
The KTH Reactor Hall. Photo: Jann Lipka
7th Nordic STS Conference
STS in and out of the Laboratory
June 11-13, 2025, Stockholm
PhD-student pre-conference 10 June: Method labs
Keynote speakers
We have the pleasure of introducing the conference’s keynote speakers.
Professor, Brit Ross Winthereik
Technical University of Denmark
Keynote talk: “Where to put the human in the non-places of digitalized societies and STS?”
Bio:
Brit Ross Winthereik is Professor of Human-Centered Digitalization at the Dept. of Technology, Management and Economics at the Technical University of Denmark. She has a PhD in Science and Technology Studies and anthropology from Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her current research revolves around digitalization processes and the use of data in the public sector of contemporary welfare societies with a particular focus on information infrastructures and human life within. Core to this interest is processes of inclusion and exclusion, data use and accountability in an age of digital citizenship. Her new research is a regional study of data centres in Denmark with a focus on ‘ressourcification’. Among her many publications count ‘Monitoring Movements in Development Aid: Recursive Infrastructures and Partnerships’ (MIT Press, 2013, with Casper Bruun Jensen), ‘Experimenting with Ethnography: A Companion to Analysis’ (Duke University Press, 2021, with Andrea Ballestero), and ‘Handbook for the Anthropology of Technology’ (Palgrave Handbook Series, 2021, with Maja Hojer Bruun el al).
Associate Professor, Katherine Harrison
Linköping University
Keynote talk: “The Laboratory and Its Others – Privilege, Power and Knowledge Production”
Bio:
Katherine Harrison, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in Gender Studies at Linköping University. Her research sits at the intersection of Science & Technology Studies, media studies, and feminist theory, bringing critical perspectives on knowledge production to studies of different digital technologies. She is currently co-PI for two WASP-HS (Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program – Humanity and Society) projects titled: “The ethics and social consequences of AI and caring robots. Learning trust, empathy and accountability” and “Operationalising ethics for AI: translation, implementation and accountability challenges”.
Goldin+Senneby
Keynote talk: “Swallow Image: A presentation on images as disease and the economy of brain scans in the MS drug market”
Bio:
Goldin+Senneby (since 2004) is a Stockholm-based artist duo whose work has explored how economic structures shape our society. In recent years, their collaboration has increasingly been shaped by the experience of disease, vulnerability, and caregiving, especially that of living with an autoimmune condition.
Goldin+Senneby’s work has been exhibited at the biennials in São Paulo, Istanbul, and Gwangju; held solo exhibitions at The Power Plant in Toronto, Kadist in Paris, Tensta konsthall in Stockholm and e-flux in New York; and their works are included in the public collections of Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.
Their most recent solo exhibition, Flare-Up, is on view at Accelerator, Stockholm, during the spring of 2025.
Roundtables
The conference organizes several thematic roundtables.
Round table: At the eye of the storm in Arrhenius laboratory: Tracing the progress of climate science – and peering into its future
Participants: Sverker Sörlin (KTH), Silke Beck (University of Munich), and Bård Lahn (Oslo University), chair: Eva Lövbrand
One hundred and thirty years ago Svante Arrhenius published the results of what he called ‘tedious calculations’, showing that doubling CO2 levels in the atmosphere would result in a 5-6 degree rise in temperature. Albeit somewhat off in precision, this was a ‘nice try’ for 1896 – and effectively made Arrhenius one of the founders of climate change science. Ironically, Arrhenius’s outlook was cheerful. He publicly proclaimed: “We would then have some right to indulge in the pleasant belief that our descendants, albeit after many generations, might live under a milder sky and in less barren surroundings than is our lot at present’[1].
Tragically remote today from our understanding of the climate change effect on the Earth, this statement serves as an entry point to a conversation we, Arrhenius’s descendants whose ‘lot’ is much grimmer than he could have imagined, would like to spark off at Svante Arrhenius House at the Nordic Science and Technology Studies conference. We invite you to revisit the beginnings of climate science, its tumultuous relationship with politics, and speculate on where it might be going. We will explore the performative implications of climate modelling globally and locally, and in what ways climate projections are shaping the futures we collectively create.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2005/jun/30/climatechange.climatechangeenvironment2
Round table: In memory of Barbara Czarniawska
Round table organizers: Elena Raviola, Andreas Diedrich, Ulla Eriksson-Zetterquist
The contribution of Barbara Czarniawska to science and technology studies and organization studies can hardly be underestimated and in this session, we reflect on her legacy.
Contact us
Conference Secretariat: Academic Conferences
Phone: +46 18 67 10 34 or +46 18 67 10 03
Conference Secretariat email:
nordic-sts2025@akademikonferens.se
Open Panels and Abstract Secretariat:
nordic-sts2025@score.su.se