On its 20th anniversary, my testimonial on the Harvard STS Program Content warning: Sexual harassment*, abuses of power, disillusionment

I also want to leave this here, a testimony by Claudia Schwarz on the allegedly abusive working conditions at Harvard’s STS Programme and under Jasanoff. medium.com/%40claudia_g...

Interesting interview w/ STS scholar Sheila Jasanoff @zeit.de on misconceived understandings of truth and science in politics/society, and their relationship to the recent attacks on US elite universities. (In German!)

Soldat James Ryan! Danke, jetzt kann ich wieder nicht arbeiten weil ich nur an Jamese denken muss.

Gilt auch Mittel- bzw. Nachname?
Auf jeden Fall alle James Bond Filme (help, gut dass ich nicht da war)… und Harry James Potter? Bin nun dann auch am Ende meines Lateins.

4/4 “Utopia is on the horizon. I move two steps closer; it moves two steps further away. I walk another ten steps and the horizon runs ten steps further away. As much as I may walk, I'll never reach it. So what's the point of utopia? The point is this: to keep walking.”

I keep thinking about this.

3/4 Last week, one (usually very silent) student looked up from his laptop and responded: “Do you know Eduardo Galeano?” He proceeded to read the following quote from his work, after which the class was silent and everyone sank into thought:

2/4 For the others, it’s often hard to argue against this position, because those students usually refrain from entering any productive or positive discussion with help of one argument: “Yeah, nice thought, but that’s not the reality we live in, sorry. Just look around.”

1/4 Teaching a course on assessing the societal impacts of digital tech again. Each year, there are a few students who feel like society can’t do anything against current developments (big tech, surveillance, consumerism etc.), and who have asked others (rhetorically) in class: why even try?

interested in #smartfarming & #precisionagriculture?

we're hiring a #phd at @fasosmaastricht.bsky.social who will use #ethnographic methods to study the intersection of #digitalization and #agriculture in NL & BE.

open to candidates with backgrounds in #politicalecology, #anthropology, #sts, etc.

A snap of a conference situation: a notebook with written notes, on it is a skein of yarn and knitting needles.

At one point, I will write properly about how knitting makes me a more attentive listener in academic settings and work life. A lot of research has been done on craftwork and attention and the intertwinement of doing and thinking, but there’s something special in the repetition that is knitting…

Tim Ingold on stage with a mic, next to a blackboard. On it, a hasty drawing of the wind.

Poetic lecture by Tim Ingold at Jan van Eyck Academy as part of the reopening of the Future Materials Lab. The work of art as a gathering cloud; to be contemporary means sharing time. “We need art to teach us to recover the love that we lost.” 💭

Snap of an office decorated with festoons and flowers. The space is bright and homey.

First day back at the faculty after my maternity leave. Was greeted by festoons, fresh flowers and a redecorated office. 🥹 Really love the new working space!

Far-right populists much more likely than the left to spread fake news – study Amplifying misinformation is now part of radical right strategy, says Dutch study of tweets by MPs in 26 countries

Far-right populists spread far more fake news than left-wing populists, shows a study of 32M MP tweets. One of the authors, @pettertornberg.bsky.social, warns in the Guardian it's urgent to address the link between misinformation and radical right populism. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/f...

Die letzten 10 Minuten der Doku sind einfach wie ein Kinofilm. Sehr beeindruckend!

Bild zeigt vierteiliges Comic, in dem man eine Nonne beim Lesen, beim Beten und bei Gartenarbeit sieht. Dazwischen ein knallbuntes Bild, in dem "ecstatic visions" steht (die Hildegard von Bingen ja hatte).

Aus dem Leben der Hildegard von Bingen 😇

Re: recent votes on the impossible immigration law in the German parliament. Spot on analysis by @tabouchadi.bsky.social on why it’s always a disastrous move for established parties to attempt to steal votes from the far right by adopting their points or transacting with its actors.

🚨 We're hiring a Postdoc for The Upcycled Clinic!

Join an ERC-funded team exploring material creativity in medicine through global ethnography. Conduct fieldwork in UK & US, design making workshops, and push ethnographic methods forward. 🌍✂️

Apply now👉 tinyurl.com/mv28ekm6

📢PhD #vacancy in artistic #research📢

Does your research unpack the impact of colonial legacies on ecological challenges, amplify marginalised perspectives, or reimagine sustainable relationships between human and more than human worlds?

Apply before 9 March👉 tinyurl.com/ymra5avj

Still a few more days to submit an abstract for this workshop

With a poetic contribution by Maud Oostindie, Veerle Spronck, and me! 🐌✨🩷 This was so much fun, thanks to Michela, Nina and Sally for organizing! 🫶🏼

Does anyone I know here possess a functioning (!) typewriter that they are willing to sell to me? 👀 If so, please be in touch! ✉️

Supervisors always want the work to improve but also, remember it’s yours - you decide! 💪🏼 Good luck with the rewriting 🩷

Deze coalitie heeft iets unieks gepresteerd - het hoger onderwijs gaat vandaag voor de derde keer binnen een maand de straat op om te protesteren tegen de bezuinigingsplannen.
Vandaag is de laatste onderhandeldag. CDA, CU, JA21, SGP…#DoeHetNiet 1/

Creative partners, communicator, instrument? We’re looking for artists, designers, makers & colleagues to critically examine the role of the arts in transdisciplinary projects. Submit your abstract until 12 Feb for this year’s 4S-EASST conference in Amsterdam.

Link: nomadit.co.uk/conference/eas…

Snapshot from behind the violins, musicians are sitting and playing.

Snapshot from the balcony of the small ensemble for today’s rehearsal. Conductor sits at harpsichord, the players around him.

Snapshot from behind the bass section.

The rehearsal space: instruments, note stands, sheet music, costs, chairs are scattered and in disorder.

Wonderful day today being back in the field, doing some observations at and for the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century in a grey and rainy Amsterdam. Such wonderful players and such an intimate atmosphere… Captivated!

Michela Cozza and I are hoping to see lots of creativity at our panel, at the EASST-4S conference in July in Amsterdam.
Lots of time to think and to be creative. Abstracts due by 12 February. More details here:
nomadit.co.uk/conference/e...

This is amazing, I am SO hooked

Okay, I want to try to guess at least before I find out! 🥸 Mussorgsky = a warm hat (hmm, or wintery gloves?); Monteverdi = a shawl, but one that’s very light and airy, made of a semi-transparent soft fabric; Tan Dun: a coat or a jacket, something with a special pattern maybe? 🤓

Here’s the link to the CfP for our panel at EASST-4S: “Creative partners? Repositioning the arts in transdisciplinary practice“. The panel explores the practices of artists, designers, and artistic researchers to inspire STS to rethink the role of the arts.
nomadit.co.uk/conference/e...

Now I am counting the days! Are you interested in giving a little hint? 😇