Category: News

Objects of Research: Sarah R. Davies

For today’s edition of the “Objects of Research” series, c:o/re Senior Fellow Sarah R. Davies gives an insight into her desk set up. As a professor of Technosciences, Materiality, and Digital Cultures, her work focuses on the intersections between science, technology, and society, with a particular focus on digital tools and spaces.

“I guess many academics would share some varient of this image: a careful arrangement of computer equipment, coffee, notepads, pens, and the other detritus that lives on (my) desk.

For me it’s important that the technical equipment is shown in conjunction with the paper notebook and pens. I’m fussy about all of these things – it’s distracting when my computer set-up isn’t what I’m used to, and I need to use very specific pens from a particular store – but ultimately my thinking lives in the interactions between them.

My colleagues and I are working on an autoethnographic study of knowledge production, and notice that (our) creative research work often emerges as we move notes and ideas from paper to computer (and back again).”

Would you like to find out more about our Objects of Research series at c:o/re? Then take a look at the pictures by Benjamin Peters, Andoni Ibarra, Hadeel Naeem, Alin Olteanu, Hans Ekkehard Plesser, Ana María Guzmán, Andrei Korbut, Erica Onnis, Phillip H. Roth, Bart Penders and Dawid Kasprowicz.

Objects of Research: Dawid Kasprowicz

Presenting the next chapter of the “Objects of Research” series, c:o/re Postdoc and Fellow Program Coordinator, Dr. Dawid Kasprowicz, whose main research fields include theory and history of embodiment, phenomenology, human-robot-Interaction, philosophy of computer simulation, joins us with a picture of his fundamental object for his research practice:

“This is a notebook my Mom gave me. She had it as a kind of leftover from a shopping tour and she thought that it might be of use for my work. And of course, she was right. And as you know, research always starts with a good question that attracts attention.”

Would you like to find out more about our Objects of Research series at c:o/re? Then take a look at the pictures by Benjamin Peters, Andoni Ibarra, Hadeel Naeem, Alin Olteanu, Hans Ekkehard Plesser, Ana María Guzmán, Andrei Korbut, Erica Onnis, Phillip H. Roth and Bart Penders.

Get to know our Fellows: Guillaume Yon

Get to know our current fellows and gain an impression of their research.
In a new series of short videos, we asked them to introduce themselves, talk about their work at c:o/re, the impact of their research on society and give book recommendations.

You can now watch the sixth video of Dr. Guillaume Yon, historian of economics, on our YouTube channel:

Check out our media section or our YouTube channel to have a look at the other videos.

Objects of Research: Bart Penders

Here comes the new edition of our “Objects of Research” series. c:o/re Senior Fellow Dr. Bart Penders provides an insight into his research work and introduces an important tool for this:

“As part of the work I do at KHK c:/ore, as well as extending beyond that, I collect empirical data. In my case, that data consists of records of interviews with scientists and others. Those records can be notes, but they can also be integral recordings of the conversations.

Relying on technology for the production of data is what scientists do on a daily basis. With that comes a healthy level of paranoia around that technology. Calibrating measurement instruments, measurement triangulation, and comparisons to earlier and future records all help us to alleviate that paranoia. I am not immune and my coping mechanism has been, for many years, to take a spare recording device with me.

This is that spare, my backup, and thereby the materialisation of how to deal with moderate levels of technological paranoia. It is not actually a formal voice recorder, but an old digital music player I have had for 15 years, the Creative Zen Vision M. It has an excellent microphone, abundant storage capacity (30 gigabytes) and, quite importantly, no remote access options. That last part is quite important to me, because it ensures that the recording cannot enter the ‘cloud’ and be accessed by anyone but me. Technologically, it is outdated. It no longer serves its original purpose: I never listen to music on it. Instead, it has donned a new mantle as a research tool.”

Would you like to find out more about our Objects of Research series at c:o/re? Then take a look at the pictures by Benjamin Peters, Andoni Ibarra, Hadeel Naeem, Alin Olteanu, Hans Ekkehard Plesser, Ana María Guzmán, Andrei Korbut, Erica Onnis and Phillip H. Roth.

Objects of Research: Phillip H. Roth

For this edition of the “Objects of Research” series, c:o/re postdoc and event coordinator Dr. Phillip H. Roth shows a picture of his favorite research tool. He is currently working on a book/habilitation project that will be a media history of preprints in science.

“I use mechanical pencils (like the one in the photo) to highlight, annotate, question, clarify, or reference things I read in books. This helps me digest the arguments, ideas, and discourses I deal with in my historical and sociological research. I also have software for annotating and organizing PDFs on my iPad as well as a proper notebook for excerpting and writing down ideas. However, I’ve found that the best way for me to connect my reading practices with my thoughts is through the corporeal employment of a pencil on the physical pages of a book.”

Would you like to find out more about our Objects of Research series at c:o/re? Then take a look at the pictures by Benjamin Peters, Andoni Ibarra, Hadeel Naeem, Alin Olteanu, Hans Ekkehard Plesser, Ana María Guzmán, Andrei Korbut and Erica Onnis.

