We are happy to invite you to our 4th talk of the Vienna STS Talk Series in 2024W:
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FutureSpace Talks by Julie Michelle Klinger
Department of Geography & Spatial Sciences, University of Delaware
October 24, 2024, 04:00 PM-05:00 PM
Extractive Labor in Extraglobal Geographies.
You can register for the talk here<https://futurespace-project.eu/futurespace-talk-registration/>
Abstract
Contemporary space activities rely on hardware, and hardware is comprised of minerals, metals, and materials wrested from the Earth by human labor. This embeds the extraglobal geographies in extractive supply chains and labour regimes on Earth, and shapes the manner in which the immensity of the cosmos is understood and engaged by diverse publics. Drawing on several examples from around the world, this talk presents a conceptual architecture for centering the politics of labor and land use in outer space geographies, while also reflexively examining the potential epistemic violence of using extractivism as a spatial analytic to link Earthly and outer space geographies.
Biography
Dr. Julie Michelle Klinger (she/her) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences at the University of Delaware, and a member of the International Standards Organization Technical Advisory Group 298: Rare Earth Supply Chain Transparency and Traceability. Dr. Klinger and her research team are supported by the National Science Foundation, The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Ford Foundation to conduct grounded yet global-scope research on competing uses for energy-transition metals, materials, and infrastructures. She has published numerous articles on rare earth elements, natural resource use, environmental politics, and outer space, including the award-winning 2018 book Rare Earth Frontiers: From Terrestrial Subsoils to Lunar Landscapes. She holds a PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley.
Organiser
Nina Klimburg-Witjes, Assist. Prof. STS Dep Vienna / PI "FutureSpace" & Joseph Popper (Postdoc Researcher, STS Dep Vienna / FutureSpace)
Location
online via zoom<https://univienna.zoom.us/j/63251489007?pwd=FBTgiIoQbHPTvmHhnjFwObba9mAGqZ.1>
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Best wishes,
Katrin Hackl
_____________
Mag. Katrin Hackl
Research Support & Communication
Department of Science and Technology Studies
University of Vienna
Universitätsstraße 7 /II/ 6th floor (NIG)
1010 Vienna / Austria
Tel.: 0043-1-4277-496007
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Dear all,
it is my pleasure to remind you of the third installment of the
Trans*formations talk series, which will take place THIS FRIDAY. The
talk is part of an event series organized by the Vienna Doctoral School
of Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy, University of Vienna,
which provides insights into recent developments in trans*
philosophizing.
This time, Eric Llaveria Caselles, currently working at the Center for
Interdisciplinary Women and Gender Studies (ZIFG) at the Technical
University Berlin, will give a talk titled "Epistemic Violence and Trans
Theory. A Cartography of Minor Truths."
When: Friday, October 18th 2024 15:00 - 16:30
Where: HS 3B, 3. Stock Neues Institutsgebäude (NIG), Universitätsstraße
7, 1010 Wien (wheelchair accessible through main entrance elevator)
If you want to follow the talk online, please join using the following
link:
https://univienna.zoom.us/j/67838003396?pwd=jmudw0UhAfnZdnkbYipm1ARVS0B28a.1
Kenncode: 0000
Abstract:
For the transsexual subject to be able to emerge as a source of credible
speech, a fundamental critique of the western epistemic and symbolic
order had to gain traction. When Susan Stryker stood up at a Lesbian and
Gay History conference in New York in 1995 and yelled “I am a
transsexual and I am not sick!”, she reclaimed the participation of the
transsexual intellectual in the production of truths, refuting
discourses of dehumanization. This inaugural scene of Trans Studies
places the undoing of epistemic violence as both a precondition and a
fundamental commitment of trans theoretical practice.
But what does this commitment to emancipatory forms of knowledge
production entail? What are the contradictions of aspiring to
anti-normative purity? What conversations can we build on the repeated
condemnation of those reproducing symbolic violence? Does this
commitment not miss the practical reason of cultural narratives? And is
it possible to separate the epistemic violence from our sense of self,
our needs and desires? Do the voices of trans people really hold the key
to an emancipatory meaning? And if we betray the idea that we just need
to let trans people speak, what then can hold the possibility of undoing
epistemic violence?
In this talk, I reflect on these questions based on my own research
trajectory, which spans topics such as trans subcultural spaces,
neuroscientific studies of (trans)gender identity and trans social
reproduction in global capitalism. The talk traces the shifts of my
theoretical practice by building a personal cartography of minor truths.
