Science Studies Network

SSNet brings together faculty and graduate students at the University of Washington who share an interest in Science and Technology Studies (STS):

• history and philosophy of science;
• social and cultural studies of science and technology;
• ethics, equity and policy issues in the STEM fields;

We sponsor speakers, colloquia, workshops and conferences, and we maintain a calendar of STS-related events on the University of Washington campuses and in the region. See About SSNet and the Archive / Podcast / Blog links for the details of for the details of past SSNet programs

Notices for upcoming events are circulated through the SSNet email list and are available on the SSNet Calendar. To join SSNet and receive email notices please fill in the subscription form at the following link: SSNet Mailing List

STS News and Deadlines

NEW - Launch of the Center for Biological Futures

The 20th century and first years of the 21st have been characterized by staggering increases in biological knowledge, and by increasing worldwide use of that knowledge to manipulate and build living systems. Founded this spring at FHCRC by Roger Brent, the Center for Biological Futures is an experiment whose goal is to foster better thinking about the present and future impacts of these continuing developments on human events.

Call for Biological Futures Faculty Fellows is now open:

Biological Futures seek four University of Washington faculty to join the inaugural 2011 "Biological Futures" Summer Research Consortium, jointly sponsored by the Simpson Center for the Humanities at the University of Washington and the Center for Biological Futures at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

For details go to: http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/biofutures1011.html

STS Speakers and Discussion Groups - UW 20010-2011

A great many STS visitors are coming to the UW campus and a number of discussion groups are taking shape this year, sponsored by SSNet members’ home departments and by working groups in related areas. If you have information about any event that might be of interest to SSNet members, be sure to send us a notice for the SSNet list and we will post the date and details on our calendar, or send it directly to the SSNet email list:

SSNet contact email: ssnet@uw.edu
SSNet distribution list: ssnet_list@uw.edu

SSNet Calendar

Philosophy of Science Discussion Group

Spring Schedule

The UW Philosophy of Science Group continues its successful bi-weekly meetings this year. Its aim is to support faculty and graduate student research through a mix of readings-based meetings and discussions of work in progress by faculty and graduate students. All interested faculty and graduate students are welcome to join us! This discussion group will be meeting on Wednesdays at 3:30 in Savery 408, three or four times each quarter. To receive regular email notices of Philosophy of Science meetings, please contact:

• John Manchak (manchak@uw.edu) - Fall quarter
• Carole Lee (c3@uw.edu) - Winter quarter
• Alison Wylie (aw26@uw.edu) - Spring quarter
• or check the SSNet calendar for upcoming meetings.
  

SSNet and History of Science Work in Progress Seminar

Simon Werrett is organizing a regular weekly faculty and graduate student seminar connected to SSNet and the History of Science. This seminar is meeting through the Winter quarter 2011 on Tuesday's from 12:30 - 1:20 PM in Smith 203E. For more information, please contact:

• Antony Adler (antony.adler@gmail.com)
• Albert Miller (milleralb@gmail.com)

Lectures and Events of Related Interest

Walker-Ames and Danz Lectures:

The Danz Fund is intended to bring distinguished speakers to the UW campus who have "concerned themselves with the impact of science and philosophy on man's perception of a rational universe." (Sponsored by the UW Graduate School.)

Upcoming lectures: http://www.grad.washington.edu/lectures/

Now Urbanism: City-making in the 21st Century and Beyond

This Sawyer Seminar features a year-long program that includes a number of public symposia on topics of SSNet interest.(Funded by the Mellon Foundation; hosted by the Simpson Center.)

For the all the details: http://www.nowurbanism.org/

Geoengineeering: Science, Policy and Ethics

An interdisciplinary seminar series that will explore geoengineering as a response to climate change, supported by the College of the Environment Institute and hosted by the Program on Values. Seminar meetings are scheduled for Wednesdays through the Winter quarter at 3:30-4:50. Check the SSNet calendar for speakers and dates.

For details: http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~robwood/Geoengineering

Annual Meeting of the Columbia History of Science Group

This year’s annual meeting of the Columbia History of Science Group will again be held at the Friday Harbor Laboratories in the San Juan Islands of Washington.  The CHSG is the regional history of science organization and offers a warm, collegial environment to present papers, meet other science studies scholars, and enjoy the comforts and atmosphere of the University of Washington’s marine biological laboratories. This year’s meeting will take place March 12-14, 2010.

CHSG Call for Papers

For more details: https://www.msu.edu/~largent/chsg/

FOSEP: Forum on Science, Ethics, and Policy

FOSEP is a multidisciplinary organization of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows hosted by the Graduate School that provides a unique opportunity for dialogue about the impact of science in our world. FOSEP continues to be an exciting and rewarding way of developing leadership skills for us, its graduate student and postdoctoral members. FOSEP also organizes events about the intersection of science and society for other members of the UW and greater Seattle community..

For news and current events: https://www.fosep.org/blog/

Curriculum Development in Science and Technology Studies

A founding goal of SSNet is to coordinate and build upon the rich array of courses and programs in science and technology studies (STS) currently offered on all three UW campuses. See the Curriculum Project link for background of these initiatives. Our priority this year is to build a list of STS-relevant courses currently offered at UW. If you're teaching graduate or undergraduate courses in this area and would like to get the word out, please send us a brief description of your current and upcoming courses: ssnet@uw.edu

• For a current listing of STS-relevant courses:On-line Directory of STS Courses.
• For program details follow these links:

  History and Philosophy of Science - Major (UW Seattle)
  http://depts.washington.edu/hps/
  Science, Technology and Society - Major (UW Bothell)
  http://www.uwb.edu/sciencetechsociety

Northwest STS Consortium and Summer Institute

There is tremendous strength in STS in the Pacific Northwest; as a UW-based network, SSNet is committed to building on these collective strengths and finding ways to productively link our existing discipline and institution-specific initiatives. We’re developing a NW Regional STS Calendar – so information about all STS events at universities and colleges in the region is accessible in one place.

• If you’re sponsoring an event – speaker series, conference, workshop – send us the details and we’ll post them on our calendar:  ssnet@uw.edu    
• For current and upcoming events:  NW Regional STS Calendar

SSNet Coordinators:

• Alison Wylie (Philosophy and Anthropology)
• Simon Werrett (History)

SSNet Steering Committee:

• Sareeta Amrute (Anthropology, UW-Seattle): amrutes@u.washington.edu
• Leah Ceccarelli
  Leah Ceccarelli, Associate Professor, is a rhetorical critic and theorist. Her research focuses on interdisciplinary and public discourse about science. She also explores metacritical issues surrounding rhetorical inquiry as a mode of research. She is the recipient of several research awards, including the Rhetoric Society of America's book award and the National Communication Association's Golden Anniversary Monograph award. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in American Public Address, Public Debate, Rhetorical Criticism, Classical Rhetoric, and Rhetoric of Science. She is an affiliated faculty member with the Institute for Public Health Genetics and the Ph.D. Program in Theory and Criticism. She serves on the editorial boards of The Quarterly Journal of Speech and Rhetoric & Public Affairs.
  (Communication, UW-Seattle): cecc@u.washington.edu
• Sarah Elwood
  Sarah Elwood is Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Washington. Her research examines the social significance of spatial technologies, particularly their role in the practices and and politics of local activism, community organizing, and other modes of civic engagement. Her current research focuses on volunteered geographic information, new spatial media, and the geoweb, considering the social and political implications of interactive web-based technologies that enabling collection, compilation, mapping, and dissemination of spatial data by vast numbers of people. With colleagues at UC-Santa Barbara and Ohio State University, she is studying volunteered geographic information, examining their content and characteristics, methodologies for working with these data, and the social and political practices in which they are deployed. With Katharyne Mitchell at the University of Washington, she is conducting a 3-year project examining the role that interactive geovisualization technologies can play in fostering collaborative learning, critical thinking and civic engagement among young teens.
  (Geography, UW-Seattle): selwood@u.washington.edu
• Angela Ginorio (Women Studies, UW-Seattle): ginorio@u.washington.edu
• Mott Green (Earth and Space Sciences, UW-Seattle; University of Puget Sound): mgreene@u.washington.edu // greene@pugetsound.edu
• Lynn Hankinson Nelson (Philosophy, UW-Seattle): lynnhank@u.washington.edu
• Margaret Pugh O'Mara (History, UW-Seattle) - momara@uw.edu
• Woody Sullivan (Astronomy, UW-Seattle): woody@astro.washington.edu
• Phillip Thurtle (CHID and History, UW-Seattle): thurtle@u.washington.edu
• Matthew Weinstein (Education, UW-Tacoma): mattheww@u.washington.edu
• Simon Werrett
  Simon Werrett is Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Washington, Seattle, and a co-ordinator of the Science Studies Network. Previously he was a fellow of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, and the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. His work explores historical and geographical relationships between the sciences and the arts in Europe and Russia, principally in the early modern period. His first monograph Fireworks: Pyrotechnic Arts and Sciences in European History was recently published by the University of Chicago Press. Werrett's current research explores the history of recycling in science and medicine, and the diverse economies of recycling arts, techniques, and skills that have featured in households, workshops, factories, laboratories and hospitals in Europe and North America since the seventeenth century. Werrett will be a visiting fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Environmental Studies in Munic! h in 2011.
  
