Dear All,

As the Director of the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine, and Society, it is my pleasure to welcome you to another exciting semester! As we continue with our successful and established research emphasis and working groups, we also created two new themes for the center. With our new research initiative, “Beyond Medicalization,” we invite scholars in the social sciences and humanities to interrogate the term and move beyond a binary view of medicalization. We are interested in the ways in which medicine and economic, social, ecological and political processes co-constitute each other and in particular, at how patients, practitioners and policymakers, pharma companies, research institutions, and families attempt to direct its development and extend its reach to ostensibly non-medical domains. We also invite applications from visiting scholars for our other emerging theme, “Critical AI,”; which we will launch in Fall 2025.

We have a wonderful line-up of colloquium speakers this spring, along with a variety of other activities, research, and courses. We welcome new and returning visiting scholars and S.T.S. Designated Emphasis Ph.D. students. Mark your calendars for our first talk, kicking off the new “Beyond Medicalization” theme, on Thursday, February 13, at 4 pm in 470 Stephens Hall, featuring Janina Kehr (University of Vienna) speaking on “The Medicene. Global Medicine in Late Industrialism.”

I am excited to meet and reconnect with all of you, and I look forward to hearing your ideas and suggestions as we continue to grow and evolve as a community.

Best wishes,
Sandra Eder