Cultural Studies of Science and Technology (CSST)

The Cultural Studies of Science and Technology workshop brings together faculty working at the intersections of the natural sciences, humanities, and social sciences. Through reading groups, discussions of works in progress, and invited speakers, we explore the myriad ways in which scientific and technological ideas and practices take shape within, and shape, their social and cultural contexts. The workshop’s scope is interdisciplinary and expansive: we are interested in both contemporary and historical articulations of scientific and technological practice, engaging faculty from history, English, philosophy, and anthropology, among other disciplines. Members of the workshop conduct active research on such diverse topics as biotechnology, computing and information technology, nanotechnology, neuroscience, the philosophy of science, and the changing shape of scientific work under globalization.

Workshop Coordinator:

Cyrus Mody, Assistant Professor of History (MS42)
Cyrus.Mody@rice.edu

2009-10 Events

October 1, 2009, 4:30 pm
From the Érudit to the Philosophe: Judicial Culture and Academic Movement in French Englightenment
Mi Gyung Kim, HRC External Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor of History, North Carolina State University
Humanities Building 117

November 16, 2009, 5 p.m.
Protons and Protoneers: technology challenges hierarchies of proof in medical research
Helen Valier, Coordinator of the Medicine and Society Program, University of Houston
Within medical research and so-called ‘evidence-based’ practice, the randomized clinical trial (RCT) has long been the gold standard. In the field of cancer treatment a new therapeutic modality – proton therapy – threatens the hegemony of the RCT in cancer research, and by extension medical research more generally. For its boosters, the self-styled ‘protoneers’, the new technology radically re-engineers the translation of basic scientific knowledge into effective clinical practice. Within this view, the RCT stands as an out-dated and inflexible hindrance to translational medicine and threatens the continued development of new technology-based therapeutics. For the many detractors of proton therapy, the vast expense and rapid commercialization of the technology explain the refusal of the protoneers to adhere to the usual norms of medical research and practice, including adequately exposing the technique to the rigors of the RCT. The paper considers how both sides in this debate construe the nature of ‘evidence’ in medicine, and considers the possible outcome of the current controversies for the continued survival of the RCT as the gold standard for medical research..

2008-09 Events

31 October, Friday, 4 p.m.
There and Back Again: Natural History, Biodiversity, and the Problem of Locality
119 Humanities Building
James Griesemer, Professor and Chair of Philosophy, University of Calfornia, Davis
The problem of "returning" to the "same" place takes on particular philosophical significance in the context of recent conservation research at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Berkeley, aimed to resurvey regions of California studied intensively by the museum's founding director Joseph Grinnell in the early 20th century. Grinnell was a visionary naturalist who anticipated rapid ecological and evolutionary change in the state and designed his museum to detect and monitor such changes. The current director, Craig Moritz, views the museum's resurvey project as "furthering" Grinnell's vision. In this talk, I will describe Grinnell's scientific ideas, the museum's organization, and the problem of locality in biodiversity research created or made poignant by current efforts to detect the effects of climate change by revisiting Grinnell's historical field sites.
Co-sponsors: History of Philosophy Workshop, Department of History, and Department of Philosophy. Contact Jack Zammito at zammito@rice.edu

23 February, Monday, 4:30-6:30 p.m.
Seeing, Probing, Modeling: Visualizing a Nanoscale Image 
125 Herring Hall
Michael Lynch, Cornell University
Dr. Lynch's work aims to identify and distinguish different modes of nano-imaging, as a basis for critically examining, and potentially respecifying, claims about the uniqueness of visualization with probe microscopes. This talk borrows on collaborative work with Cyrus Mody to focus on a particular nano-object: the silicon (111) 7x7 surface, a phenomenon that was the focus of a series of studies in surface science in the late 20th century with a succession of instruments. This talk will draw out some tentative reflections about the distinctive properties of nano-imaging in order to examine analytic arguments about the novelty of nano-imaging and the forms of objectivity associated with it.

27 March, Friday, 4 p.m.
Tracing Radioisotopes through the Biomedical Complex, 1935-1955: From Gift Exchange to Commodification in the Atomic Age
117 Humanities Building

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Angela Creager, Associate Professor of History, Princeton University The nuclear detonations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended World War II by demonstrating the devastating power of the atom. As the smoke cleared, the U.S. government turned swiftly to advocating the peacetime benefits of nuclear knowledge. Prominent among the civilian dividends of the atomic age were radioactive isotopes—unstable variants of chemical elements that give off detectable radiation as they decay—which the Atomic Energy Commission distributed to physicians and scientists on a vast scale. Biomedical uses of artificial isotopes in therapy and as investigative “tracers” had been pioneered a decade earlier, with the invention of cyclotrons. This colloquium examines the

transition from the early history of radioisotope production by cyclotrons to their mass-production and distribution from “X-10,” the first large nuclear reactor built by the Manhattan Project. As hopes for a domestic nuclear power industry faded and the nuclear arms race took off, the U.S. government focused attention on the radioisotope program to show that atoms could cure as well as kill. As I will argue, the intersection of the military development of atomic energy with the commodification of radioisotopes as biomedical tools yielded complex effects, both propelling and constraining efforts to promote nuclear medicine and biology. This talk coincides with the annual meeting of the Lone Star Historians of Science. Co-sponsored by the Department of History.

2007-08 Events

5 October, Friday, 4:30 p.m.
Thomas Kuhn and Interdisciplinary Conversation: Why Historians and Philosophers of Science Stopped Talking to One Another
119 Humanities Building
Jan Golinski, Professor of History and Humanities, University of New Hampshire
Dr. Golinski has published research on the history of chemistry, on the problems of method in the history of science and on the social history of science in Britain in the 18th century. His most recent book is British Weather and the Climate of Enlightenment.
Co-sponsored by the History of Philosophy Workshop and the German and Slavic Studies Department.

19 March, Wednesday, 4 p.m.
Empire of Ice Cream: How Life Got Sweeter in the Postwar Soviet Union
119 Humanities Building
Jenny Smith, Postdoctoral Associate in the History of Science and Medicine Program, Duke University.