- HPS_EST - Philosophy bulletin board

Vienna STS Talks x INNORES Talk by Sarah Schönbauer

by Katrin Hackl

We are happy to invite you to our 9th talk of the Vienna STS Talk Series in 2025S: [cid:image001.png@01DBB438.76AD78D0]<https://sts.univie.ac.at/news-events/details/news/innores-talk-by-sarah-sch…> 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 [cid:image002.jpg@01DBB438.76AD78D0]<https://sts.univie.ac.at/>

5 months, 3 weeks

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Mini Workshop on AI and Computing TODAY, 17:00 - 19:15, NIG 3D

by Alexander Gschwendtner

Dear all, The Philosophy of Science Group at the Department of Philosophy cordially invites you to this mini workshop, taking place *today, 17:00 - 19:15 at NIG, Room 3D*. You can also join via Zoom: https://univienna.zoom.us/j/61325403480?pwd=csc5Ipp2tkz9MjwbvFioVELyphZW6u.1 *Mini workshop on AI and computing — 20.05.2025* Lecture Room 3D (Room D0316, 3rd floor) Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Vienna Organized by: Univ.-Prof. Tarja Knuuttila 17:00 -18:00 Dr. Nick Wiggershaus (University of Lille) * * *Computational Artifacts and the Problem of Creation* As computer science integrates principles from logic, engineering, and physics, the ontological status of its core entities, such as computer programs, remains contested. Programs are often characterized as hybrids that have a “dual nature.” In attempts to untangle such hybrids, philosophers of computing have applied the concept of ‘technical artifact’ (combining teleological function and physical structure) to computing. While productive, it overlooks a notorious problem from the philosophy of art: the /Problem of Creation/, which asks how abstract objects like musical works or novels can be brought into existence through concrete human activity. I argue that, like repeatable artworks, computational artifacts have different representational modes (e.g., symbolic, mathematical, diagrammatic) and implementational media (e.g., ink on paper, chalk on a whiteboard, electrical signals, punched cards, etc.). Just as a novel or a musical work is not identical to any one performance or copy, a computer program persists across implementations. This invites a philosophical conundrum: How can programmers /create /abstract objects that are not located in space or time? By appropriating solutions to the Problem of Creation, we gain alternative ways to characterize the ontological status of programs and other computing objects. I conclude by exploring whether we can understand computational artifacts as /abstract /technical artifacts. 18:15-19:15 Dr. Laura Savolainen (University of Helsinki) *Emperor’s New Crowds: “Untrustworthy” Workers and “Ground Truth”* Ground-truth datasets are supposed to nail down facts about the “world” represented by data, so that machine learning models trained on them will behave reliably in that same world. Yet when annotation is outsourced to platform workers whom engineers do not know, and often mistrust, how is such reliability achieved or even imagined? Based on 27 interviews with machine learning researchers and practitioners, this paper investigates how ground-truth datasets are stabilised when 1) annotators are positioned as unreliable non-experts, 2) recognised domain experts are prohibitively expensive, and 3) the platform architecture itself suppresses deliberation, feedback, and learning. Given these constraints, I illustrate ground-truthing as a canny, iterative practice shaped by task design choices, aggregation methods, disciplinary conventions, and the affective politics of trusting data supplied by unknown workers. Rather than reflecting the world, the resulting datasets operationalize narrowly bounded problem formulations that satisfy performance goals ‘well enough’ for downstream modelling. By analysing the epistemic hierarchies, organizational constraints and judgment calls embedded in these pipelines, the discussion offers a concrete case for re-evaluating realist assumptions about data, evidence, and representation in contemporary AI research. Moreover, the analysis opens normative space for re-imagining data pipelines around more transparent authority structures and richer human feedback for more reliable processes and outputs. -- Alexander Gschwendtner Universität Wien Institut für Philosophie Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien – Raum A0322 https://ufind.univie.ac.at/de/person.html?id=1009319

