CSTMS Activities
CSTMS Colloquium
The CSTMS Colloquium is a seminar series of invited lectures hosted by CSTMS on Thursdays from 4-6 pm in 470 Stephens Hall each semester. The lectures are often sponsored by research units within CSTMS and occasionally co-sponsored by other units at Berkeley or other UC campuses. With the speaker’s permission, these events are videotaped and archived on the individual event page. You can find out who is speaking by viewing our events.
Working Groups
While not often advertised on our main events listing, CSTMS has several active working groups. History of Science scholars should check out our OHST Working Group (link is external), while STS scholars may enjoy taking part in the STS Working Group (link is external). Scholars focused on policy-oriented topics should also explore the Science, Technology, and Engineering Policy (link is external) group for additional collaboration and research.
Workshops & Conferences
CSTMS also hosts a variety of workshops, conferences, and other large-scale events each year. These events explore a wide range of topics, from historical inquiries to pressing contemporary policy issues. The goal of these gatherings is to assess and advance theoretical, historical, and empirical work in the diverse fields of Science & Technology Studies, History of Science & Technology, and the Medical Humanities. Conferences will be listed below.
Fall 2025

Book Launch: Unmaking Botany with Kathleen Cruz Gutierrez
Book Launch
TUESDAY
9 Sept 2025
1:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Summer 2025


Spring 2025





The Biomedical Sources of Rousseau’s Sexual Politics
Colloquium
THURSDAY
24 Apr 2025
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm


Eggonomics: The Global Market in Human Eggs and the Donors Who Supply Them
Non-CSTMS Event
FRIDAY
28 Apr 2025
12:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Political Networks: Data Exchange as Revolution from Late Socialism to the Information Age in Eastern Europe
Colloquium
THURSDAY
17 Apr 2025
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm



Fighting to Breathe: Asthma in Black Protest, Activism, and Survival
Colloquium
THURSDAY
3 Apr 2025
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm







Scott C. Richmond: The Critique of Instrumental Reason Circa 1976
Non-CSTMS Event
THURSDAY
13 Mar 2025
5:00 pm - 7:00 pm





The Medicene. Global Medicine in Late Industrialism
Colloquium
THURSDAY
13 Feb 2025
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Baroque Austerity. Hospitals and Healthcare in Neoliberal Spain
Master Class
TUESDAY
11 Feb 2025
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm


Artificial Intelligence and Its ‘Contexts’: Between Ethics and Politics
Non-CSTMS Event
MONDAY
3 Feb 2025
5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

AI and Social Normativity: Rethinking Error, Bias, and Truth
Non-CSTMS Event
TUESDAY
28 Jan 2025
1:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Fall 2024

Beth Semel: From Signal to Noise: Discernment and Debility in the Making of American Vocal Biomarker AI
Non-CSTMS Event
THURSDAY
12 Dec 2024
2:15 pm - 3:25 pm


Terms of (Dis)Service: The Stakes of Human-Chatbot Relationships
Non-CSTMS Event
TUESDAY
10 Dec 2024
2:15 pm - 3:25 pm

Inspection & Medical Epistemologies of the Transatlantic Slave Trade
Non-CSTMS Event
MONDAY
9 Dec 2024
3:30 pm - 4:30 pm



Behind the Startup: How Venture Capital Shapes Work, Innovation, and Inequality
Non-CSTMS Event
THURSDAY
5 Dec 2024
2:15 pm - 3:25 pm


Health Data and the Politics of Classification
Non-CSTMS Event
THURSDAY
21 Nov 2024
2:15 pm - 3:25 pm

Who Are the Data Scientists?: Evidence from the Field of Education Data Mining
Colloquium
THURSDAY
14 Nov 2024
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm



Imagining the Ends of Structural Discrimination Beyond Documentation
Non-CSTMS Event
WEDNESDAY
30 Oct 2024
3:30 pm - 5:00 pm

Jakob Vogel (Sciences Po Paris) “Forming an Elite for the French Empire. Colonial Sciences at the Ecole Libre de Sciences Politiques in Paris (1880-1960)”
Non-CSTMS Event
WEDNESDAY
30 Oct 2024
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Sexualizing Cancer: HPV and the Politics of Cancer Prevention
Colloquium
THURSDAY
24 Oct 2024
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Engaging Data Politically: On AI, Data Analytics, and Ethics from Below
Non-CSTMS Event
WEDNESDAY
23 Oct 2024
12:10 pm - 1:30 pm


