dentalium, beads, and, more recently, the cryptocurrency MazaCoin. By looking closely at how currencies developed over time through intercultural communication, Cordes argues that Indigenous c...

Leiden | PhD: Paper Mills and Systematic Manipulation in Research Publishing

Published On: May 8 2025

Deadline: May 13, 2025

The past decade has seen the proliferation of paper mills, defined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) as operations through “which manufactured manuscripts are submitted to a journal for a fee on behalf of researchers with the purpose of providing an easy publication for them, or to offer authorship for sale”. Research also suggests an uptick in related forms of systematic manipulation of the publishing process, such as fraudulent editorial handling and peer review as well as mechanisms to artificially inflate citations to manuscripts.

CfP | Special Issues in Science, Technology, & Human Values

Published On: Apr 13 2025

Deadline: Jun 21, 2025

The editorial group of Science, Technology, & Human Values is happy to announce the journal’s annual Call for Proposals for Special Issues. Since 1972, Science, Technology, & Human Values has provided a forum for cutting-edge research and debate in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). This is a collectively edited, peer-reviewed, transnational, interdisciplinary journal containing research, analyses and commentary on the development and dynamics of science and technology, with a focus on their relationship to politics, economy, society and culture. ST&HV publi...

New Book | Ethical Assemblages of Artificial Intelligence: Controversies, Uncertainties, and Networks

Published On: May 8 2025

This book critically examines the ethical challenges of Artificial Intelligence (AI), focusing on facial recognition and AI-assisted reproductive technologies. It explores how these issues intertwine with social and political processes and power dynamics in digital societies. What defines ethical versus unethical in the realm of AI? Why do some ethical debates dominate, while others are overlooked? Which actors and institutions align or diverge in these discussions? To address these questions, Helena Machado and Susana Silva introduce the concept of "ethical assemblages," offering fr...

TUM | Postdoc for PARTIALJUSTICE

Published On: May 8 2025

Deadline: May 16, 2025

We are looking for a postdoctoral research associate beginning in September 2025 or shortly after, for a term of 4 years. The postdoc will join the ERC-Starting Grant project team on “Participatory Algorithmic Jus-tice: A multi-sited ethnography to advance algorithmic justice through participatory design” (PARTIALJUSTICE) to examine issues of justice and participation in artificial intelligence (AI). Despite its potential, AI is known to reinforce inequalities and result in negative consequences, for example, racial or gender bias, dis-crimination, or surveillance. This project adv...

CfP | "Tech Oligarchy" Science as Culture Forum

Published On: Mar 17 2025

Deadline: Jul 31, 2025

Echoing US President Eisenhower’s warning about the rise of a ‘military-industrial complex’ over 60 years ago, President Biden’s farewell address in January 2025 did something similar, stating: “Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights, the freedoms and the fair shot for everyone to get ahead”. Cautioning against the concentration of wealth and concomitant political influence it brings, Biden’s words can be seen as the most visible statement of the growin...

CfP | "Radiant Futures" Spiral Research Centre

Published On: Apr 10 2025

Deadline: May 15, 2025

The Spiral Research Centre at the University of Liège is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2025. Created in 1995, Spiral has developed into a vibrant STS community practicing fundamental and applied research, methodological innovation and interdisciplinary conversation across the social sciences and humanities. An anniversary provides the occasion to pause and reflect on past, present and future; it is a moment of recollection and anticipation: to single out and emphasize what matters. Remembering, looking ahead, and celebrating work best in the good company of others, which is why Sp...

KWI | PostDoc in Anthropology, Urban Studies, STS

Published On: May 8 2025

Deadline: May 19, 2025

We are seeking a Postdoctoral Researcher with expertise in cultural anthropology, critical urban studies and/or science and technology studies. The ideal candidate has strong qualifications in qualitative empirical research as well as a proven record of engaging with concepts and theories of technology, urbanism and culture. The research will primarily concentrate on ethnographies of urban politics of artificial cold and local cultures of cooling as well as on the history and theory of artificial atmospheres and thermal governance. Fieldwork will require travel to relevant urban sites around t...

New Book | Transport Truths: Planning Methods and Ethics for Global Futures

Published On: May 8 2025

Ideal for researchers and practitioners looking for fresh approaches to transport problems, this book combines cutting-edge qualitative and quantitative knowledge to inform transport futures. It uses engaging case studies of the Banjul Airport Expansion in The Gambia, and the Interstate 35 development project in Austin, US to show how and why a transdisciplinary approach can result in better planning decisions.

View All Entries