Technopolitics in a Twilight Civilization

Michael Bennett

doi:10.17351/ests2021.1119

Michael Bennett University of Illinois at Chicago

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2021.1119

Abstract

In the 2020 Prague Virtual Conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), Langdon Winner was awarded the society’s John D. Bernal Prize jointly with Sharon Traweek. The Bernal Prize is awarded annually to individuals who have made distinguished contributions to the field of STS. Prize recipients include founders of the field of STS, along with outstanding scholars who have devoted their careers to the understanding of the social dimensions of science and technology. The following paper describes the significance of several recurrent figures in Winner’s writings about autonomous technologies, and their importance in generating better readings of his corpus, including his Bernal Prize lecture.

Author Biography

Michael Bennett, University of Illinois at Chicago

Dr. Michael Bennett serves as Discovery Partners Institute’s Director of Student Experiential Learning Programs at the University of Illinois. In this capacity, he is responsible for directing and overseeing DPI’s growing portfolio of formal academic and informal learning programs, and leading a team that implements and manages them. Dr. Bennett has extensive experience in curriculum development, with a particular emphasis on innovation policy, art law, anticipatory governance, and future scenarios, Afrofuturism, intellectual property law and policy, and science and technology policy. He is a regular keynote speaker across these domains.