Vienna STS Talk x INNORES Talk by Stephen Hilgartner

15.04.2026 16:00 - 17:00

We are thrilled to announce Stephen Hilgartner's talk on April 15, 2026 04:00 PM

Science, Technology, and the Unmaking of the United States as We Know It

Stephen Hilgartner, Cornell University

Abstract

As Trump administration policies continue to upend geopolitics and transform the constitutional order of the United States, many are pondering how this self-described bastion of democracy ended up on the brink of authoritarianism. This talk approaches that question from an STS perspective, focusing on the politics of science in this moment of unmaking and remaking the American state.

Most discussion of the politics of science under Trump frames science as a victim of political forces. It is easy to see why. American science has suffered substantial damage from budget cuts, dismissals of personnel, appointments of unqualified Trumpsters to positions of influence, and intrusion into the governance of universities, regulatory agencies, and other institutions. In such a context, some blame a wave of populism that swept such a flawed individual as Donald Trump into the presidency. Another explanation blames a public awash in a sea of misinformation and anti-science attitudes. Others pin responsibility on the tendency of authoritarian regimes to target knowledge-making institutions to tighten control of public discourse.

These explanations all have some merit. But none of them provide much insight into the underlying causes of the crisis. This talk rejects explanations that treat science as an innocent victim of forces beyond its control. Instead, I contend that the politics of science must be counted as one of the contributing causes of the current crisis. Understanding the situation requires considering broader changes in U.S. society—especially changes in the machinery of knowledge-making—that have aggravated systemic problems in U.S. democratic institutions.

Biography

Stephen Hilgartner is the Frederic J. Whiton Professor of Science & Technology Studies at Cornell University. He studies the social dimensions and politics of contemporary and emerging science and technology, especially in the life sciences. His research focuses on control over knowledge making and on situations in which scientific knowledge is implicated in establishing, contesting, and maintaining social order. He has examined these themes in studies of expertise, property formation, risk disputes, and science advice. His book on knowledge-control regimes in genomics, Reordering Life (MIT Press, 2017), analyzes how new knowledge and new regimes of control took shape during the Human Genome Project. Hilgartner’s book on science advice—Science on Stage: Expert Advice as Public Drama—won the Rachel Carson Prize from the Society for Social Studies of Science. He is also a co-editor of Science & Democracy: Making Knowledge and Making Power in the Biosciences and Beyond (Routledge, 2015) and the Handbook of Genomics, Health and Society (Routledge, 2018). Hilgartner is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Location

STS Seminar Room / Universitätsstraße 7 (staircase II / 6th floor) 1010 Vienna & online via Zoom (meeting ID: 640 1339 7094, passcode: 990830)

Books

Reordering Life: Knowledge and Control in the Genomics Revolution, MIT Press, 2017. Honorable mention, Robert K. Merton Book Award, section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology of the American Sociological Association. Preview.
Handbook of Genomics, Health and Society, Sahra Gibbon, Barbara Prainsack, Stephen Hilgartner, and Janelle Lamoreaux, eds., Routledge (2018).
Science & Democracy: Making Knowledge and Making Power in the Biosciences and Beyond, Stephen Hilgartner, Clark Miller, and Rob Hagendijk, eds., Routledge (2015).
Science on Stage: Expert Advice as Public Drama, Stanford University Press, 2000. Preview. Rachel Carson Prize, Society for Social Studies of Science. Chinese translation (Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press, 2015).