Disputed Inheritance: The Battle over Mendel and the Future of Biology
Colloquium
WEDNESDAY
10 Oct 2024
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Necropolis: Disease, Power, and Capitalism in the Cotton Kingdom
Colloquium
THURSDAY
3 Oct 2024
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm




What is Oppenheimer Good for? Panel Conversation and Q&A
Non-CSTMS Event
THURSDAY
5 Sept 2024
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Summer 2024




Spring 2024

International Careers Panel: Professionals Across Sectors Share Their Stories
Non-CSTMS Event
THURSDAY
25 Apr 2024
5:00 pm - 8:00 pm


Time: Physics, Film, History with Peter Galison
Non-CSTMS Event
THURSDAY
18 Apr 2024
5:30 pm - 7:00 pm

Questioning History in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Symposium
THURSDAY - FRIDAY
11 Apr - 12 Apr 2024


Chauncey Leake Lecture: "Building a Practice-Based Account of Modern Chemistry"
Non-CSTMS Event
FRIDAY
5 Apr 2024
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Code Work: Hacking across the US/México Techno-Borderlands
Colloquium
THURSDAY
4 Apr 2024
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Seeing and Seafaring: Maritime Navigation and the Scopic Regime of Computation
Colloquium
THURSDAY
21 Mar 2024
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Master Class: Media Archaeologies of Computer Graphics
Master Class
THURSDAY
21 Mar 2024
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm


Eclipse & Revelation — US Book Launch on the UC Berkeley Campus
Non-CSTMS Event
TUESDAY
12 Mar 2024
12:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Gas Mask Nation: Visualizing Civil Air Defense in Wartime Japan
Non-CSTMS Event
FRIDAY
8 Mar 2024
4:00 pm

Boundary Problems and the Making of “Minority Medicines” in 20th Century China
Colloquium
THURSDAY
7 Mar 2024
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Understanding AI: Humanities x Social Sciences x Technology
Special Event
WEDNESDAY
6 Mar 2024
9:30 am - 11:30 am

Mediascapes of Postsocialism: Cuban New Media Cultures After the End of History
Special Event
MONDAY
4 Mar 2024
5:00 pm - 6:30 pm

Centering Equity and Justice in Research: What Will It Take?
Non-CSTMS Event
TUESDAY
27 Feb 2024
5:00 pm - 7:00 pm


How Medicine Becomes Trash: Healthcare Waste as Environmental Crisis
Special Event
TUESDAY
27 Feb 2024
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

A Woman’s Life is a Human Life: My Mother, Our Neighbor and the Journey from Reproductive Rights to Reproductive Justice
Special Event
FRIDAY
23 Feb 2024
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm

Total Eclipse of the Heart: Science and Justice in Dante
Colloquium
THURSDAY
22 Feb 2024
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Matrix on Point: Surveillance and Privacy in a Biometric World
Panel
THURSDAY
15 Feb 2024
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Fall 2023





How Genius Grows: Novosibirsk Specialized Physics and Mathematics School (FMSh), Non-Artificial Intelligence, and the Limits of Transformative Projects
Colloquium
THURSDAY
2 Nov 2023
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Epilogue: Inventing CY_BERIA, Living in CARB_BERIA
Master Class
THURSDAY
2 Nov 2023
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm


Foundational Anxieties, Modern Mathematics, and the Political Imagination
Master Class
THURSDAY
19 Oct 2023
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm

Authors Meet Critics: Massimo Mazzotti, “Reactionary Mathematics: A Genealogy of Purity”
Colloquium
TUESDAY
17 Oct 2023
3:30 pm - 5:00 pm

More than Pushing Pills: Black AIDS Activism in the Bay Area, 1981-1997
Colloquium
THURSDAY
12 Oct 2023
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Framing AIDS: Accounting for and Dismissing Black Susceptibility
Master Class
THURSDAY
12 Oct 2023
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm


Screening and Discussion of “Tukdam: Between Worlds” by Donagh Coleman
Film
WEDNESDAY
11 Oct 2023
12:10 pm - 3:40 pm


Summer 2023


Spring 2023


DEEPFAKE: A Rhetorical and Economic Alternative to Address the So-Called “Post-Truth Era”
Symposium
WEDNESDAY
10 May 2023
9:00 am - 7:00 pm



Beyond Space/Time and Mind/Body Dualities, from Theology to Physics and Computing toward Biology
Special Event
FRIDAY
14 Apr 2023
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Fall 2022