5 months, 3 weeks

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Mini workshop on AI and computing 20.05. 17:00 - 19:15, NIG 3D

by Knuuttila, Tarja Tellervo

Dear EST students and supervisors, The Philosophy of Science Group at the Department of Philosophy cordially invites you to this mini workshop. (Please note that the order of the presentations has changed.) Best, Tarja --- Mini workshop on AI and computing — 20.05.2025 Lecture Room 3D (Room D0316, 3rd floor) Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Vienna Organized by: Univ.-Prof. Tarja Knuuttila 17:00 -18:00 Dr. Nick Wiggershaus (University of Lille) Computational Artifacts and the Problem of Creation As computer science integrates principles from logic, engineering, and physics, the ontological status of its core entities, such as computer programs, remains contested. Programs are often characterized as hybrids that have a “dual nature.” In attempts to untangle such hybrids, philosophers of computing have applied the concept of ‘technical artifact’ (combining teleological function and physical structure) to computing. While productive, it overlooks a notorious problem from the philosophy of art: the Problem of Creation, which asks how abstract objects like musical works or novels can be brought into existence through concrete human activity. I argue that, like repeatable artworks, computational artifacts have different representational modes (e.g., symbolic, mathematical, diagrammatic) and implementational media (e.g., ink on paper, chalk on a whiteboard, electrical signals, punched cards, etc.). Just as a novel or a musical work is not identical to any one performance or copy, a computer program persists across implementations. This invites a philosophical conundrum: How can programmers create abstract objects that are not located in space or time? By appropriating solutions to the Problem of Creation, we gain alternative ways to characterize the ontological status of programs and other computing objects. I conclude by exploring whether we can understand computational artifacts as abstract technical artifacts. 18:15-19:15 Dr. Laura Savolainen (University of Helsinki) Emperor’s New Crowds: “Untrustworthy” Workers and “Ground Truth” Ground-truth datasets are supposed to nail down facts about the “world” represented by data, so that machine learning models trained on them will behave reliably in that same world. Yet when annotation is outsourced to platform workers whom engineers do not know, and often mistrust, how is such reliability achieved or even imagined? Based on 27 interviews with machine learning researchers and practitioners, this paper investigates how ground-truth datasets are stabilised when 1) annotators are positioned as unreliable non-experts, 2) recognised domain experts are prohibitively expensive, and 3) the platform architecture itself suppresses deliberation, feedback, and learning. Given these constraints, I illustrate ground-truthing as a canny, iterative practice shaped by task design choices, aggregation methods, disciplinary conventions, and the affective politics of trusting data supplied by unknown workers. Rather than reflecting the world, the resulting datasets operationalize narrowly bounded problem formulations that satisfy performance goals ‘well enough’ for downstream modelling. By analysing the epistemic hierarchies, organizational constraints and judgment calls embedded in these pipelines, the discussion offers a concrete case for re-evaluating realist assumptions about data, evidence, and representation in contemporary AI research. Moreover, the analysis opens normative space for re-imagining data pipelines around more transparent authority structures and richer human feedback for more reliable processes and outputs.

5 months, 4 weeks

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APSE talk by Veli Mitova (University of Johannesburg) + reading group on Thursday, May 22, 2025

