Program on Science, Technology and Society at Harvard

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Idols of Progress: Technoscience Between Ethics and Trust

October 12-14, 2023,
Harvard Kennedy School

Abstract

GRiSTS 2023: “Idols of Progress: Technoscience Between Ethics and Trust” calls for papers exploring the place of human values in the production of technoscientific idols of progress and the contested human futures at stake in this process. The conference will take place October 12-14, 2023 at Harvard Kennedy School. Interested presenters should submit (up to 350 word) abstracts of work in STS and neighboring fields. We welcome proposals from a range of technoscientific and historical domains that explore questions such as: What is at stake for democracy when science and technology are seen as sine qua non conditions of progress? How do science and technology stand in for – or get in the way of – broader notions of human flourishing and enlightenment? How are democratic values envisaged when institutions and policies of governance are designed to accompany and legitimize rather than interrogate technoscientific products? We especially welcome papers that investigate the emergence of ‘ethics’ and ‘trust’ as essential companions of technoscience in advanced modern societies and reflect on ways that we, as junior STS scholars, can fashion more critical and cosmopolitan understandings of the place of science and technology in the world.  

Co-Sponsored by the Harvard Center for the Environment and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs