Announcements | Platypus

Platypus in 2022

 Svetlana Borodina  January 25, 2022

As the new year and the new semester have been off to (hopefully) a good start, Platypus is coming back to work too. Building on a decade of work (this year Platypus turns 10!), in 2022, we will continue our commitment to providing a platform for diverse voices and critical scholarship at the intersection of anthropology and STS. We have a new team, new projects, and a great deal of enthusiasm, as always. We can’t wait to offer our readers more experimental and multimodal content (powered by Platypus’s biggest team of talented multimodal contributing editors to date!), increase the linguistic accessibility of Platypus’s materials (possible with the support of invaluable multilingual volunteers!), and widen the spectrum of genres and means of academic expression (supported by our brilliant web producer and contributing editors). Stay tuned! (read more...)

2021 at Platypus

 Svetlana Borodina  January 12, 2021

The first weeks of 2021 brought no relief, even though so many hoped otherwise. Instead, the first twelve days clearly demonstrated that exclusion, inequity, violence, and multiply intersecting systems of oppression didn’t magically disappear into the thin air as the clock struck midnight on January 1. Neither in the US nor in other parts of the world. (read more...)

Meet Our 2020 Contributing Editors!

 Baird Campbell  January 13, 2020

As we begin another exciting year here at Platypus, we’d like to introduce you to our new group of Contributing Editors. Contributing Editors are responsible both for producing and seeking out content for the blog. If you are interested in contributing something to the blog but aren’t sure how, reach out to the contributing editor who most closely relates to your proposed topic! (read more...)

Of Camels, Platypuses, and the Future of the Blog

 Baird Campbell  January 22, 2019

It has been said that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. We might think of the platypus in much the same way, though the key difference is perhaps that—as of yet—it is unclear what the Platypus Committee was trying to create. Regardless, the platypus has long been emblematic of the limitations of scientific classification. An egg-laying, duck-billed, poisonous mammal: the only surviving member of its species and genus. It is this persistent and natural spirit of disruption and provocation that led the founders of this blog to christen it with the name of this thoroughly confusing and fascinating creature. Its defiance of orderly categorization serves as both a metaphor and motivation for the continued intersection of anthropology and science and technology studies, sometimes considered strange bedfellows. (read more...)

Call for Editors – 2019

 Ian Lowrie  November 29, 2018

Platypus, the CASTAC Blog, is seeking a new Editor and several new Contributing Editors for our team in 2019! The blog is a weekly, collaborative publication of the Committee on the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing at the American Anthropological Association. (read more...)

Call for 2018 Contributing Editors!

 Ian Lowrie  November 28, 2017

Editor’s note: If you’re interested in learning more about the position, and will be in DC for the anthropology meetings, be sure to come to the CASTAC business meeting! It runs from 10:00 AM – 11:15 AM on Saturday the 2nd. I’ll be talking about the past year at blog, and would be happy to hang around afterwards and answer any questions folks may have about the contributing editor role. Contributing Editors are responsible for curating 4-5 posts from scholars and researchers in the field each year, and frequently also contribute to the blog themselves. We are especially interested in contributors eager to continue our podcast series, Down to a Science, and assist the editor with compiling biweekly roundups of interesting and relevant content from around the web. This is a great opportunity to get involved in CASTAC, and in the anthropology of science and technology more generally. We are open to a wide range of topical interests at the intersection of anthropology and STS, especially those that complement our existing ones. Work on information technologies, human-animal relations, biosciences and healthcare, disability, gender, and sexuality are of particular interest. CEs must commit to 4-5 post slots at the beginning of the year. Their responsibilities include communication with guest authors, initial editorial supervision, and managing the production process. This is a one-year renewable term. (read more...)

From Technocracy to the Anthropocene: 2016 in Review

 Jordan Kraemer  March 21, 2017

#ALSIceBucketChallenge. Deflategate. Twins in Space. Animal Sex Work. The joy of working on Platypus since its inception arises from the many lively, timely, engaged posts that our team of contributing editors and authors bring to the blog each week. Sometimes funny, sometimes serious, often critical and reflective, the blog offers a look into up-and-coming research in anthropology, STS, and related fields on science, tech, computing, informatics, and more. As editor, I’ve delighted in posts that frequently turn commonsense assumptions upside down. For the past two years, I’ve summarized the major themes and highlights in a yearly review post, and have the pleasure of doing so for 2016. Two noteworthy themes threaded through many of last year’s posts: 1) reflections on technocracy, and 2) living in the anthropocene. By technocracy, I mean emerging regimes of data, algorithms, and quantitative living. Melissa Cefkin (Human-Machine Interactions and the Coming Age of Autonomy) opened (read more...)

The More Things Change…

 Ian Lowrie  January 31, 2017

Things are more than a little unsettled, lately. The past ten days since the Inauguration have been a maelstrom of activity, leaving many of us feeling profoundly uncertain about our political, technological, and scholarly futures. Of course, we haven’t been passive. Whatever else it has been, the rise of Trumpism has been an occasion for a great deal of anthropological activity. Anthropologists from around the world have been hard at work attending to the emergence of this phenomenon as both scholars and citizens. If our activities at each of these levels have seemed somewhat disconnected, somewhat divorced from one another, it is perhaps a testament to the profound challenge to our inherited sensibilities, our disciplinary and political commonplaces, represented by the transformations we are witnessing. I think, however, that this is in some respects a constitutive feature of our discipline; anthropology has long been haunted by a tension between its ethical commitment to engagement and its methodological commitment to untimeliness. (read more...)