by Ella Valerie Berger

Dear all, we warmly invite you to the next APSE (Applied Philosophy of Science and Epistemology) Talk and Reading Circle. The talk will be held by Veli Mitova (University of Johannesburg). Talk: When: Thursday, 22.05.2025, 15:00 - 17:00 Where: HS 3A, NIG (Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien) Hermeneutical Reparations and the Right to be Known According to an increasingly influential view in social epistemology, we owe victims of gross human rights violations not only economic and social reparations, but also reparations for the distinctively epistemic wrongs that attend such violations (Lackey 2022). One type of epistemic reparation is honouring victims' 'right to be known' (_ibid._)--their right to have their true story known. This talk has two aims. First, I argue that the right to be known cannot be successfully exercised in hermeneutically unjust environments, i.e., environments in which the explanatory and epistemic resources of the oppressed do not feature in the mainstream knowledge economy (Dotson 2012, Fricker 2007). Thus, the successful exercise of the right to be known requires what I call hermeneutical reparations. The second aim of the talk is to sketch three distinct kinds of hermeneutical reparations. If the arguments work, we will have put into dialogue two bodies of scholarship that have, curiously, not yet talked to each other. The dialogue will not only be of mutual theoretical benefit to both, but will also up our chances of attaining epistemic justice. Speaker Bio Veli Mitova is Professor in Philosophy and Director of the African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science [1] at the University of Johannesburg. She works at the intersection of epistemology, ethics, and social epistemology. She is the author of _Believable Evidence_ [2](CUP 2017), and the editor of _Epistemic Reparations and the Right to Be Known_ [3] (forthcoming SI of _Philosophical Studies_), _Epistemic Decolonisation_ [4](2020) and of _The Factive Turn in Epistemology_ [5] (CUP 2018). Before joining the University of Johannesburg in 2015, Veli taught and researched at Universität Wien, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México, Rhodes University (her alma mater), and Cambridge (where she obtained her PhD). Reading Circle: When: Thursday, 22.05.2025, 13:00 - 15:00 Where: HS 3A, NIG (Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien) We will focus our discussion on a forthcoming article by Veli Mitova (attached pdf): Mitova, V. (2025). Decolonial Epistemic-Authority Reparations. _Episteme_. DOI: 10.1017/epi.2025.2 As introduction to Epistemic Reparations, Veli Mitova suggests the following article: Lackey J. (2022). 'Epistemic Reparations and the Right to Be Known.' _Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association_ 96, 54-89. As introduction to Hermeneutical Injustice: Fricker, M. (2007). Chapter 7: Hermeneutical Injustice. _Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing_. New York: Oxford University Press. Introducing the concept of Contributory Injustice: Dotson, K. (2012). A cautionary tale: on limiting epistemic oppression. _Frontiers - A Journal of Women's Studies_ (1): 24-47. And the latest reading, distinguishing 3 kinds of Hermeneutical Injustice: Catala, A. (2025). Chapter 3: Deliberative Impasses, White Ignoring, and Hermeneutical Domination. _The Dynamics of Epistemic Injustice: Situating Epistemic Power and Agency. _New York: Oxford University Press. All the Best, Ella Berger and Vinzenz Fischer Links: ------ [1] https://www.uj.ac.za/faculties/humanities/departments-2/philosophy/philosop… [2] http://www.cambridge.org/9781107188600 [3] https://link.springer.com/collections/jhbeccifed [4] https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rppa20/49/2?nav=tocList [5] https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/factive-turn-in-epistemology/A12342A58… Links: ------ [1] https://www.uj.ac.za/faculties/humanities/departments-2/philosophy/philosop… [2] http://www.cambridge.org/9781107188600 [3] https://link.springer.com/collections/jhbeccifed [4] https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rppa20/49/2?nav=tocList [5] https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/factive-turn-in-epistemology/A12342A58…

5 months, 4 weeks

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Vienna STS Talks x FutureSpace Talk by Victor Buchli

by Katrin Hackl

We are happy to invite you to our 8th talk of the Vienna STS Talk Series in 2025S: [cid:image001.png@01DBB509.6DDB66F0]<https://sts.univie.ac.at/news-events/details/news/futurespace-talk-by-victo…> 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 [cid:image002.jpg@01DBB509.6DDB66F0]<https://sts.univie.ac.at/>

5 months, 4 weeks

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Mini workshop on AI and computing 20.05. 17:00 - 19:15, NIG 3D

by Tarja Knuuttila

Dear EST students and supervisors, Our group cordially invites you to this mini workshop. Laura and Nick are both postdocs doing interesting work. Laura is a sociologist, and Nick is a philosopher, but both of them did their PhD work in interdisciplinary research groups and environments. Best, Tarja Mini workshop on AI and computing — 20.05.2025 Lecture Room 3D (Room D0316, 3rd floor) Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Vienna Organized by: Univ.-Prof. Tarja Knuuttila 17:00 -18:00 Dr. Laura Savolainen (University of Helsinki) Emperor’s New Crowds: “Untrustworthy” Workers and “Ground Truth” Ground-truth datasets are supposed to nail down facts about the “world” represented by data, so that machine-learning models trained on them will behave reliably in that same world. Yet when annotation is outsourced to platform workers whom engineers do not know, and often mistrust, how is such reliability achieved or even imagined? Based on 27 interviews with machine learning researchers and practitioners, this paper investigates how ground-truth datasets are stabilised when 1) annotators are positioned as unreliable non-experts, 2) recognised domain experts are prohibitively expensive, and 3) the platform architecture itself suppresses deliberation, feedback, and learning. Given these constraints, I illustrate ground-truthing as a canny, iterative practice shaped by task design choices, aggregation methods, disciplinary conventions, and the affective politics of trusting data supplied by unknown workers. Rather than reflecting the world, the resulting datasets operationalize narrowly bounded problem formulations that satisfy performance goals ‘well enough’ for downstream modelling. By analysing the epistemic hierarchies, organizational constraints and judgment calls embedded in these pipelines, the discussion offers a concrete case for re-evaluating realist assumptions about data, evidence, and representation in contemporary AI research. Moreover, the analysis opens normative space for re-imagining data pipelines around more transparent authority structures and richer human feedback for a more reliable process and outputs. 18:15-19:15 Dr. Nick Wiggershaus (University of Lille) Computational Artifacts and the Problem of Creation As computer science integrates principles from logic, engineering, and physics, the ontological status of its core entities, such as computer programs, remains contested. Programs are often characterized as hybrids that have a “dual nature.” In attempts to untangle such hybrids, philosophers of computing have applied the concept of ‘technical artifact’ (combining teleological function and physical structure) to computing. While productive, it overlooks a notorious problem from the philosophy of art: the Problem of Creation, which asks how abstract objects like musical works or novels can be brought into existence through concrete human activity. I argue that, like repeatable artworks, computational artifacts have different representational modes (e.g., symbolic, mathematical, diagrammatic) and implementational media (e.g., ink on paper, chalk on a whiteboard, electrical signals, punched cards, etc.). Just as a novel or a musical work is not identical to any one performance or copy, a computer program persists across implementations. This this invites a philosophical conundrum: How can programmers create abstract objects that are not located in space or time? By appropriating solutions to the Problem of Creation, we gain new alternative ways to characterize the ontological status of programs and other computing objects. I conclude by exploring whether we can understand computational artifacts as abstract technical artifacts.

5 months, 4 weeks

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[News] Trans*Formations: Upcoming Workshop and Talk with Prof. Emma Heaney (NYU)

by Vinzenz Fischer

Dear all, this might not have direct connection to our field at first sight, but I would argue that definitions of sex have close entanglements with science, and more specifically medicine. This is why I would like to forward Flora Löffelmann's invitation also through this list! Best, Vinzenz -------- Originalnachricht -------- BETREFF: [News] Trans*Formations: Upcoming Workshop and Talk with Prof. Emma Heaney (NYU) DATUM: 12.05.2025 17:18 VON: Flora Löffelmann <flora.loeffelmann(a)univie.ac.at> AN: news(a)lists.philo.at Dear all, I am excited to invite you to the next installments of the Trans*Formations series at the Department of Philosophy! This series of talks and workshops, supported by the Vienna Doctoral School of Philosophy, provides insights into recent developments in trans theorizing. This time, we will be joined by Prof. Emma Heaney, who is a Clinical Assistant Professor and Faculty Advisor for Experimental Writing at New York University (US). She will give both a workshop (25 participants, booking required) and a public talk that everyone is welcome to! Please find all the info below and in the flyers attached to this mail, and disseminate to all who might be interested! Trans*Formations Workshop: On the Cisness of the Bourgeoisie: A Workshop with Professor Emma Heaney 25.6.2025, 18:00 - 19:30, HS 3A (NIG, 3rd Floor) This workshop will consider recently published and forthcoming work by American scholar of Trans Studies and Comparative Literature: Emma Heaney. Participants will read the introduction to Heaney's recently published edited collection,_ Feminism Against Cisness_ [1], an interview [2] with feminist theorist Sophie Lewis (_Full Surrogacy Now_, _Abolish the Family_, _Enemy Feminisms_), and a forthcoming interview that addresses questions of historical and linguistic translation in decentering Anglophone texts (and histories of Western Europe and the United States) in queer and trans theory. The historical focus on this workshop is tracing the itinerary of transness and cisness in medicalization of sex and sexuality from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century. Theoretical questions focus on the definition of sex, the status of the feminine in regard to sex distinctions in the foliations of the twentieth century, and the imposition of cisness as an ideology that obfuscates the understanding of sex on both the experiential and the political level. To join the workshop, please sign up via e-mail to flora.loeffelmann(a)univie.ac.at. You will then be sent the workshop material! Participants are expected to read the material before the workshop so a productive discussion can be ensured. Thanks to the support of queer@hochschulen [3], there is a also a limited number of travel stipends available for university students from other Austrian universities. Please indicate in your sign-up mail if you would like to apply for one! The workshop will be in English with ÖGS translation. Trans*Formations Talk: Provincializing Cisness 26.6.2025, 19:30 - 21:00, HS 3A (NIG, 3rd Floor) Most examinations of sex and gender in the academy take bourgeois national histories of North America and Western Europe as their frame of reference. In the histories of Germany, the UK, France, and the United States, doctors and state bureaucracies incorporated sexual and gendered social practices into a taxonomy of identities (or even species, as Foucault puts it,) beginning in the mid-nineteenth century. However, in many sex-gender systems, including those of the proletarian neighborhoods of these nations' metropoles, the assumptions that formed expert orderings did not apply. This lecture surveys the non-cis vernacular categories that ordered these sex-gender systems. The relation between race/class and cisness means that there is no absolute geography to this story. Drawing on source material from Indigenous Americas to the South Asian subcontinent and from the working-class neighborhoods of Kansas City to the courts of Nigerian nobility, the talk will be attuned to a range of sex-gender systems that do not accord with the categories produced by the Euro- American bourgeois in order to, as the title suggests, reveal the provincial status of cisness. The talk will be in English with ÖGS translation. I want to thank the VDP [4], the Culture & Equality Unit [5] of the University of Vienna, queer@hochschulen [3], and ACCESTECH / TU Wien [6] for their financial support. Bio: Emma Heaney is a scholar and teacher of feminist theory, comparative literature, and trans studies. Her first book, _The New Woman: Literary Modernism, Queer Theory, and the Trans Feminine Allegory _(Northwestern 2017) is a study of the prominence of the medicalized figure of trans femininity in works of twentieth-century literature and philosophy. Her edited collection _Feminism Against Cisness _(Duke 2024) gathers essays that demonstrate the nature and potential of feminist thought unobscured by the counterrevolutionary mystification of assigned sex. _This Watery Place: Four Essays on Gestation --- _a political and phenomenological report from the gestational sensorium against cisness, capital, and genocide --- is forthcoming from Pluto Press in November 2025. Her current book project is a sequel edited collection that draws on the work of scholars from many disciplines and areas of geographical and historical focus to reveal the provincial nature of the ideology of cisness. Forthcoming essays theorize the emergence of the trans-gay distinction in the twentieth century via literary representations. She is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the XE program at New York University, where she serves as faculty advisor for the Advanced Certificate in Experimental Writing. With all the best wishes and hoping to see many of you at the events, Flora Löffelmann, MA MA Pronouns: they/them (for more info see: https://www.mypronouns.org/what-and-why/) Happy about a gender neutral "hello"! Department of Philosophy at University of Vienna _______________________________________________ News mailing list -- news(a)lists.philo.at To unsubscribe send an email to news-leave(a)lists.philo.at Links: ------ [1] https://www.dukeupress.edu/feminism-against-cisness [2] https://pinko.online/web/on-the-cisness-of-the-bourgeoisie [3] https://queer-at-hochschulen.org/ [4] https://vd-philosophy.univie.ac.at/ [5] https://personalwesen.univie.ac.at/en/culture-equality/ [6] https://www.experiencing-access.eu/de/news/

5 months, 4 weeks

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Vienna STS Talks by Malcolm Ashmore and Olga Restrepo Forero

by Katrin Hackl

We are happy to invite you to our 7th talk of the Vienna STS Talk Series in 2025S: [cid:image001.png@01DBB437.C3AB0E50]<https://sts.univie.ac.at/news-events/details/news/sts-talk-by-malcolm-ashmo…> 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 [cid:image002.jpg@01DBB437.C3AB0E50]<https://sts.univie.ac.at/>

6 months

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Invitation: International Symposium: The State of Research on Logical Empiricism, Lublin May 16-17, hybrid

by Vienna Circle Society

Invitation International Symposium <https://www.umcs.pl/en/the-state-of-research-on-logical-empiricism.htm> The State of Research on Logical Empiricism May 16-17, 2025, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University Zoom Access below May 16-17, 2025 Institute of Philosophy, UMCS, Lublin (Poland) Last year marked the centenary of the founding of the Vienna Circle, which went on to become one of the key centers of logical empiricism. Over time, the movement has been perceived in widely differing ways, the most influential being the critique that emerged in the 1950s, leading prominent figures in the philosophy of science to declare the death of logical empiricism. However, the past 35 years have witnessed a distinct shift, exemplified by the title of a book that appeared at the very beginning this period: Rediscovering the Forgotten Vienna Circle. While this work focused primarily on Neurath, it was followed by numerous studies on other figures associated with logical empiricism. In this time, including recent years, our understanding of the movement and the literature surrounding it have been significantly enriched. This conference seeks, on the one hand, to highlight the impact of this process, focusing primarily on the key areas of scientific activity pursued by members of the Vienna Circle and the Berlin School-logic, philosophy of language, linguistics, the philosophy of mathematics, methodology, and the philosophy, history, and sociology of science. On the other hand, it aims to explore how the understanding and reception of the scientific conception of the world-particularly the social dimension of the neopositivist programme-have evolved over time. Find more information here: https://www.umcs.pl/en/the-state-of-research-on-logical-empiricism.htm Zoom Access: The State of Research on Logical Empiricism, day 1 Date: May 16, 09:00 Zoom: <https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81944546317?pwd=J5h1y3ii358dLiD44N4yKinqrbviaN.1> https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81944546317?pwd=J5h1y3ii358dLiD44N4yKinqrbviaN.1 Meeting ID: 819 4454 6317 Passcode: 474416 The State of Research on Logical Empiricism, day 2 Datge: 17 maj 2025 09:00 Zoom: <https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86558979345?pwd=3j1dOpfT3tPgn5rVvjwRleYWXMy5rN.1> https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86558979345?pwd=3j1dOpfT3tPgn5rVvjwRleYWXMy5rN.1 Meeting ID: 865 5897 9345 Passcode: 766979

6 months

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Vienna STS Talks x IPW Talks by Kean Birch

by Katrin Hackl

We are happy to invite you to our 6th talk of the Vienna STS Talk Series in 2025S: [cid:image001.png@01DBB436.BE2E7170]<https://sts.univie.ac.at/news-events/details/news/sts-talk-by-kean-birch/?n…> 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 [cid:image002.jpg@01DBB436.BE2E7170]<https://sts.univie.ac.at/>

6 months

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2025

2024

2023