Short Abstract:

What are the distinctive capacities of STS for posing problems? This round table takes up thid question in an interactive fashion, presenting selected problems from and to STS publics, and concluding with an award ceremony identifying STS' best and worst problem.

Long Abstract:

What are the distinctive capacities of STS for posing problems? How are these inflected by changing circumstances (aging field, times of crisis)? Insofar as STS is an interdisciplinary field, STS can't be business-as-usual, or at least it can't be only that. So: what is our problem? The proposed event takes up these questions in an interactive fashion. A few months in advance of the 4S/EASST conference in Barcelona, we intend to send out a 'call for problems' via public channels to invite STS scholars to send us issues, puzzles, concerns they feel are the most urgent, productive, terrible, and/or alluring for STS. Depending on the number and type of submissions, we will then invite selected problem advocates and experts to a roundtable event at the conference to present their problems and propose different possible ways of engaging with them. We will also invite the public to express support for and objections to different problem definitions. The event will end with an award ceremony in which we give prizes for the best and for the worst problems STS is confronted with.