Experiential Tools and Face Masks: Entanglements of Human Beings and Artifacts
Talk
THURSDAY
1 Dec 2022
2:00 pm - 3:30 pm



The Political Lives of Information: Information and the Production of Development in India
Non-CSTMS Event
WENDESDAY
12 Oct 2022
4:15 pm - 5:30 pm


The Weapons of the Snake: Fugitive Cryptography in the Indian Activist Diaspora
Colloquium
THURSDAY
6 Oct 2022
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Master Class: Proprietary Freedoms in an IT Office
Master Class
THURSDAY
6 Oct 2022
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm

Metabolism Cages for New World Animals, Small and Large
Colloquium
THURSDAY
22 Sep 2022
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Spring 2022


Upcoming UCSF Archives Author Talk on AZT in the Early AIDS Epidemic
Non-CSTMS Event
WEDNESDAY
27 Apr 2022
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm



Panel on Scientific Controversies in Artificial Intelligence
Panel
THURSDAY
14 Apr 2022
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Circular Economy in the Textile Industry: a European Perspective
Special Event
MONDAY
28 Mar 2022
11:00 am - 12:00 pm

Critical Data Futures: Art, Life and Data in the Metaverse
Special Event
FRIDAY
18 Mar 2022
12:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Fall 2021



The Maternal Imprint: The Contested Science of Maternal-Fetal Effects
Colloquium
THURSDAY
21 Oct 2021
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Sex in Context: Contesting and Rethinking Sex as Biological Variable
Master Class
THURSDAY
21 Oct 2021
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm



Auto-Intimacy: Algorithmic Therapies and Care of the Self
Colloquium
THURSDAY
30 Sep 2021
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm


Spring 2021


Global STS I – Transnational Network Building in Asia, Oceania and Beyond
Workshop
THURSDAY
20 May 2021
5:30 pm


RESCHEDULED: Art, Labor, AI: Elisa Giardina Papa
Arts & Science
THURSDAY
22 Apr 2021
10:00 am - 11:30 am

From Medici to Macho 4.0: Masculinism and Militarism in Toxicology
Colloquium
THURSDAY
18 Mar 2021
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Prototype Nation: China & the Contested Promise of Innovation
Colloquium
THURSDAY
11 Mar 2021
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm


Chasing Innovation: Making Entrepreneurial Citizens in Modern India
Colloquium
THURSDAY
18 Feb 2021
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm


Fall 2020

Dear Doctor: What Doctors Don’t Ask, What Patients Need to Say
Special Event
WEDNESDAY
9 Dec 2020
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

“From Dissertation to Book: The Art of the Book Proposal”
Workshop
THURSDAY
3 Dec 2020
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm

CSTMS Virtual End-Of-Semester Celebration and Chat
Special Event
THURSDAY
19 Nov 2020
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

“No One Wants to Believe It”: Manifestations of White Privilege in a STEM-Focused College
Colloquium
THURSDAY
12 Nov 2020
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

On Half-Built Assemblages: Waiting for a Data Center in Prineville, Oregon
Colloquium
THURSDAY
29 Oct 2020
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Counting Sturgeon: Settler Empirics and Moving Fish in the Columbia River
Colloquium
THURSDAY
22 Oct 2020
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm


Pink and Blue: The Gendering of Pediatric Growth Charts
Colloquium
THURSDAY
8 Oct 2020
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

The Charisma Machine: The Life, Death, and Legacy of One Laptop per Child
Colloquium
THURSDAY
24 Sep 2020
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm


Spring 2020
![[CANCELLED] Chasing Innovation: Entrepreneurial Citizenship and the Subsumption of Hope](https://cstms.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/styles/openberkeley_brand_widgets_thumbnail/public/general/screen_shot_2025-08-11_at_12.59.41_pm.png?itok=jKVrAu6f×tamp=1754942406)
[CANCELLED] Chasing Innovation: Entrepreneurial Citizenship and the Subsumption of Hope
Colloquium
THURSDAY
19 Mar 2020
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
![[CANCELLED] Can the Subaltern Innovate?](https://cstms.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/styles/openberkeley_brand_widgets_thumbnail/public/general/screen_shot_2025-08-11_at_1.02.04_pm.png?itok=KejCMu3j×tamp=1754942551)

Machine Politics: The Rise of the Internet and a New Age of Authoritarianism
Colloquium
THURSDAY
5 Mar 2020
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm



Values at the End of Life: The Logic of Palliative Care
Special Event
THURSDAY
13 Feb 2020
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Demystifying AI as an Ethical Project: A Discussion
Colloquium
THURSDAY
13 Feb 2020
12:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Science, Politics, and Faith in the Seventeenth Century: The World of the Galileans
Non-CSTMS Event
FRIDAY
7 Feb 2020
10:00 am - 5:00 pm

Fall 2019


Sensory Ethnography and the Experience of Dementia
Film Screening
TUESDAY
10 Dec 2019
12:00 pm - 2:00 pm

MEDS (Medicine, Humanities and Social Sciences Working Group) Fall Mixer
MIxer
THURSDAY
5 Dec 2019
5:30 pm - 8:00 pm

The Life and Science of Harold C Urey: A Biography of Cold War Science
Talk
THURSDAY
5 Dec 2019
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Early Algebraic Language and the Algorithm: Preparing an Art of Thinking for People and Machines
Lunch Discussion
FRIDAY
22 Nov 2019
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm


Research Methods in the History of the Natural Sciences
Master Class
THURSDAY
21 Nov 2019
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm




Scouting and Scoring: Baseball as a Data-Based Science
Colloquium
THURSDAY
7 Nov 2019
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Inference Rituals: Algorithms and the History of Statistics
Master Class
THURSDAY
7 Nov 2019
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm

The New Jim Code? Race, Carceral Technoscience, and Liberatory Imagination in Everyday Life
Colloquium
THURSDAY
17 Oct 2019
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm



Binaries and Beyond: Learning from Inequality in the History of Computing
Colloquium
THURSDAY
19 Sep 2019
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm



Bishops and Bodies: Religion and Reproductive Health Care in 2019
Non-CSTMS Event
THURSDAY
5 Sep 2019
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Spring 2019


Academic Careers in Science and Technology Studies & History
Panel
THURSDAY
25 Apr 2019
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm



Confronting Chance: Models of Medicine in the Hippocratic Corpus
Lecture
FRIDAY
12 Apr 2019
5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Unreliable Humans, Failing Machines: The Lost Histories of the Technological Self
Colloquium
THURSDAY
11 Apr 2019
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Strangelove’s Machines: Space Probes, Island Geographies, and Suspect Reason in the Global Circuits of the Cold War
Master Class
THURSDAY
11 Apr 2019
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm

Medicalization and Demedicalization of the Homeless Mentally Ill
Talk / Discussion
THURSDAY
11 Apr 2019
11:00 am - 2:00 pm

The Human Body in the Age of Catastrophe: Brittleness, Integration, Science, and the Great War
Non-CSTMS Event
THURSDAY
4 Apr 2019
5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Traditions and Technologies: Ethical Engagements and New Directions in the Study of South Asian Medicines
Conference
THURSDAY
4 Apr 2019
8:30 am - 4:00 pm

Robert Morrison: Scientific Exchange at the Courts of Mehmed II and Bayezid II
Non-CSTMS Event
TUESDAY
2 Apr 2019
5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Fascism’s Global Moments: New Perspectives on Entanglements and Tensions between Fascist Regimes in the 1930s and 1940s
Non-CSTMS Event
TUESDAY
2 Apr 2019
5:00 pm - 6:30 pm

The Postgenomic Condition: Ethics, Justice, and Knowledge After the Genome
Colloquium
THURSDAY
21 Mar 2019
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm


“We’re not going to be Guinea Pigs”; Community-based Research in Environmental Health and Food Justice with Native American Communities
Colloquium
THURSDAY
14 Mar 2019
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Water Protectors, Garden Warriors, and Windigo Slayers: The Fight for Environmental Justice and Food Sovereignty in Indian Country
Master Class
THURSDAY
14 Mar 2019
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm


The Future of European Research via the lenses of the Horizon EU research and innovation programme 2021-2027
Non-CSTMS Event
WEDNESDAY
6 Mar 2019
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

The Impact of the Drug War on U.S. Communities of Color: Politics, the Carceral State, and Collateral Damages
Master Class
THURSDAY
28 Feb 2019
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm

Editing the Code of Life: The Future of Genome Editing
Endowed Elberg Series
THURSDAY
21 Feb 2019
5:00 pm - 6:30 pm




The Assault on Empathy: The Promise of Artificial Intimacy
Lecture
WEDNESDAY
6 Feb 2019
4:10 pm - 5:30 pm

The Assault on Empathy: The Promise of a Friction-Free Life
Lecture
TUESDAY
5 Feb 2019
4:10 pm - 5:30 pm
Fall 2018

Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police and Punish the Poor
Colloquium
THURSDAY
29 Nov 2018
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm