Everyday STS: The Rensselaer STS Spice Rack

• In Event: STS Across Borders Exhibit

Abstract

The Rensselaer Department of Science and Technology Studies formed one of the first STS doctoral program in North America and indeed the world. The baccalaureate degree and master’s program were accredited in 1977. The STS PhD program launched in 1988. The PhD program was notably broad and disciplinarily diverse from its earliest days. We have chosen to showcase this diversity via a ‘suitcase’ exhibition for display at 4S Sydney 2018.
Encapsulating the spirited vitality of the field, the ‘STS Spice Rack’ holds an accumulation of artifacts emplaced and displaced, hybridized and (im)purified. These complex mixtures have been playfully labeled by generations of graduate students as if their contents, which consist of various materials, concretize the theoretical schools, conceptual frameworks, and methodological molecules that leaven the meaning of STS in today’s world. The STS Spice Rack occupies a mundane space between the kitchen sink and the window overlooking the Hudson River within the Graduate Student Lounge. In showcasing ‘the STS everyday’, this exhibition will contain material-semiotic and virtual objects that exemplify the spirit of The Rensselaer STS program.
A series of small posters will accompany the suitcase, which will be shipped to the conference site in advance. The suitcase will contain a set of small objects contained in plastic jars, labelled in correspondence to the mounted posters. These objects represent the congealed meanings of theoretical and methodological approaches, as well as mobilizing affect and intellect.

Authors

• Nancy D. Campbell, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

• Hined A Rafeh, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

• Alli Morgan, RPI