Phillip H. Roth

Photo credits: Franka Ennen-Roth

I am a postdoctoral researcher and the coordinator for events at c:o/re. I studied Political Science and History at the TU Dresden and hold a PhD in Sociology from the University of Bonn. Before joining c:o/re, I was Fellow in Residence at the Kolleg Friedrich Nietzsche in Weimar, research associate in a BMBF-funded project on stem cell governance at the University of Duisburg-Essen and part of the DFG research group Practicing Evidence – Evidencing Practice in Bonn, respectively.

In my dissertation, I used a conceptual history approach and discourse analysis to unearth medicine’s identity as an academic discipline. I examined how the research culture of “scientific medicine” emerged and formed in the early 19th-century German university, how it transitioned to and differentiated in the American discourse, where it turned into the science policy category “biomedicine” in the post-war era, encompassing a wide range of experimental research in biology and medicine. My current work revolves around two thematic poles: on the one hand, I am looking into the agency and mediality of software in scientific communication. And on the other, I want to investigate how the current coronavirus crisis has changed our understanding of pandemics under the conditions of digital communication and post-truth. My research interests include: History and Sociology of Science and Medicine, STS, Media Studies, Software Studies, Digital and Historical Sociology, and Luhmann, Foucault and Kittler.


Selected Publications

Roth, Phillip H. 2022. Medicine as Science. The Making of Disciplinary Identity from Scientific Medicine to Biomedicine (Wissenschafts- und Technikforschung Vo. 22). Baden-Baden: Nomos (OpenAccess).

Roth, Phillip H. “Disziplinen und Kulturen der Wissenschaft”. In Wissenschaftsforschung. Grundbegriffe, Forschungsfelder und Forschungsfragen (Sozialwissenschaftliche Einführungen, 4) edited by David Kaldewey. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg (forthcoming).

Roth, Phillip H., Mariacarla Gadebusch Bondio. 2022. The Contested Meaning of “long COVID”. Patients, Doctors, and the Politics of Subjective Evidence. Social Science & Medicine 292: 114619. Doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114619.

Roth, Phillip H., Tommaso Bruni. 2022. Participation, Empowerment, and Evidence in the Current Discourse on Personalized Medicine – A Critique of ‘Democratizing Healthcare’. Science, Technology, & Human Values 47(5): 1033–1056. Doi.org/10.1177/01622439211023568.

Roth, Phillip H. 2021. Metascientific Language and the Changing Identities of Modern Science. Review of “Désirée Schauz. 2020. Wahrheit und Nützlichkeit. Eine Geschichte des modernen Wissenschaftsverständnisses. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag”. Metascience. Doi.org/10.1007/s11016-021-00684-7.

Janet Opper, Vasilija Rolfes, Phillip H. Roth (eds.). 2020. Chancen und Risiken der Stammzellforschung. Berlin: Berliner Wissenschaftsverlag.

Selected Talks

“De-Institutionalizing Expertise? Exposing the Ambivalent Relationship Between Science and Society in the Corona-Crisis”, Annual Conference of the DVPW Working Group “Politik, Wissenschaft und Technik” Politik, Wissenschaft und Technik im Spiegel von Krisen, 03.–04. March 2022, TU Munich.

“Das Leben mit und nach COVID-19. Subjektive Evidenz und Aktivismus in einer vernetzten Welt” (with Mariacarla Gadebusch Bondio), Lecture Series Gratwanderungen – Vom Umgang mit(einander) (in) der Krise, University of Bonn, 22. Juni 2021.

“The Language of Modern Medicine. Identity Work and Discipline Formation in German and US Medical Science”, MedHum Science Lab, Institute for Medical Humanities, UKB University Hospital Bonn, 14. Februar 2020.

“Governing the Future? Biomedicine in Science and Politics”, Summer School Science and Politics – Exploring Relations between Higher Education, Sci­ence and Research Policy, Forum Internationale Wissenschaft, University of Bonn, 10.–14. September 2018.

“Was heißt eigentlich ‘kritisch denken’?”, 15 Jahre Kolleg Friedrich Nietzsche Ereignis und Spekulation – Philosophische Momente, Weimar, 24.–26. Oktober 2016.

“Zur Konstruktion des ‘Sinns’ bei Nietzsche und Luhmann”, Trebuth-Workshop Luhmann meets Nietzsche. Orientierung im Nihilismus, Nietzsche Documentation Center, Naumburg/Saale, 6.–8. Juni 2014.

“Nietzsche’s Early Conception of Legislation”, MANCEPT Workshops in Political Theory, Workshop Nietzsche and Political Theory, University of Manchester, 5.–7. September 2012.

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