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__**Professional Development Seminar (ProSeminar) **__ Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Science and Technology Studies Fall 2012 Wednesday, 3-6 pm Sage Lab 5711

Mike Fortun Sage 5112, X6598 fortum@rpi.edu Office hours: by appointment

__**Overview **__ This seminar is designed to help you develop the professional skills needed for a successful career as a scholar. "Peer review" is a driving principle of scholarship, and is central to the content and structure of the course. The syllabus is constructed around articles recently published in some of the most important STS (and related) peer-reviewed journals. Other readings concern current issues in academic work and life, such as open access, funding, academic governance, and related issues.

__**Expected Learning Outcomes **__ After successfully completing this seminar, students will: > relevant sources of guidance/support.
 * Understand the range of professional skills required for success in the field of STS and know how to find
 * Produce original written work, appropriate to their stage in the graduate program.
 * Give effective oral presentations and respond thoughtfully to feedback.
 * Offer constructive peer review of written work.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Offer constructive questions and feedback on professional presentations.

The course objectives and expectations are flexible, tailored to students' particular stage in the graduate program, but in general: The main objective is to establish a place of conversation about the current state of the field(s) of science and technology studies, as reflected in the (relatively) recent articles published in a range of journals where STS scholars publish. Some of the articles chosen are by established scholars, others by scholars who have completed their graduate studies more recently. These journals and articles embody different professional styles, topical areas, and intellectual genealogies, and provide windows into the current state of the many different professional "conversations" animating science and technology studies -- conversations which you will be joining as young scholars. Our main objective is to have an open and felicitous conversation about those conversations, and to facilitate your entry into them.
 * __Course Objectives and Expectations__**

Each participant in the proseminar will be responsible for introducing at least one of the selected readings -- or a related one, to be introduced on a week-by-week basis -- and contextualizing it either "horizontally" (other conversations that journal has hosted, or other work that author has done) or "vertically" (the genealogies of authors, questions, concepts, and research the article draws upon). Each participant will also write an abstract for a (real or imagined) paper at a (real or imagined) conference or workshop; these will be due halfway through the semester, and we will collectively discuss and rewrite them. Each participant will also prepare a fifteen-minute (real or imagined) talk based on the abstract, to be presented during the last class session.

For students working toward the portfolio review process, you should write at least 5 annotations (~3-5 pp. each) of an article on the syllabus or a related article, or some equivalent thereof. Many students use the annotation template, but you can use any other "thick" method that works for you. The other writings expected are the abstract and the presentation. Students who are beyond the portfolio review process will negotiate assignments with the instructor. All written work must be completed and turned in by the last day of class.

__**Grading**__ Seminar participants who are consistently active in discussion, complete at least 5 article or book annotations or the equivalent thereof, and complete a presentation abstract and in-class presentation, will receive a grade of A. Participants who regularly refrain from discussion, complete fewer than 5 annotations or equivalent, or do so only partially or unsatisfactorily, or who do not do complete an adequate abstract and presentation will receive a grade of B or lower.


 * __Aug 29__** Introductions

Alexander Galloway, "Protocol" (Theory, Culture, and Society) The article version: The book version:
 * __Sep 5__**

Also scan the Table of Contents for this issue of TCS: http://tcs.sagepub.com/content/23/2-3.toc

Paul N. Edwards, "How To Read" http://pne.people.si.umich.edu/PDF/howtoread.pdf

__**Sep 12**__

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Gary Lee Downey, Joseph Dumit, and Sharon Traweek, “Corridor Talk”, in Gary Lee Downey and Joseph Dumit (eds) Cyborgs and Citadels: Anthropological Interventions in Emerging Sciences and Technologies, School of American Research Press, 1998. http://www.downey.sts.vt.edu/assets/pdfs/1998%20Coridor%20Talk,%20Cyborgs%20&%20Citadels.pdf

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit;">Kristin Asdal, " <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #111111; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Contexts in Action—And the Future of the Past in STS," <span class="site-title" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; text-align: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Science, Technology & Human Values <span class="cit-print-date" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; text-align: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">July 2012 <span class="cit-vol" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; text-align: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">37 <span class="cit-sep cit-sep-after-article-vol" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; text-align: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">: <span class="cit-first-page" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; text-align: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">379 <span class="cit-sep" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; text-align: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">- <span class="cit-last-page" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; text-align: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">403 <span class="cit-sep cit-sep-after-article-pages" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; text-align: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">, <span class="cit-sep cit-sep-before-article-ahead-of-print-date" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; text-align: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">first published on <span class="cit-ahead-of-print-date" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; text-align: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">April 17, 2012 <span class="cit-sep cit-sep-before-article-doi" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; text-align: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">doi: <span class="cit-doi" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; text-align: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">10.1177/0162243912438271 http://sth.sagepub.com.libproxy.rpi.edu/content/37/4/379.full.pdf+html

BEYOND: Lorrains Daston, "Science Studies and the History of Science," Critical Inquiry 35 (2009) http://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/uploads/pdf/Daston,_Science_Studies.pdf

Michael M.J. Fischer, "Four Genealogies for a Recombinant Anthropology of Science and Technology" Cultural Anthropology 22:4 (2007): 539-615.

__**Sep 19**__ <span class="cit-auth cit-auth-type-author" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Paul N. Edwards <span class="cit-sep cit-sep-separator" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">, <span class="cit-auth cit-auth-type-author" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Matthew S. Mayernik <span class="cit-sep cit-sep-separator" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">, <span class="cit-auth cit-auth-type-author" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Archer L. Batcheller <span class="cit-sep cit-sep-separator" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">, <span class="cit-auth cit-auth-type-author" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Geoffrey C. Bowker <span class="cit-sep cit-sep-separator" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">, <span class="cit-sep cit-sep-last-separator" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">and <span class="cit-auth cit-auth-type-author" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Christine L. Borgman <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #111111; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline;">"Science friction: Data, metadata, and collaboration," Social Studies of Science October 2011 41 <span class="cit-sep cit-sep-after-article-vol" style="color: #222222; font-size: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">: 667 - 690 <span class="cit-sep cit-sep-after-article-pages" style="color: #222222; font-size: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">, <span class="cit-sep cit-sep-before-article-doi" style="color: #222222; font-size: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">doi: 10.1177/0306312711413314 http://sss.sagepub.com/content/41/5/667.abstract

BEYOND: <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit;">Sean Lawson, " <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #111111; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Surfing on the edge of chaos: Nonlinear science and the emergence of a doctrine of preventive war in the US," <span class="site-title" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Social Studies of Science <span class="cit-print-date" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">August 2011 <span class="cit-vol" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">41 <span class="cit-sep cit-sep-after-article-vol" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">: <span class="cit-first-page" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">563 <span class="cit-sep" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">- <span class="cit-last-page" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">584 <span class="cit-sep cit-sep-after-article-pages" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">, <span class="cit-sep cit-sep-before-article-doi" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">doi: <span class="cit-doi" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">10.1177/0306312711402866 http://sss.sagepub.com/content/41/4/563


 * __Sep 26__**

Ben Brucato, Toward a Peak Everything Post Anarchism. Note from Ben: This document has been accepted for publication in an Anarchist Studies special issue on technology. I need to accomplish 2 things with a revision based on your commentaries: 1) I need to trim about 550 words from the manuscript, and 2) I need to better relate the condition (environmental crises) to the suggested adaptations (an antiauthoritarian technological assessment). The intention is to show that this condition makes more apparent something always relevant in TA from an antiauthoritarian position: scarcity (as it relates to justice) and division of labor. How can I make this case more strongly and concisely? Beyond these matters, the last two sections will be expanded for a book chapter the co-editors of the journal have asked me to submit. If more space were available, what would make these sections stronger?

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Hirsh, R. F. (2011). Historians of technology in the real world: Reflections on the pursuit of policy-oriented history. //<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> Technology and Culture, ////<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">52 //<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">(1), 6-20. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/863442873?accountid=28525

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Lerman, N. E. (2010). Categories of difference, categories of power: Bringing gender and race to the history of technology. //<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Technology and Culture, ////<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">51 //<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">(4), 893-918. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/851868861?accountid=28525


 * __Oct 3__**

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Brit Ross Winthereik and Helen Verran, "Ethnographic Stories as Generalizations that Intervene," Science Studies 25:1 (2012) http://www.sciencestudies.fi/v25n1Winthereik%2526Verran

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Anders Kristian Munk & Sebastian Abrahamsson, "Empiricist Interventions: Strategy and Tactics on the Ontopolitical Battlefield," <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Science Studies 25:1 (2012) http://www.sciencestudies.fi/v25n1MunkAbrahamsson

