2025 Program

The 2025 STS Summer School will take place August 24-27 at the Harvard University Center for the Environment (26 Oxford Street). For additional information, please consult the official summer school map.

Sunday, August 24

Sunday, August 24

12:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Arrival & Check-in

6:30 PM
Welcome Dinner
Changsho Restaurant
1712 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02138

Monday, August 25

Location: Harvard University Center for the Environment (HUCE)
26 Oxford St, Cambridge, MA 02138

8:30 AM
Breakfast

9:00 AM
Welcome & Program Overview
Sheila Jasanoff

9:30 AM
Personal Introductions
Faculty introduce themselves and their research and students present a brief overview of their writing projects.

10:30 AM

Coffee Break

10:45 AM

Learning Session: STS Analytic Lexicon (Science, Power, and Politics)

12:00 PM
Lunch

1:00 PM
Author-Meets-Critics Block 1

  • Dan Affsprung: Prophets and their Problems: Threats to Accountability in AI Regulation Discourse
    • Reviewed by Margo Boenig-Liptsin, ETH Zürich and Søren Riis, Roskilde University
  • Vasilis Argyriou: From Unknown to Data Subject: Negotiations and the conflicting realities of datafication in detention centers 
    • Reviewed by Aziza Ahmed, Boston University and Melanie Smallman, University College London

3:00 PM
Break

3:30 PM
Author-Meets-Critics Block 2

  • Anna Gall: Performing a Politicisation of Science amidst Ecological Crises and Democratic Decline
    • Reviewed by Margo Boenig-Liptsin, ETH Zürich and Gabriel Dorthe, ETH Zürich
  • Sara Kinell: Mediating Climate: Politics and ethics in the age of eco-anxiety
    • Reviewed by Brice Laurent, Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation, Mines Paris and Søren Riis, Roskilde University

5:30 PM
Adjourn

6:00 PM
Dinner

Tuesday, August 26

Location: Harvard University Center for the Environment (HUCE)
26 Oxford St, Cambridge, MA 02138

8:30 AM
Breakfast

9:00 AM
Author-Meets-Critics Block 3 

  • Pariroo Rattan: Pathologies of Liberalism: Dueling Statistics and the Politics of Evidence in the Harvard Affirmative Action lawsuit
    • Reviewed by Onur Ozgode, Bilkent University
  • Vishnu Subrahmanyam: Forgiving Pills, Condemning Bodies: The Moral Calibration of Adherence Through Pharmacological Forgiveness
    • Reviewed by Aziza Ahmed, Boston University and Ben Hurlbut, Arizona State University

11:00 AM
Break

11:30 AM
Learning Session: Academic Writing – Responsibility, Rigor and Style

1:00 PM
Lunch

2:00 PM
Author-Meets-Critics Block 4

  • Nicole Bassoff: Putting Amazon in its Place: The Co-production of the Digital Economy and the Urban Social Compact
    • Reviewed by Ben Hurlbut, Arizona State University
  • Manuel Jung: Dissertation Chapter: Infrastructures of Scaling – How the Pursuit for Scalability Reconfigures the Experimental City
    • Reviewed by Arthur Daemmrich, Arizona State University and Brice Laurent, Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation, Mines Paris

4:00 PM
Coffee Break

4:30 PM
Learning Session: Abstracts and Abstractions

6:00 PM – Adjourn

6:30 PM

Dinner
Harvard Faculty Club
20 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138

Wednesday, August 27

Location: Harvard University Center for the Environment (HUCE)
26 Oxford St, Cambridge, MA 02138

8:30 AM
Breakfast

9:00 AM
Author-Meets-Critics Block 5

  • Hadrien Macq: Towards a constitutional approach to digital urban governance: Urban Digital Twins and the mutual constitution of problems, publics, and institutions
    • Reviewed by Gabriel Dorthe, ETH Zürich and Melanie Smallman, University College London
  • Hilton Simmet: Curves, Lines and Traps: Accounting for Quality in Development Economics
    • Reviewed by Onur Ozgode, Bilkent University

11:00 AM

Break

11:30 AM
Learning Session: Interpretive STS Analysis

12:30 PM
Lunch

1:30 PM

Author-Meets-Critics Block 6 

  • Rose Sebastian: Postcolonial Science on Display: Discourses on Science and Technology from Indian Science Museums
    • Reviewed by Arthur Daemmrich, Arizona State University and Mak Takahashi, VU Amsterdam

2:30 

Coffee Break

3:00 PM
Author-Meets-Critics Block 7

  • Lisa Claussmann: The Eventual Market. Promises and Anticipations of Carbon Capture, Transport and Storage
    • Reviewed by Stefan Schäfer, RIFS-Potsdam
  • Job Zomerplaag: When Transitions Hit Home: Public Formation and Collective Agency in the Dutch Heat Transition
    • Reviewed by Stefan Schäfer, RIFS-Potsdam and Mak Takahashi, VU Amsterdam

5:00 PM

Midweek Comment Period 

5:30 PM

Adjourn

To be followed by the 24th Annual Meeting of the Science and Democracy Network, August 28-30.