  Recent publications:

  • Fireworks: Pyrotechnic Arts and Sciences in European History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010).
  • 'William Congreve's Rational Rockets,' Notes & Records of the Royal Society, 63 (2009): 35-56.
  • 'Enlightenment in Russian Hands: The Inventions and Identity of Ivan Kulibin in Eighteenth-Century St. Petersburg,' History of Technology, 29(Nov. 2009):161-80.
  • 'Explosive Affinities: Pyrotechny, Knowledge, and the Sciences in Early Modern Europe,' in Making Knowledge in Early Modern Europe: Practices, Objects, and Texts, 1400 – 1800, Benjamin Schmidt and Pamela H. Smith, eds. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), pp. 68-89.
  (History, UW-Seattle): werrett@u.washington.edu
• Andrea Woody
  Andrea Woody is Associate Professor of Philosophy as well as Adjunct in the departments of Dance, History, and Women Studies at the University of Washington. She received her bachelor's degree from Princeton and her doctorate from the department of History & Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests include philosophy of science, history of science, aesthetics, and feminist perspectives in philosophy. She continues to investigate visual representations as part of a larger project examining how pragmatic techniques for manipulating scientific theories, such as model building and alternative forms of representation, are developed and justified by scientific communities. This work incorporates philosophical issues concerning explanation, reduction, and the rationality of theory change in science. She also has a longstanding interest in feminist epistemology as it intersects with philosophy of science. While her primary historical work has involved the early development of quantum chemistry in the 20th century, other historical interests include the chemical pedagogy of William Cullen and Joseph Black in 18th century Scotland, conceptions of the periodic law and Benjamin Brodie's chemical calculus in the late 19th century, and the inclusion, and exclusion, of women in American science classrooms and professional societies
  (Philosophy, UW-Seattle) : awoody@u.washington.edu

SSNet Calendar

Apr 26: Tuesday Colloquium in the History of Science: David Stroupe
12:30 - 1:20, Smith 306

Apr 27: Philosophy of Science Discussion Group: Paul F. A. Bartha (UBC), a selection from By Parallel Reasoning: The Construction and Evaluation of Analogical Reasoning (OUP 2010) 3:30 - 5:15, Savery 408

Apr 29: Philosophy Colloquium - Paul Bartha (UBC) - "What Can We Learn from Analogies in Mathematics?" 3:30-5:00, Savery TBA

May 3: Tuesday Colloquium in the History of Science: Eric Johnson 12:30 - 1:20, Smith 306

May 3: Gwen Ottinger(UW - Bothel), "The Biopolitics of the Fenceline" - UW BOTHEL EVENT 4:00 pm

May 7: The 5th annual Pacific Northwest Philosophy of Science meeting at Simon Fraser University