I take the term “minor truths” from the title of a show by the artist
Spence Messih. Their glasswork compositions and philosophical
considerations introduce a phenomenological sensibility in my analysis,
inspiring me to search for a language that reflects the inseparability
of theoretical standpoint from affective states, social relationships
and political conjunctures. In conversation with Messih’s work, the talk
evolves in a non-linear motion connecting five modes of epistemic
experience: abstraction, vulnerability, praxeology, dialogue and
betrayal.
Bio:
Eric Llaveria Caselles is a PhD Candidate at the Center for
Interdisciplinary Women and Gender Studies (ZIFG) at the Technical
University Berlin. His recent publications explore the limitations of
gender identity positivism and queer deconstructivism as the two main
approaches to trans theory. His research builds on current trans Marxist
proposals and historical materialist traditions of gender theory to set
the groundwork for an alternative framework in Trans Studies.
Poster Art Work credit: Spence Messih, Minor truths, 2022; Kiln formed
glass, jarrah; Install: Murray Art Museum Albury | Commissioned by
Murray Art Museum Albury | Collection: Art Gallery of NSW & Murray Art
Museum Albury | Photo: Jeremy Weihrauch
There will be snacks and drinks!
Please feel free to forward this invitation to all who might be
interested to partake.
There is also a poster attached to this email!
Looking forward to seeing you at the talk and all the best,
Flora Löffelmann
--
Flora Löffelmann, MA MA
University assistant & doctoral candidate
Department of Philosophy at University of Vienna
Pronouns: they/them (for more info see:
https://www.mypronouns.org/what-and-why/)
Happy about a gender neutral "hello"!
Dear all,
This is a Reminder and an Update to the Semester Opening Event for the
EST Master!
When? 17.10.2024, 18:30
Where? Hörsaal 3D, NIG 3rd Floor
We have also reserved a table at the Wiener Deewan, so after our lively
preparations for the next semester we want to invite you to enjoy the
evening with us!
Thanks to everybody that already responded!
Please let me (Vinzenz, vinzenz.fischer(a)univie.ac.at) know if you want
to join so I know roughly how many we are.
We hope to see you there!
Vinzenz and Philipp
We are happy to invite you to our 2nd talk of the Vienna STS Talk Series in 2024W:
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FutureSpace Talk by David Valentine
10.10.2024 16:00 - 17:00
We are thrilled to announce David Valentine's Talk on 10th October 2024, 4:00 pm
When You Look at Earthrise, You Are Seeing the Wrong Thing (Or: An Autobiography of Earth)
You can register for the talk here<https://futurespace-project.eu/futurespace-talk-registration/>
Abstract
Since the photograph Earthrise was taken - specifically, by NASA astronaut Bill Anders during Apollo 8's fourth lunar orbit on (the Earth equivalent of) December 24th, 1968 CE at 16:39:39.3 UTC- it has been analyzed exhaustively to reveal a broad range of general, universalizing, and uncompromising claims about Earth, humanness, and the future. These claims, however, are also often orthogonal to one another or even contradictory. (Here are a few: Earthrise shows a fragile biosphere endangered by human excess... or it demonstrates that human technological ingenuity can solve terrestrial problems with outer space resources... or it masks a militarized, nationalist project as a moment of sublime transcendence... or it shows that humanity is ready to leave Earth's cradle and spread life elsewhere in the cosmos....) This paper's concern, however, is not with these analyses nor with their contradictions, but rather with the curious fact of their common generality and universality despite the spatiotemporal precision and specificity of Earthrise's provenance.
In this paper, I continue my ongoing project of thinking humanness from elsewhere in the cosmos to argue that Earth's fundamental conditions (its gravity, active core, radiation profile, magnetosphere, atmospheric chemistry, solar distance, and more) can sustain multiple-and even contradictory-generalized spatiotemporal analyses of the world, humanness, and the future without the specific autobiography of any individual terrestrial analyst of Earthrise being of relevance. Indeed, I will argue that Earthrise produces the aesthetic and embodied effect, for terrestrial viewers, of looking at Earth as if you were looking at it from Earth by obscuring the specific autobiographical moment of space-based viewing; the specific human-nonhuman assemblages and the simultaneous precision and compromise demanded by the always-contingent conditions of such viewing; and their radical non-equivalence to terrestrial spatiotemporal conditions. To put it another way: Any specific Terran could write an uncompromising and general autobiography of Earth without consequence to the whole world, a possibility that cannot be extended beyond its surface where the specificity of any act can be generally and immediately consequential. I will conclude by arguing that in looking at Earthrise from elsewhere in the cosmos, a non-Terran you would see not a general view of Earth, but rather, a specific example of how terrestrial humans are privileged to look at themselves in the multiple, contradictory, and uncompromising ways that their home world still sustains.
