CONDITIONS: What external conditions have influenced this STS formation?

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June 16, 2021

What is made newly possible, and stands to be compromised, in the political moment that calls for the kind of critical enquiry that STS has been engaged in for years? My Society and Technology course for first year students opens with some screenshots of Twitter exchanges -one between Elon Musk and Langdon Winner (!) and one between Lilly Irani and Tristan Harris. The former serves as a theatre of what it means to claim technologies without politics, the latter demonstrates the tech hubris that demands the invention of what one is ignorant of, as Harris proposed a new field of "Society and Technology Interaction" and Irani pointed out that STS, amongst other disciplines, had been around for years. Where I write from (Denmark) the 'social crises' about tech of the last few years have not opened up new courses or programs, but have been cause for reflection within our institutions about *how* we teach, how we engage interdisciplinarity, how we handle the stories students are immersed in (and the Netflix shows they come to class having watched), where we intervene in an 'easy' narrative about the social which (here) can all too quickly 'how can 'society' accept 'technology'. The discussions locally have left me with a lot of questions about the means and ends of classroom activities, from structuring syllabi to engage with the "external conditions" (to use the annotation language) to the techniques that are generative of the critical positions we want to see our students developing. I am really looking forward to hearing all the stories of STS pedagogies over these sessions.

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