Inaugurating the collaboration of c:o/re and Ritsumeikan University on Emotionalized Artificial Intelligence

We are delighted to be commencing a collaboration on Emotionalized Artificial Intelligence with colleagues at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University. Professor Peter Mantello (Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University) leads a project funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, on which c:o/re is a partner, that over the coming three years will compare attitudes in Japan and in Germany on Emotionalized Artificial Intelligence in the workspace. This is explorative pathway contributes to the c:o/re outlook on Varieties of Science.

Being hosted as a short-term fellow at c:o/re, on February 15th, Professor Peter Mantello inaugurated this collaboration by presenting the rationale and framework of this project.

Prof. Peter Mantello presenting the project “Emotional AI in the Japanese and German Workplace: Exploring Cultural Diversity in AI Ethics”.
Prof. Mantello talks about the questions that philosophy has to tackle on Emotionalized AI.

Symposium: Critical Perspectives on the Metascience Reform Movement

The Käte Hambuger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re) is co-sponsoring the Critical Perspectives on the Metascience Reform Movement Symposium by the Center for Open Science, taking place virtually on March 7, 2024, from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm EST.

Metascience is often defined as the scientific investigation of science itself with the aim to improve science. This ‘improving’ part of metascience has been called a reform movement. While the intention to improve science is generally laudable, metascience and the associated movement(s) are not without their critics. The metascience reform movement has for instance, been characterized as, among other things, neoliberal, positivistic, atheoretical, technological, moralizing, bureaucratic, homogenizing, mechanistic, quantitative, psychological (psychologizing), social, civilizing, bullying, exclusive, coercive, activist, and normative. Some of those critical perspectives will be presented and discussed in this symposium.

KHK c:o/re Fellow Dr. Bart Penders will also contribute with a talk on “Shamed Into Good Science”. Symposium: Critical Perspectives on the Metascience Reform Movement

For additional information, including the program schedule and free registration, please visit the symposium’s webpage.

Get to know our Fellows: Bart Penders

Get to know our current fellows and gain an impression of their research.
In a new series of short videos, we asked them to introduce themselves, talk about their work at c:o/re, the impact of their research on society and give book recommendations.

You can now watch the fifth video of Dr. Bart Penders, PhD in Science and Technology Studies and Associate Professor in ‘Biomedicine and Society’ at Maastricht University, on our YouTube channel:

Check out our media section or our YouTube channel to have a look at the other videos.

Objects of Research: Erica Onnis

Today we continue our „Objects of Research“ series with a picture by c:o/re Alumni Fellow Dr. Erica Onnis, whose research focuses on the nature of emergent phenomena, and the relation between the notion of emergence and those of reduction, novelty, complexity, and causation.

“When asked about the fundamental object for my reaserch practice, I immediately thought of my computer, which seemed the obvious answer given that I read, study, and write on it most of the time.

Upon further reflection, however, I realized that on my computer, I just manage the initial and final phases of my research, namely gathering information and studying on the one hand, and writing papers on the other.

Yet, between these two phases, there is a crucial intermediate step that truly embodied the essence of research, for me: the reworking, systematization, organization, and re-elaboration of what I have read and studied, as well as the formulation of new ideas and hypothesis. These processes never occur on the computer but always on paper.

Therefore, the essential objects for my research are notebooks, sticky notes, notepads, pens, and pencils.”

Would you like to find out more about our Objects of Research series at c:o/re? Then take a look at the pictures by Benjamin Peters, Andoni Ibarra, Hadeel Naeem, Alin Olteanu, Hans Ekkehard Plesser, Ana María Guzmán and Andrei Korbut.

Objects of Research: Andrei Korbut

New edition of our “Objects of Research” series: Find out what c:o/re Junior Fellow Andrei Korbut‘s most important research object is. In his studies Andrei focuses on human–machine communication, applying ethnomethodology and conversation analysis to reveal the detailed ways in which humans organize their interactions with computers.

“There is a joke about which faculty is cheaper for the university. Mathematics is very cheap because all they need is just pencils and erasers. But philosophy is even cheaper because they don’t even need erasers.

My favorite and indispensable object is the rOtring 600 mechanical pencil. It shows that social science is closer to mathematics than to philosophy. Of course, social scientists often need more than pencil and eraser: they have to collect and process data from the real world. But this processing is greatly facilitated by the ability to write and erase your observations.

In my work, I deal with the transcripts of human-machine communication, and I use the rOtring 600, which has a built-in eraser, a lot. It’s useful not only because of the eraser, but also because it’s designed to stay on the table and not break, even in very demanding circumstances like the train journey. And it gives me the feeling that I am making something tangible with it, because it reminds me of engineers or designers producing blueprints for objects and machines.”

Would you like to find out more about our Objects of Research series at c:o/re? Then take a look at the pictures by Benjamin Peters, Andoni Ibarra, Hadeel Naeem, Alin Olteanu, Hans Ekkehard Plesser and Ana María Guzmán.