BEYOND: Smith, Barbara Herrnstein. 2002. "Cutting-Edge Equivocation: Conceptual Moves and Rhetorical Strategies in Contemporary Anti-Epistemology." South Atlantic Quarterly 101, no. 1: 187. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed August 15, 2012). http://search.ebscohost.com.libproxy.rpi.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=7310767&site=ehost-live


 * __Oct 10__**

James Wilcox, 4S presentation

Adrian Johns, "Intellectual Property and the Nature of Science," Cultural Studies 20:2-3 (March/May 2006):145-164. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=20213134&site=ehost-live

http://www.adrianjohns.com/about/

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,'Lucida Grande',Geneva,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Deeb, H. N. and Marcus, G. E. (2011), In the Green Room: An Experiment in Ethnographic Method at the WTO. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 34: 51–76. doi: 10.1111/j.1555-2934.2011.01138.x

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1555-2934.2011.01138.x/full

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Cary Nelson, “The Three-Legged Stool: Academic Freedom, Shared Governance, and Tenure “ chapter 1 in //No University Is An Island: Saving Academic Freedom// New York University Press, 2010. http://www.nyupress.org/webchapters/nelson_nouniversity1.pdf
 * __Oct 17__**
 * __ABSTRACT FOR PRESENTATION DUE (250-500 words)__**
 * __ABSTRACTS__**


 * __Oct 24__**

Michele Lamont, How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment (Harvard University Press, 2009) http://opac.lib.rpi.edu/search~S1?/alamont%2C+michele/alamont+michele/1%2C1%2C3%2CB/frameset&FF=alamont+michele+1957&2%2C%2C3


 * __Oct 31__**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">On Adaptive Optics: The Historical Constitution of Architectures for Expert Perception in Astronomy <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Ian Lowrie, from //Spontaneous Generations//

Barbara Fister, "<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Public Versus Publishers: How Scholars and Activists are Occupying the Library," //Anthropologies Project// Issue 12 (March 2012) http://www.anthropologiesproject.org/2012/03/public-versus-publishers-how-scholars.html

Jason Baird Jackson, "We Are the One Percent: Open Access in the Era of Occupy Wall Street," //Anthropologies Project// Issue 12 (March 2012) http://www.anthropologiesproject.org/2012/03/we-are-one-percent-open-access-in-era.html


 * __Nov 7__**

<span style="display: block; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">SARA WYLIE, "Hormone Mimics and their Promise of Significant Otherness," Science as Culture Vol. 21, No. 1, 49–76, March 2012 added 10:34am Nov. 7 by Ben - http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09505431.2011.566920

<span style="display: block; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">Review also the PLOTS (Public Laboratory) website.

Nov 14 [|A236333268&docType=GALE&role=|Bernard Stiegler: philosophy, technics, and activism]. Patrick Crogan. <span class="citation-publication" style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline;"> [|Cultural Politics]. <span class="citation-volNumber" style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline;">6.2 <span class="citation-pubDate" style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline;">(July 2010) <span class="citation-page" style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline;">p133. <span class="citation-wordcount" style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Word Count: 10273. <span class="title" style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;"> [|A236333271&docType=GALE&role=|Technology and politics: a response to Bernard Stiegler]. <span class="author" style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; vertical-align: baseline;">Richard Beardsworth. <span class="citation-publication" style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline;"> [|Cultural Politics]. <span class="citation-volNumber" style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline;">6.2 <span class="citation-pubDate" style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline;">(July 2010) <span class="citation-page" style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline;">p181. <span class="citation-wordcount" style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Word Count: 8105.


 * __Nov 28__**

Kali Tal, "It's a Beastly Crowd I Run With: Theory and the 'New University',"<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> in //Day Late, Dollar Short: The Next Generation and the New Academy//, ed. Peter C. Herman (New York: State University of New York Press) 2000. http://kalital.com/Text/Articles/roughcrowd.html

Weed, Elizabeth. 2010. "Reading for Pleasure." //Differences: A Journal Of Feminist Cultural Studies// 21, no. 1: 209-217.Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed August 15, 2012) http://search.ebscohost.com.libproxy.rpi.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=51153147&site=ehost-live

All written work must be completed and turned in by the last day of class.
 * __Dec 5__** Presentations