In April 2015, CSTMS hosted a two-day interdisciplinary conference on “Faking It:” Counterfeits, Copies, and Uncertain Truths in Science, Technology, and Medicine. Over the past several decades, science studies scholars have explored the ways in which scientific knowledge and practice is socially constructed, debated, contested, and deemed credible by the public.  Others have turned their attention to the politics and poetics of “agnotology,” or the social, political, economic, and cultural circumstances that promulgate and substantiate ignorance.  Both of these takes on the sociology of knowledge have opened up room for examining the creative ways in which actors fake, fudge, and forge.  In the contested space between corporations and the broader public, for example, sociologists and historians have explored the tobacco wars, global warming debates, and the regulatory boundaries of “permissible exposure” to industrial toxins.  So too, anthropologists and STS scholars working from below are increasingly turning attention to artisanal knowledge and ingenuity, be it cultures of repair or improvisation in medicine.  At each of these registers, there are possibilities for both creativity and catastrophe.

The event had two main purposes: to create a capacious space for colleagues to come together and explore the problem of evidence making and the material and political stakes of uncertainty, and to build STS community across the University of California and beyond.

We saw this two-day symposium as part of a broader vision for building the “California School of Science and Technology Studies,” which combines the sociology of knowledge with an attention to governmentality, power, and political economy. Be it the environment, the consequences and promises of “big data” and techno-fixes, copies and counterfeits, pharmaceutical governance, clouds, crowds, or nuclearity, STS at UC Berkeley is not afraid of engaging with some of the most difficult challenges facing the planet in the 21st century.

Dana Simmons (History, UC Riverside), opened with a discussion of the role of the imposter and “faking it until you make it” in the academy. In many ways, this set the tone for the event, allowing participants to engage in the transgression of speaking across disciplines and historical contexts. Colleagues working on toxicity and the environment, for example, rarely have the opportunity to engage with 18th century historians working on the politics of accusation in the courts. Under this broad rubric, scholars shared work in progress on: toxic publics, race and bullshit, evidence making and the body, modernity and authenticity, counterfeits and the circulation of fakes, and the shifting role of technology in faking it. The conference concluded with a faculty roundtable and general discussion on the major themes of the weekend. Over 20 presenters, including graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and faculty, shared their work. These participants came from a broad variety of institutions, including the University of California and farther afield, such as the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Our keynote speaker, Joe Masco (Anthropology, University of Chicago), gave a fascinating and disturbing talk called “Nuclear Psyops” about the role that “faking it” has played and continues to play in the theatrical politics of the Cold War and the War on Terror.

Institutional and financial support for this conference came from CSTMS, UC Berkeley’s Geography and Anthropology departments, the Townsend Center, and the Graduate Assembly. The conference organizers, Shannon Cram and Marissa Mika, are currently putting together a publication proposal for a special issue of the STS journal Limn that will provide a forum for continued discussion about conference themes.