Chair of Science, Technology and Gender Studies
The Chair of Science, Technology, and Gender Studies (STGS) at Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg was established in January 2021. Being highly interdisciplinary, the chair is unique within the German academic system. We analyze the relationship among scientific knowledge, technological systems, and society, addressing the most important challenges of the contemporary world through a critical and gender perspective. We think across the traditional divide between the social sciences and humanities on one side and the natural sciences and engineering on the other. Given FAU’s strong connections to high-tech industries and involvement in innovative engineering projects that affect our everyday lives, the chair offers a chance for a critical participation in the making of technoscience and builds its research and educational projects on shared, interdisciplinary interests.
Our aim is to
- educate students across faculties in critical thinking about technoscience,
- identify what has been historically taken for granted as legitimate model of knowledge,
- make visible the sociocultural and gender aspects of technoscience that are often hidden,
- engage in the design process of technoscience in a collaborative and cooperative manner, and
- extend our agenda to science policy and science diplomacy.
Key research fields include: diplomatic studies of science; history of nuclear sciences; science diplomacy and international organizations; the integration of science and politics with society; gender in the history of science and technology; materiality and scientific practice; science, innovation, and health diplomacy.
