Short Abstract:

How can we improve academic spaces in an era where higher education in the humanities and social sciences are under attack? This roundtable is a space to Discuss, Make, and Do Transformations within the very space we critique but cherish.

Long Abstract:

The humanities and social sciences in general are under attack (see for instance cuts to History departments in the UK, cuts to social science departments in the US, and several other instances). We all agree that there is a crisis within higher education. Aside from external issues, graduate students are forced to contemplate whether academia is a cult-like institution, and whether the toll academia takes on one’s mental health is worth it given lacking secure employment.

In keeping with the theme of Making and Doing Transformations, this roundtable provides a space to discuss how STS can help solve problems we face as academics in institutions that were not designed to benefit most of us. And more than discussing, we will collectively design and apply STS concepts to brainstorm ways in which we can improve both academia and our approach to these problems.

The idea of this roundtable is to give STS-ers concrete tools and strategies they can take back to their academic spaces. Together we will use play techniques and other creative techniques to employ concepts such as boundary work, future-making, and imaginaries to confront issues within and outside academia. We will collectively imagine new ways of contributing to a publishing landscape away from the for-profit model, collaborate as educators and rethink our methods of grading, aside from making a future possible where doing STS is both understood and possible.

Both convenors will plan and implement the techniques while guiding discussion. We will have three main invited guests who are STS scholars already discussing and engaging in the making of future academia (to be decided) and whose work will serve as the foundation for the questions and activities we will organize.