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Health and STS Breakfast Reading Group

Bookshelf

  • 9.30-10.30, Last Thursday of each month (note this may change for scheduling reasons)
  • Seminar Room 2, Wolfson College
  • Linton Road, Oxford, OX2 6UD
  • Tea, coffee, pastries, fruit provided

Research about health in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) concerns the political, social, legal, and ethical dimensions of developments in health knowledge, technology, and policy. Examples include: how states know what pandemic response should involve, why health gets framed as a problem for markets and who benefits or loses in the process, what structures shape and are shaped by the conduct of experimental research, and, broadly, when ideas about life and its entitlements change. STS pays close attention to the cultural resources involved in the production of scientific and political authority, thereby challenging a simple “progress narrative” to illuminate how people and institutions understand, create, and intervene in the world and imagine potential alternatives.

This year, a new “Health and STS” reading group will convene out of Wolfson College and the Vaccines and Society Unit. The group will meet once a month and hopes to bring together students and faculty across disciplines to address topics concerning the representations, ethics, and governance of health research, technologies, and interventions.

If you would like to attend, please sign up to our mailing list: https://mailchi.mp/bda2bcaef25b/health-and-sts-breakfast-reading-group. The format of the group will be for us to provide a short summary of the assigned book chapter followed by an open discussion. Chapters are available in advance here. At the moment this is in-person meeting but if there is demand we will include hybrid option.

Timetable: 

Introductions: Biosciences and the Social Compact 

30/1/25  Stephen Hilgartner, Clark Miller, & Robert Hagendijk, eds. (2015) Science and Democracy: Making Knowledge and Making Power in the Biosciences and Beyond. Chapter 3.
19/2/25  Sheila Jasanoff. ed. (2011) Reframing Rights: Bioconstitutionalism in the Genetic Age. Chapter 1.
20/3/25  J. Benjamin Hurlbut (2017) Experiments in Democracy: Human Embryo Research and the Politics of Bioethics. Chapter 6. Author to present.

Knowledge Politics and Global Health 

24/4/25  Caroline Redhead & Melanie Smallman, eds. (2024) Governance, democracy and ethics in crisis decision making: The pandemic and beyond. Chapter 4. Author (Melanie) to present.
29/5/25  Stuart Blume (2019) The artificial ear: Cochlear implants and the culture of deafness. Chapter 4.
19/6/25  Ann Kelly and Javier Lezaun (2025) Pragmatic Vectors: Field Guide for a New Global Health. Chapter tbc. Author (Ann) to present.
31/7/25  Vincanne Adams, ed. (2016) Metrics: What counts in global health. Chapter 1.

For any questions email samantha.vanderslott@ndm.ox.ac.uk or aishani.aatresh@sjc.ox.ac.uk. If you no longer want to take part just let us know and we will take you off the list.