Technoscientific Imaginaries: Conversations, Profiles, and Memoirs (Volume 2) (Late Editions: Cultural Studies for the End of the Century)

What is it like to be a scientist at the end of the twentieth century? How have shifts in power and in assumptions about knowledge affected scientific practice? Who are the people behind the new technologies, and how do they address the difficult moral and professional issues during a time of global change? Techno-Scientific Imaginaries explores these and other important questions at the approach of the new millennium. In these penetrating essays, twenty-four distinguished contributors from a broad range of fields present the voices of the scientists themselves—through interviews, conversations, and memoirs. We hear from Lithuanian physicists who discuss science after Communism and their own fantasies about what Western science is; a Japanese-American woman struggling with her ambivalence over designing nuclear weapons; political activists in India who examine relations among science, environmental politics, and government ideology in the aftermath of the Bhopal disaster; and many others, including biologists, physicians, corporate researchers, and scientists working with virtual reality and other cutting-edge technologies. The contributors to this volume are Mario Biagioli, Maria E. Carson, Gary Lee Downey, Joseph Dumit, Michael M. J. Fischer, Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good, Hugh Gusterson, Diana L. L. Hill, James Holston, Herbert C. Hoover, Jr., Gudrun Klein, Leszek Koczanowicz, Irene Kuter, Kim Laughlin, Rita Linggood, George E. Marcus, Kathryn Milun, Livia Polanyi, Christopher Pound, Simon Powell, Paul Rabinow, Kathleen Stewart, Allucquere Rosanne Stone, and Sharon Traweek What is it like to be a scientist at the end of the twentieth century? How have shifts in power and in assumptions about knowledge affected scientific practice? Who are the people behind the new technologies, and how do they address the difficult moral and professional issues during a time of global change? Techno-Scientific Imaginaries explores these and other important questions at the approach of the new millennium.

In these penetrating essays, twenty-four distinguished contributors from a broad range of fields present the voices of the scientists themselves-through interviews, conversations, and memoirs. We hear from Lithuanian physicists who discuss science after Communism and their own fantasies about what Western science is; a Japanese-American woman struggling with her ambivalence over designing nuclear weapons; political activists in India who examine relations among science, environmental politics, and government ideology in the aftermath of the Bhopal disaster; and many others, including biologists, physicians, corporate researchers, and scientists working with virtual reality and other cutting-edge technologies.

The contributors to this volume are Mario Biagioli, Maria E. Carson, Gary Lee Downey, Joseph Dumit, Michael M. J. Fischer, Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good, Hugh Gusterson, Diana L. L. Hill, James Holston, Herbert C. Hoover, Jr., Gudrun Klein, Leszek Koczanowicz, Irene Kuter, Kim Laughlin, Rita Linggood, George E. Marcus, Kathryn Milun, Livia Polanyi, Christopher Pound, Simon Powell, Paul Rabinow, Kathleen Stewart, Allucquere Rosanne Stone, and Sharon Traweek.

Introduction by George E. Marcus 1: Cornucopions of History: A Memoir of Science and the Politics of Private Lives Livia Polanyi 2: Eye(I)ing the Sciences and Their Signifiers (Language, Tropes, Autobiographers): InterViewing for a Cultural Studies of Science and Technology Michael M. J. Fischer 3: Twenty-first-Century PET: Looking for Mind and Morality through the Eye of Technology Joseph Dumit 4: Medicine on the Edge: Conversations with Oncologists Mary-Jo Del Vecchio Good, Irene Kuter, Simon Powell, Herbert C. Hoover, Jr., Maria E. Carson, Rita Linggood. 5: Reflections on Fieldwork in Alameda Paul Rabinow 6: Innocence and Awakening: Cyberdammerung at the Ashibe Research Laboratory Allucquere Rosanne Stone 7: The World of Industry-University-Government: Reimagining R&D as America 197 Gary Lee Downey 8: Trust but Verify: Science and Policy Negotiating Nuclear Testing Treaties - Interviews with Roger Eugene Hill Diana L. L. Hill 9: Becoming a Weapons Scientist Hugh Gusterson 10: Rehabilitating Science, Imagining "Bhopal" Kim Laughlin 11: Of Beets and Radishes: Desovietizing Lithuanian Science Kathryn Milun(aitis) 12: Andrzej Staruszkiewicz, Physicist Leszek Koczanowicz 13: Bachigai (Out of Place) in Ibaraki: Tsukuba Science City, Japan Sharon Traweek 14: Bitter Faiths Kathleen Stewart 15: Confabulating Jurassic Science Mario Biagioli 16: Insurgent Urbanism: Interactive Architecture and a Dialogue with Craig Hodgetts James Holston 17: Kith and Kin in Borderlands Gudrun Klein 18: Imagining In-formation: The Complex Disconnections of Computer Networks527 Christopher Pound Contributors Index How have shifts in power and in assumptions about knowledge affected scientific practice? Who controls the new technologies, and how are moral and professional issues addressed during a time of global change? This work explores such questions of relevance in the current scientific climate. Cornucopions provide a way to duck the paradox engendered by losing the information forever.