Biography
David Valentine is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.
Organiser
FutureSpace (ERC Starting Grant Project), Department of Science and Technology Studies
Location
online via zoom<https://univienna.zoom.us/j/63251489007?pwd=FBTgiIoQbHPTvmHhnjFwObba9mAGqZ.1>
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Best wishes,
Katrin Hackl
__________
Mag. Katrin Hackl
Drittmittelreferentin
Department of Science and Technology Studies
University of Vienna
Universitätsstraße 7 /II/ 6th floor (NIG)
1010 Vienna / Austria
Tel.: 0043-1-4277-49607
katrin.hackl(a)univie.ac.at<mailto:katrin.hackl@univie.ac.at>
http://sts.univie.ac.at<http://sts.univie.ac.at/>
Dear all,
We are happy to announce the Vienna Science Studies Lab Reading-Group
Cycle of this academic year.
The overall topic will be:
Artefacts: confronting the bio-social. - There will be three sessions:
11.11.24 Langdon Winner (1980) - Do artefacts have politics? 15-16:30
27.1.25 Craver, C. F., & Dan-Cohen, T. (2024). Experimental artefacts.
15-16:30
28.4.25 Arina Aristarkhova (2016). - A feminist object 15-16:30
There is also the opportunity to do a work in progress meeting to
discuss a paper draft you are interested in receiving feedback on. If
you are interested in doing one, contact me
(sophie.juliane.veigl(a)univie.ac.at)
For now, please let us know whether you plan on attending the first
meeting. If so, send us an email, and we'll forward the reading!
Please feel free to share this invitation with others who might be
interested!
All the best,
Olesya, Elis, and Sophie
We are happy to invite you to our 3rd talk of the Vienna STS Talk Series in 2024W:
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INNORES Talk by Mike Michael
15.10.2024 17:00 - 18:30
We are thrilled to announce Mike Michaels's Talk on 15th October 2024, 5:00 pm
Inventive problems and speculative things: What can (an ontologised) aesthetics offer STS and PEST, (and vice versa)?
Abstract
In this presentation I consider how an ontologised aesthetics might play a role in contemporary Science and Technology Studies (STS) and especially Public Engagement with Science and Technology (PEST), and vice versa. Drawing on the work of Whitehead and others, an ontologised version of aesthetics is outlined and related to STS and PEST. At base, the 'research event' of STS and PEST is understood as a process whereby heterogeneous elements 'aesthetically' combine to produce a cogent actual occasion. Re-visiting three empirical examples - the artistic controversy surrounding the nanotechnology Vantablack (the 'blackest black'), the enactment of the institutional 'defeat' of the London fatberg, and the use of lay metrology as a sociopolitical tool - the paper examines how technoscientific publics are 'aesthetically rendered aesthetic'. It is suggested that an STS/PEST attuned to 'speculative things' in material culture (e.g. respectively, Stuart Semple's 'the world's pinkest pink', Mike Thompson and Arne Hendriks floating fatberg, and Matty Benedetto's Vague Ruler) further opens up how aesthetics operates in the 'research event', not least by inventively problematising the parameters of both 'aesthetics' and 'publics'.
Biography
Mike Michael is a sociologist of science and technology, and a Professor of Sociology at the University of Exeter, UK. His research interests have touched on the public understanding of science, everyday life and technoscience, biomedical innovation and culture. Recently he has worked on lay metrology, design and speculative methodology. Major publications include Actor-Network Theory: Trials, Trails and Translations (Sage, 2017) and The Research Event: Towards Prospective Methodologies in Sociology (Routledge, 2021).
Organiser
Institut für Wissenschafts- und Technikforschung
Location
Seminarraum STS, NIG, 1010 Wien, Universitätsstraße 7/II/6. Stock and online via zoom<https://univienna.zoom.us/j/63251489007?pwd=FBTgiIoQbHPTvmHhnjFwObba9mAGqZ.1> (Meeting ID: 632 5148 9007, Passcode: 789205)
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Best wishes,
Katrin Hackl
__________
Mag. Katrin Hackl
Drittmittelreferentin
Department of Science and Technology Studies
University of Vienna
Universitätsstraße 7 /II/ 6th floor (NIG)
1010 Vienna / Austria
Tel.: 0043-1-4277-49607
katrin.hackl(a)univie.ac.at<mailto:katrin.hackl@univie.ac.at>
http://sts.univie.ac.at<http://sts.univie.ac.at/>