2013: San Diego

The 2013 4S conference will be held in San Diego, California. Submission of papers and sessions begins January 14. There is no predetermined theme for the 4S conference. Individual abstracts and proposals for sessions should emphasize how they will make original and timely contributions to any theme relevant to science and technology studies (STS). The 4S conference welcomes papers, session proposals, and events that are innovative in their delivery, organization, range of topics, type of public, and which bring new resources to the STS community to explore these new relations and themes. Apart from traditional research papers, the 4S conference also welcomes proposals for sessions and papers using ‘new media’ or other forms of new presentation. This year we plan to hold special sessions on movies and videos where the main item submitted will be a movie or video. We plan to have a room dedicated to showing of movies. Movies of variable length can be submitted.

Each participant in the conference will be limited to only one paper or movie presentation and one other activity (such as session chair or discussant but not a second paper) for a maximum of two appearances.

Submission abstracts should be up to 250 words. They should include the main arguments, methodology, and their contribution to the STS literature. The title of papers should be up to 10 words. Please list five key words to assist the program chair to group individual papers into a session. In addition, identify the most suitable categories for the paper (e.g. environment, information communication technologies, gender studies, science policy, etc.).

Session proposals should be up to 250 words. They should contain a summary and rationale for the session, as well as a brief discussion of its contribution to STS. Session proposals should be organized around one-and-half-hour time slots. A typical session will contain five papers or four papers with a discussant. A minimum of three complete paper abstracts are required in order to submit a session proposal. The program chair may assign additional papers to proposed sessions with three papers. Each paper abstract in the proposed session should be up to 250 words. The title of papers should be up to 10 words. Each presenter in the session must have a user account with the submission system that includes name, affiliation, and contact information. Session organizers can create user accounts on behalf of their authors, if necessary
Movie and video submissions should be related to STS. At this stage a brief description of the movie/video and length will suffice.

Important Dates

• January 6, 2013: Deadline for submitting open panels
• January 13, 2013: Abstract submissions open
• March 17, 2013: Deadline for submissions of individual papers, session proposals and movies/videos.
• May 12, 2013: Acceptance notification.