The 2022 Holberg Lecture: Democracy in an Unknowable World
Science and Technology Studies allows us to rethink the position of the political subject in a mechanized, instrumentalized, yet indeterminate world. Lecture by the 2022 Holberg Prize Laureate, Sheila Jasanoff.
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Science and technology are so commonly seen as drivers of progress that their role in forming the horizons of individual and collective self-understanding often passes unnoticed in political theory and practice. STS corrects this imbalance by revealing what we know and how we apply our knowledge to be thoroughly political projects. By unsettling the parameters of social order, science and technology also trouble—and perhaps expand—how we exercise political agency and enact life’s purposes.
This event is a part of the 2022 Holberg Week, which takes place from 7 to 10 June.
Sheila Jasanoff
Sheila Jasanoff was awarded the 2022 Holberg Prize for her pioneering research in the field of Science and Technology Studies. Jasanoff is Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the Harvard Kennedy School. A pioneer in the social sciences, she explores the role of science and technology in the law, politics, and policy of modern democracies. Her books include The Fifth Branch (1990), Science at the Bar (1995), Designs on Nature (2005), The Ethics of Invention (2016), and Can Science Make Sense of Life? (2019).
The Holberg Prize
The Holberg Prize is awarded annually to a scholar who has made outstanding contributions to research in the humanities, social science, law or theology, either in one of these fields or through interdisciplinary work. The Prize is worth NOK 6,000,000 (approximately EUR 600,000 / USD 670,000).
The Holberg Prize is named after the Danish-Norwegian writer Ludvig Holberg, who excelled in all of the sciences covered by the award.
