<div dir="ltr"><p><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><font size="4"><font size="2">***</font></font><font size="4"><font size="2">apologies for cross-posting***</font></font></span></p><p><br></p><p>Dear colleagues, <br>
</p>
<p>We are pleased to invite you to submit abstract proposals to our
panel<font size="2"><b><font face="georgia,serif"><span style="font-family:sans-serif"> "Disappearance, maintenance and reinvention in the biographies </span><span style="font-family:sans-serif">of technical objects.</span></font></b></font><font face="georgia,serif"><i><b><font size="2"><span style="font-family:sans-serif"><span style="font-family:sans-serif"> </span></span></font></b></i><b><font size="2"><span style="font-family:sans-serif"><span style="font-family:sans-serif">Perspectives on the transformative vulnerabilities of technology at the intersection </span><span style="font-family:sans-serif">between <span>STS</span> and Media Studies" </span></span></font></b><font size="2"><span style="font-family:sans-serif"><span style="font-family:sans-serif">(TRACK 13) at the <span>8th</span> <span>STS</span> <span>Italia</span> <span>Conference</span> “Dis/Entangling Technoscience:
Vulnerability, Responsibility and Justice”, <b>University of Trieste, Italy, 17-19 June 2021</b>.</span></span></font></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" align="left"><font size="4"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(106,82,74);background:rgb(233,231,227) none repeat scroll 0% 0%" lang="EN-GB"><span>Deadline</span> for submitting
abstracts<b><span style="border:1pt none windowtext;padding:0cm"> </span></b></span><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:red;border:1pt none windowtext;padding:0cm;background:rgb(233,231,227) none repeat scroll 0% 0%" lang="EN-GB"><span>extended</span> until</span></b><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:red;border:1pt none windowtext;padding:0cm;background:rgb(233,231,227) none repeat scroll 0% 0%" lang="EN-GB"> 18 December 2020</span></b></font></p><p><font face="georgia,serif"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:sans-serif"><span style="font-family:sans-serif"></span></span></font></font></p><p><font face="georgia,serif"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:sans-serif"><span style="font-family:sans-serif">Follow this link: <a href="https://www.stsitaliaconf2020.com/call-for-abstracts" target="_blank">https://www.stsitaliaconf2020.com/call-for-abstracts</a>
and submit a title, and a short abstract of less than 300 words by
December 18, 2020. If you have any questions please email me at <a href="mailto:sergio.minniti@unipd.it" target="_blank">sergio.minniti@unipd.it</a></span></span></font></font></p><p><font face="georgia,serif"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:sans-serif"><span style="font-family:sans-serif">Best regards,</span></span></font></font></p><p><font face="georgia,serif"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:sans-serif"><span style="font-family:sans-serif">Sergio Minniti, Diego Cavallotti and Simone Dotto<br></span></span></font></font></p><div><div id="gmail-m_1292349202985534174gmail-m_6748902951633522361gmail-m_4104546516881382151gmail-m_-2819767305553885886gmail-m_-6685274216540900495gmail-m_-1416356795677185795gmail-m_2798792511445214470__MailbirdStyleContent" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><div><div style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif"><div id="gmail-m_1292349202985534174gmail-m_6748902951633522361gmail-m_4104546516881382151gmail-m_-2819767305553885886gmail-m_-6685274216540900495gmail-m_-1416356795677185795gmail-m_2798792511445214470__MailbirdStyleContent" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><div><div style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif"><div id="gmail-m_1292349202985534174gmail-m_6748902951633522361gmail-m_4104546516881382151gmail-m_-2819767305553885886gmail-m_-6685274216540900495gmail-m_-1416356795677185795gmail-m_2798792511445214470__MailbirdStyleContent" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><div><div style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif"><div id="gmail-m_1292349202985534174gmail-m_6748902951633522361gmail-m_4104546516881382151gmail-m_-2819767305553885886gmail-m_-6685274216540900495gmail-m_-1416356795677185795gmail-m_2798792511445214470__MailbirdStyleContent" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><div><div style="text-align:center">
<font face="georgia,serif"> </font>
<div style="text-align:left"><p>----</p>
<p><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">Track: <font size="2"><b><font face="georgia,serif"><span style="font-family:sans-serif">Disappearance, maintenance and reinvention in the biographies </span><span style="font-family:sans-serif">of technical objects.</span></font></b></font><font face="georgia,serif"><i><b><font size="2"><span style="font-family:sans-serif"><span style="font-family:sans-serif"> </span></span></font></b></i><b><font size="2"><span style="font-family:sans-serif"><span style="font-family:sans-serif">Perspectives on the transformative vulnerabilities of technology at the intersection </span><span style="font-family:sans-serif">between <span>STS</span> and Media Studies</span></span></font></b></font></span></font></p><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><p><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">Convenors: <br></span></font></p><div style="text-align:left"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><font size="2">Sergio Minniti, University of Padova, <a href="mailto:sergio.minniti@unipd.it" target="_blank">sergio.minniti@unipd.it</a></font></span></div><div style="text-align:left"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><font size="2">Diego Cavallotti, University of Cagliari, <a href="mailto:diego.cavallotti@unica.it" target="_blank">diego.cavallotti@unica.it</a><br></font></span></div><div style="text-align:left"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><font size="2">Simone Dotto, University of Udine, <a href="mailto:simone.dotto@uniud.it" target="_blank">simone.dotto@uniud.it</a></font></span></div><p><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"></span></font></p><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><p><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><b>Description of the track:</b></span></font></p><font face="georgia,serif"><u style="font-size:10pt;line-height:17px">
