Science and Technology Studies at Mälardalen University
STS@MDU is an interdisciplinary special interest group of scholars, working at different departments of Mälardalen University and working at the intersections of Science and Technology Studies and other disciplines.
Science and Technology Studies (in short, STS) is a relatively new academic field. Its roots lie in the interwar period and continue into the start of the Cold War, when historians and sociologists of science, and scientists themselves, became interested in the relationship between scientific knowledge, technologies, and society. STS is a heterogeneous body of research that does not assume scientific and technological society as a given, but rather problematizes the relationships between its different aspects. It is characterized by critical thinking that is neither pro-science nor pro-technology, neither anti-science nor anti-technology.
STS@MDU is a forum for interdisciplinary collaborations grounded on an STS perspective and aimed at studying technoscientific phenomena and the multiple relationships with human beings, objects, technologies, animals, soil, nature, culture, and possible others. In particular, the group is interested in exploring issues concerning societal development, as well as wider theoretical questions about for example human-machine interaction, social categorization and artificial intelligence, and digitalization and human values. Other relevant areas in which stronger interactions between engineering and social sciences are crucial are in the field of sustainable transitions and urban transformations.
The interdisciplinary special interest group is part of the national STS network and involves members from both the Faculty of Philosophy and the Faculty of Engineering and Health Sciences at MDU.
Seminar series
Sign up for our seminar Outlook invitations by sending an email to:
You will need to sign up to get access to the Teams links for the seminars. The texts are also attached to the Outlook invitations.
STS@MDU seminars spring 2026
This semester we will read texts about WATER from different perspectives: theorists and researchers who uses water as a metaphor to think with, and an object of study in and of itself. All four texts are philosophically and theoretically interesting and will hopefully spur all kinds of discussions.
That said, you do not have to be particularly interested in, or knowledgeable about, water. Instead, we use water as a starting point to explore typical STS@MDU topics – human-technology and human-nature relations, non-human agency, subjectivity after humanism – as well as other topics that participant find interesting.
First week of June, STS@MDU will arrange workshops on the theme of water with specially invited guests … stay tuned for more info!
February 6, 10:00–11:00
Neimanis, A. (2013). Feminist subjectivity, watered. Feminist Review, 103(1): 23– 41.
March 13, 10:00–11:00
Hayward, E. (2012). Sensational jellyfish: Aquarium affects and the matter of immersion. differences, 23(3), 161-196.
April 17, 10:00–11:00
Powis, A. (2021). The relational materiality of groundwater. GeoHumanities, 7(1), 89-112.
May 22, 10:00–11:00
Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, A. (2023). The Other Water. Angelaki, 28(1), 139-143.
Previous Seminars
STS@MDU spring 2025
This series includes readings related to the STS event that will take place at MDU (Campus Västerås) on Friday, May 9th, 2025. Everybody is welcome to join the seminars regardless of their participation in the event!
14 February 2025, 10:00 – 11:00 CET
van Dooren, Thom, Chrulew, Matthew, Oakey, Myles, Widin, Sam, & Rooke, Drew. 2024. Animal Cultures at the Edge of Extinction. Theory, Culture & Society, 02632764241280346.
Venue: Zoom.
14 March 2025, 10:00 – 11:00 CET
Latour, Bruno. 2020. “Seven Objections Against Landing on Earth.” In Critical Zones. The Science and Politics of Landing on Earth, edited by Bruno Latour and Peter Weible (pp. 1-8). MIT Press.
Venue: Zoom.
11 April 2025, 10:00 – 11:00 CET
Morizot, Baptiste. 2022. “Introduction.” In Wild Diplomacy: Cohabiting with Wolves on a New Ontological Map, edited by Baptiste Morizot (translated by Catherine Porter) (pp. 3-14). Suny Press.
Venue: Zoom.
June 2025, 10:00 – 11:00 CET
Forlano, Laura. 2023. “Design’s intimacies. The Indeterminacy of design with machines and mushrooms.” In Design for More-Than-Human Futures, edited by Martín Tironi, Marcos Chilet, Carola Ureta Marín, Pablo Hermansen (pp. 5871). Routledge.
Venue: Zoom.
STS@MDU autumn 2024
This series – in particular the seminars on September 20th, October 18th, and December 20th – includes readings related to the STS event that will take place at MDU (Campus Västerås) on Friday, May 9th, 2025. Everybody is welcome to join the seminars regardless of their participation in the event!
