CfP: Open Panel @ the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S)

November 11-14, 2015. Denver, CO.

STS Open Panel call for papers deadline: March 22, 2015.

An open panel is being hosted at the 4S AGM on “STS & Technologies/ Techniques in the Psychological Sciences.” The panel organizers welcome submissions from a wide range of disciplines, including those from the humanities, STS, anthropology, psychology, statistics, psychiatry, etc. They are particularly interested in interdisciplinary work that combines historical and contemporary sites of analysis to address the following questions:

What can STS theories and methodologies contribute to the study of the
psychological sciences?

What perspectives from psychology and the behavioral sciences might be
beneficial to STS?

How do psychological sciences and technologies create power and knowledge,
across diverse societal spheres?

How might we best identify and address aporias in existing research on the
psy sciences, including discussions of race/gender/sexuality, new models of
subjectivity, and new technologies, projects, and processes of
subjectivization?

Submissions should be made directly to the conference (find detailed instructions here).         Please also forward a copy of your abstract to the panel organizers:

 Marisa Brandt, UCSD (mrbrandt@ucsd.edu)                                                                                          Beth Semel, MIT (bsemel@mit.edu)                                                                                                              Luke Stark, NYU (luke.stark@nyu.edu)

Further conceptual elucidation after the jump: 

Psychological techniques such as psychometric testing, virtual forms of therapy, and the tracking of mood and emotion have an increasing salience in everyday life, often mediated by novel digital technologies. Recent
scholarship in STS has begun to document, historicize, and critique structures of power and knowledge in the psychological sciences. This open panel aims to bring together scholars working on all aspects of the psychological sciences and professions from the perspective of STS and related fields, with a particular focus on the study of material practices, subject formation, and issues of difference. The panel seeks to widen the disciplinary and thematic horizons of both STS and the psy disciplines, bringing novel insights to STS and disciplinary reflexivity to the behavioral sciences.