Dear STS lecturers,
we are happy to share an invitation from our stsing member Ingmar Lippert to start a new working group on STS teaching and related issues:
I am reaching out with an idea—and an invitation—for us to gather our collective energies around a crucial but often under-supported dimension of our work: STS teaching and the infrastructuring of STS teaching. 🌍✏️ As quite a few of us continuously navigate the complexities of curricular development, interdisciplinary precarities, and the everyday challenges of securing space for STS in institutional frameworks, it strikes me that there is both a need and an opportunity to come together to reflect, strategise, and imagine new collaborative tools.
What I am proposing is the formation of a working group 🧑🤝🧑 to explore the possibilities of co-authoring a living document on teaching STS in Germany (and perhaps beyond). This document could serve multiple purposes, including:
- 📚 A space for critical reflection—What are we teaching? Why is it called STS? How does it respond to and shape our socio-technical worlds?
- 🛠️ A practical resource—To articulate and communicate our curricular structures, pedagogic commitments, and staffing needs to institutions, funders, and students.
- 🔀 Support for mobility and connection—To help students and alumni navigate the diversity of STS, while fostering mutual intelligibility across programmes.
This is by no means an attempt to standardise STS in a rigid way—quite the opposite! The aim is to celebrate and sustain heterogeneity and reflexivity, while carving out pragmatic infrastructures that can bolster our field in both intellectual and institutional terms.
💡 How to Get Involved
If this resonates with you, I’d love to hear from you! 📨 Perhaps you’ve been grappling with similar issues in your own teaching programmes, or you have ideas about how we might collaboratively tackle questions of:
- 🔍 Curricular politics and pedagogic commitments—What does teaching STS mean and why?
- 🏛️ The politics of positions—What kinds of academic roles and contracts best sustain reflexive STS scholarship?
- 🧩 Infrastructures for collaboration and governance—How might we collectively design tools and frameworks that foster plurality without erasing local specificities?
If you’re interested in joining me in this effort—or even if you'd just like to share initial thoughts or reflections—please feel free to get in touch directly! Whether you're teaching in a large dedicated programme, experimenting with a course module, or simply curious about what this might entail, I’d be thrilled to think together about the knots, frictions, and possibilities of STS teaching.
🍵 If there’s enough interest, I’d be happy to schedule a virtual brainstorming session in the coming months to get the ball rolling.
Let’s make some space to figure this out together. I look forward to hearing your ideas!
🙌 Warm regards,
Ingmar (I.Lippert[at]em.uni-frankfurt.de or via Mattermost)