Thursday Talk Series On ‘Science, STS, And The Possible Conversations’
The Department of Sociology invites you to a talk titled ‘Science, STS, and the Possible Conversations’ by Prof. Amber Habib and Dr. Renny Thomas. Part of the Sociology Thursday Seminar Series, the remote talk is scheduled on 20 October at 12:00 PM IST; D330 Hybrid.
Abstract
In this conversation, a practicing mathematician (Amber Habib) and an anthropologist of science (Renny Thomas) will be engaging on the possibilities and impossibilities of dialogue/negotiation between sciences and social sciences; traveling through the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). The conversation will address some of the central questions regarding the absence of science in social science debates and the absence of social sciences in the imagination of sciences. Habib and Thomas will look at the specific case of India, the challenges of doing science and mathematics, and the challenges of doing ethnographies of science and scientific institutions. In the process of talking about science and anthropology of science, the conversation will engage on questions of power, methods, and hierarchy of knowledge production. The speakers hope that conversations such as the current one will open up new possibilities of thinking across disciplines and beyond disciplines.
About the speakers:
Prof. Amber Habib
Amber Habib is a Professor of Mathematics at the Shiv Nadar University. Before, he was at the Mathematical Sciences Foundation in New Delhi. He has also taught at St. Stephen's College, University of Delhi.
Prof. Habib did his MS in Mathematics from IIT Kanpur and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests are in representation theory and mathematical finance. For many years he has been interested in how mathematics education at the school and college level can be made more exciting and fulfilling through special topics, projects, and an appreciation of the myriad links of mathematics with other disciplines. He has contributed to the curricula and activities of several universities and national bodies like NCERT.
Dr. Renny Thomas
Renny Thomas is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. He has been a Charles Wallace Fellow in Social Anthropology at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK (2017-2018), and a Visiting Fellow at the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Cultural History at Friedrich-Schiller University-Jena, Germany (2022-2023). He is the author of Science and Religion in India: Beyond Disenchantment (London: Routledge, 2021) and co-editor of Mapping Scientific Method: Disciplinary Narrations (London: Routledge, 2022).
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