20 September 2024, 10:00 – 11:00 CET
Light, A., Choi, J.Hj., Houston, L. et al. (2024) Enacting Entanglement: CreaTures, Socio-Technical Collaboration and Designing a Transformative Ethos.
Comput Supported Cooperative Work External link.
Venue: Zoom.
18 October 2024, 10:00 – 11:00 CET
Åsberg, C. (2024). Promises of Cyborgs: Feminist Practices of Posthumanities (Against the Nested Crises of the Anthropocene).
NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 32(2), 125–145 External link.
Venue: Zoom.
15 November 2024, 9:00 – 10:00 CET Guest seminar
Guest: Mathias Decuypere
Title: Atmospheric analytics: Human Computer Interaction meets Critical Edtech Studies
Abstract: Over the last years, a growing number of (semi-)autonomous agents such as automated chatbots, feedback, and intelligent tutoring systems have spread into the educational field, commonly driven by artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. This proliferation raises interesting questions about human-computer interaction (HCI), and how said interaction is transforming through the influx of AI technologies. However, the HCI research field is primarily concerned with the design of effective computational systems. In education, this emphasis on design processes commonly translates into an explicit hierarchical focus of researchers designing and/or investigating new products that eventually ‘trickle down’ into educational contexts (Shum et al., 2024). Next to the field of HCI, a growing field of critical edtech studies (CES) can be discerned that aims not to take the promises and aspirations of edtech at face value, and is equally not interested in enhancing such productive integration. Rather than that, CES is interested in describing the performative consequences of what happens when specific edtech products, such as (semi) autonomous agents, enter the classroom (e.g., Macgilchrist, 2021). In this contribution, we seek to infuse the field of HCI with insights generated by CES. As theoretical point of departure, we propose that edtech applications have slowly but steadily become elements of an atmosphere that surrounds (what) actors (can do) in educational practices. Elements and atmospheres are not to be considered as neutral backgrounds; rather than that, they are lively forces that (co-)shape (the conditions of) culture, cognition, comportment, and, ultimately, education itself (McCormack, 2023:70). Methodologically, the paper proposes atmospheric analytics as a critical framework that pays attention to “situational encounters” where educational actors and edtech come together and engage in distributed sensemaking.
Bio: Mathias Decuypere is Professor of School Development and Governance at the Zurich University of Teacher Education. His research adopts an international, macro-level perspective on educational policymaking and governance. It is interested in how distinct global developments in governance (e.g., behavioral governance; platform governance; synthetic governance) affect local school practices.
Venue: Zoom.
20 December 2024, 10:00 – 11:00 CET
Haraway, Donna (2016). “Tentacular Thinking. Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene”, In: Haraway, D. Staying with the Trouble : Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press
Venue: Zoom.
STS@MDU spring 2024
Papers are attached to the Outlook calendar invite.
9 February 2024, 10:00 – 11:00
de Vries, Katja (2020). You never fake alone. Creative AI in action, Information, Communication & Society, 23:14, 2110-2127.
Venue: Zoom.
8 March 2024, 10:00 – 11:00
Rahm, Lina (2021). Education, automation and AI: a genealogy of alternative futures, Learning, Media & Technology, pp. 1-19.
Venue: Zoom.
12 April 2024, 10:00 – 11:00
Suchman, Lucy (2023). The uncontroversial ‘thingness’ of AI. Big Data & Society, 10(2).
Venue: Zoom.
24 May 2024, 10:00 – 11:00
Bellanova, Rocco; Irion, Kristina; Lindskov Jacobsen; Katja, Ragazzi, Francesco; Saugmann, Rune; Suchman, Lucy (2021). Toward a critique of Algorithmic Violence, International Political Sociology, 15, 121-150.
Venue: Zoom.
STS@MDU autumn 2023
Papers are attached to the Outlook calendar invite.
8 September 2023, 13:00 – 14:00
Barua, Maan (2021). Infrastructure and non-human life: A wider ontology. Progress in Human Geography, 45 (6), 1467–1489.
Venue: Zoom.
13 October 2023, 13:00 – 14:00
Verran, Helen (2002). A Postcolonial Moment in Science Studies: Alternative Firing Regimes of Environmental Scientists and Aboriginal Landowners. Social studies of science, 32 (5-6), 729-762.
Venue: Zoom.
17 November 2023, 13:00 – 14:00
Arnelid, Maria, Johnson, Ericka, and Harrison, Katherine (2022). What does it mean to measure a smile? Assigning numerical values to emotions. Valuation Studies, 9 (1), 79-107.
Venue: Zoom.
STS@MDU spring 2023
Papers are attached to the Outlook calendar invitation.
24 February 2023, 11:00 – 12:00
Star, Susan Leigh (1990) Power, technology and the phenomenology of
conventions: on being allergic to onions. The Sociological Review,
38(1): 26-56.
Venue: Zoom.
10 March 2023, 11:00 – 12:00
Latour, Bruno and Lenton, Timothy M. (2019). Extending the Domain of Freedom, or Why Gaia Is So Hard to Understand, Critical Inquiry 45(3): 659-680.
Venue: Zoom.
21 April 2023, 11:00 – 12:00
Ingold, Tim (2010). Bringing Things to Life: creative Entanglements in a World of Materials. Working Paper #15, ESRC National Centre for Research Methods, NCRM Working Paper Series.
Venue: Zoom.
26 May 2023, 11:00 – 12:00
Haraway, Donna (2008). “Otherwordly conversations, terran topics, local terms”. In: Alaimo, Stacy and Hekman, Susan (eds) Material Feminism. Indiana University Press. Pp. 157-187
Venue: Zoom.
STS@MDU autumn 2022
Papers are attached to the Outlook calendar invite.
30 September 2022, 10:00 – 12:00
Kick-Off (see the programme in the calendar invite). Mol, Annemarie (1999) Ontological Politics. A Word and Some Questions”, The Sociological Review, 47(1_suppl): 74-89
Venure: Room R1-343 and Zoom.
21 October 2022, 10:00 – 12:00
Puig de la Bellacasa, Maria (2011) “Matters of care in technosience: Assembling neglected things”, Social Studies of Science, 41(1): 85-106.
Venue: Room: R1-343 and Zoom.
25 November 2022, 10:00 – 12:00
In conjunction with the recent “Sustainability Days” at MDU. Jasanoff, Sheila (2010) “A New Climate for Society”, Theory, Culture & Society, 27(2-3): 233-253.
Venue: Room R1-343 and Zoom.
16 December 2022, 10:00 – 12:00
Haraway, Donna J. (1994) “A Game of Cat’s Cradle: Science Studies, Feminist Theory, Cultural Studies”, Configurations, 1: 59-71.
Venue: Room R1-343 and Zoom.
STS@MDU spring 2022
The reading (i.e. a selection of chapters) will be communicated one or two weeks in advance.
11 February 2022, 9:00 – 11:00
Bruno Latour – Reassembling the social.
Venue. Zoom.
11 March 2022, 9:00 – 11:00
Wiebe E. Bijker – Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs. Toward a
Theory of Sociotechnical Change.
Venue: Zoom.
8 April 2022, 9:00 – 11:00
Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star – Sorting Things Out. Classification and Its Consequences.
Venue: Zoom.
13 May 2022, 9:00 – 11:00
John Law – After Method: Mess in Social Science Research.
Venue: Zoom.
IEO Sustainability - Seminars list 2022
12 October 2022
Antti Edward Silvast, (Associate Professor, DTU, Denmark) Sociology of Interdisciplinarity.
The Dynamics of Energy Research Discussed work: Antti Silvast and Chris Foulds (2022)
Sociology of Interdisciplinarity. The Dynamics of Energy Research External link.
Palgrave Macmillan Cham
27 September 2022
Maira Babri (Senior Lecturer, Örebro University)
Material affordances in circular products and business model development: for a relational understanding of human and material agency. Discussed work: Maira Babri, Hervé Corvellec & Herman I. Stål (2022) Material affordances in circular products and business model development: for a relational understanding of human and material agency,
Culture and Organization, 28:1, 79-96 External link.
7 April 2022
Karin Ahlström (PhD student, MDU)
Broadening the responsibility of top management teams – the impact of meeting practices Discussed work: paper in progress from her PhD thesis.
7 April 2022
Martin Eve (Professor at Birkbeck College, University of London)
Open Access and Digital Mutations in Academic Publishing Discussed work: Martin Eve and Jonathan Gray, (2020)
MIT Press.
National Network
Other National Networks
There are other European STS groups connected to universities, departments or units.
International Associations and Networks
EASST-European Association for the Study of Science and Technology External link.
ESST-European Master’s Programme on Society, Science and Technology External link.