</u></font></div><div style="text-align:left"><div><font face="georgia,serif"><span style="font-size:12pt"></span><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:1.5">Over the last years, we have seen an increasing interest in the overlapping areas of <span>STS</span> and Media Studies towards examining the multifaceted vulnerabilities of technical objects. Within <span>STS</span>,
research on maintenance and repair practices has been attracting
growing attention since the works of Susan Leigh Star (1999) and
Marianne de Laet and Annemarie Mol (2000), which set the ground for the
study of the vulnerability of sociotechnical networks. A number of
contributions have then addressed issues relating to obsolescence and
fragility, durability and tinkering, adaptation and re-use, to the
extent that a distinctive interdisciplinary field of inquiry –
Maintenance and repair studies (MRS) – has emerged. Among the valuable
insights offered by this field of inquiry is the transformative power of
moments of vulnerability, which becomes evident when we consider how
innovation emerges from obsolescence, maintenance and repair, and how
new sociomaterial, ethical and political orders, as well as new
geographies of responsibility are established through the practices that
deal with technical vulnerability.</span></span></font></font></div><div><font face="georgia,serif"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:1.5"><br></span></span></font></font></div><div><font face="georgia,serif"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:1.5">Similarly, in Media Studies,
growing attention has been paid to the to the ever-shifting relations
between “old” and “new” media, to the suppressed, the outmoded and the
technological dead ends in media history – see, for instance, Huhtamo
and Parikka’s Media Archaeology: Approaches, Applications, and
Implications (2011) - to how “old” media may survive in residual
conditions and be reactivated or reinvented in multiple ways (see
Acland’s Residual Media [2007]), and to how allegedly “dead media” can
be materially revived by a politically infomed art method which Jussi
Parikka and Garnet Hertz notoriously described as “hardware hacking”
(2012).</span></span></font></font></div><div><font face="georgia,serif"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:1.5"><br></span></span></font></font></div><div><font face="georgia,serif"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:1.5">Way beyond the strictly historiographic level, the discussion
on these topics raised new social concerns, problematising the effects
of the planned obsolescence pursued by commercial industry as well as
the material aspects of mass-produced technology – which enhanced a
focus on the conditions of hardware circulation, accumulation, disposal,
decomposition, recycling and renewal also from an ecological angle.<br>This
growing awareness that the study of media change should include their
life cycles as material objects, reflects a more general interest in
taking into account the moments of transformation in the social
biographies of media technologies which often correspond to their
critical moments of vulnerability.</span></span></font></font></div><div><font face="georgia,serif"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:1.5"><br></span></span></font></font></div><div><font face="georgia,serif"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:1.5">We aim to enable a fruitful discussion between exponents from the fields of <span>STS</span>
and Media Studies concerning the manifold processes of transformation
fostered by or related to the vulnerabilities of technical objects over
the course of their biographies. Thus, we call for papers which address,
among others, questions about differences in understandings and
vocabularies as well as explorations of empirical, methodological, and
theoretical overlappings.</span></span></font></font></div><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><div><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:1.5"><br></span></span></font></div><div><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:1.5"><span style="color:black" lang="EN-US">Deadline for abstract submission: <b>December 18, 2020</b></span>
</span></span></font></div><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><div><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:1.5"><br>
</span></span></font></div><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><div>
<div><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><b>Abstracts
submission</b></span></font></div>
<font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">Submission
(to the <span><span>conference</span></span> email address <a href="mailto:stsitaliaconf@gmail.com" target="_blank"><stsitaliaconf@gmail.com></a>
and to the emails of convernors'
selected track) should include:</span></font></div><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><div><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br></span></font>
</div><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><div><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">1. Author's
name and surname, affiliation and
email address</span></font></div><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><div><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">2. Presentation
title</span></font></div><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><div><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">3. Abstract
(less than 300 words)</span></font></div><div><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br><br></span></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><font style="color:rgb(136,136,136)" size="2">Sergio Minniti, PhD<br></font><div><font style="color:rgb(136,136,136)" size="1">Research Fellow</font></div><div><font style="color:rgb(136,136,136)" size="1">Department of </font><font style="color:rgb(136,136,136)" size="1"><span>Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology (FISPPA)</span></font></div><div><span><font style="color:rgb(136,136,136)" size="1">University of Padova, Italy</font></span><br></div><div><font style="color:rgb(136,136,136)" size="1"></font><span></span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(136,136,136)"></span><div style="color:rgb(136,136,136)"><font size="1"><br></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>