Many of our activities take place in the RUSTlab. For information please see: https://rustlab.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/
10th June 2026, 14.30-15:45, Malmö University
The 2026 Swedish STS conference will take place from June, 10th-12th. On June 10th, Estrid Sørensen and Brit Winthereik will talk about "Data centres as traps“, as part of the session "Algorithms, governance & public institutions“, chaired by Elizabeth Fox Jensen. Among other places, Microsoft currently builds datacentres in Zealand and in Western Jutland of Denmark as well as in the Rheinisches Revier in Germany. The lecture will examine the specific arrangements, conditions and captures at both locations. Building on Corsín Jiménez’s thinking of infrastructures as traps with inherent instabilities, the talk will address the vulnerabilities of big tech and ask about the work of data centres in local landscapes and communities.
More information about the conference and the talk can be found here.
9th June 2026, 17:00-18:30, University Konstanz
As part of the event series Forschungskolloquien Allgemeine Soziologie, in which contributions to sociological theory are discussed on the basis of guest lectures and recent publications, Olga Galanova will give a talk on the communication structures of secrecy and indexicality in Stasi telephone calls. The talk will take place at the Unversity of Konstanz‘s department of sociology.
More information can be found here.
8th June 2026, 16:00-18:00, Zoom
Estrid Sørensen is taking part in the DGEKW lecture series on AI in empirical cultural studies, european ethnology and cultural anthropology, titled Künstliche Intelligenz – Expertisen, Anwendungen und Kritik einer „Schlüsseltechnologie“ in der Empirischen Kulturwissenschaft, Europäischen Ethnologie und Kulturanthropologie. Alongside Moritz Altenried, Estrid Sørensen will give a lecture on ethnographic perspectives on the production and the planetarity of AI. The lecture will address topics such as the extractive dimensions, e.g. of micro chips, data centres and AI training, as well as the use of AI in science. In the end, there will be a discussion. The lecture will be hosted by Katrin Amelang.
More information about the lecture series, including the Zoom link, can be found here.
June 2026
Based on his research in the CRC 1567, Stefan Laser has published an article in the Journal of Cultural Economy: “Encountering the semiconductor industry: fairs and global value chains in motion, from Taiwan to Vietnam.” This article examines how industry events shape markets through a comparison of semiconductor fairs held in 2023 on the outskirts of Taipei and Hanoi. The article draws on ethnographic fieldwork to analyze these industry fairs. While Taiwan’s long-established industry offers a choreographed vision, Vietnam’s event reveals an aspirational configuration, shaped by infrastructural gaps and shifting policy frameworks. While this distinction has emerged, it also may quickly collapse on the fair floor in the form of uncertainty. This, in turn, helps understand the extended planetary relations of data centre configurations, which is the main theme of our sub-project A02 in the CRC Virtual Lifeworlds.
The article can be found here.
Studierende, die ihre Masterarbeit zum Themenkomplex "Faktizität" schreiben möchten, haben jetzt die Möglichkeit sich für das Sylff Master-PreDoc-Kolleg zu bewerben und eine Förderung von 750 US-$ monatlich zu erhalten. Estrid Sørensen betreut Themen im Bereich der STS: https://www.research-school.rub.de/about/sylff-master-predoc-kolleg/sylff-master-predoc-kolleg-themenfelder. Interessierte finden alle weitere Informationen und den Link zum Bewerbungsformular auf dieser Seite: https://www.research-school.rub.de/about/sylff-master-predoc-kolleg. Bewerbungsfrist: 9. Juni
Es ist bekannt, dass Rechenzentren sehr viel Energie verbrauchen und von Metallen aus toxischem Bergbau abhängig sind. Weniger diskutiert wird die Frage, ob das Wissen, das durch Rechenzentren produziert wird, diese planetaren Eingriffe rechtfertigt. Das auf den Science & Technology Studies basierende Forschungsprojekt geht auf die Zeit des ersten Rechenzentrumsausbaus zurück und rekonstruiert, wie die Verbindung von Wissen und Planetarität in den 1950er bis 1990er Jahren des ersten Rechenzentrumsausbaus reflektiert und praktiziert wurde – oder was sie verhinderte. Die beiden Doktorand:innen (m/w/d) sollen jeweils eine historische Praxeographie entweder des Stasi-Rechenzentrums in Berlin-Wuhlheide oder der frühen Rechenanlagen der Ruhr-Universität Bochum durchführen. Mithilfe von Archivmaterial und Zeitzeugeninterviews werden die „Worldings” des Rechenzentrumausbaus und ihre Ausstattung mit Wissen und planetaren Elementen rekonstruiert. Durch spekulative Verfahren werden Bezüge zu aktuellen und künftigen Worldings hergestellt.
Weitere Informationen können in der Stellenausschreibung gefunden werden.
6th May 2026, 13:30-15:00, Graz
Fabian Pittroff is organizing a session at the STS Conference Graz 2026 (4–6 May) titled "Data multiple: An inquiry into methodologies and ontologies of data." A decade after the emergence of critical data studies, and with LLMs as the latest chapter in the story of data-making, the session asks how the multiplicity of data can be studied — conceptually and empirically. Drawing on Mol's notion of the "more than one but less than many" and new materialist informatics, it invites contributions on everyday, small-scale, qualitative, non-digital, sensing, and more-than-human data practices, including research data management. Scientific, artistic, and activist perspectives are equally welcome. Pittroff plans to facilitate an online exchange among contributors ahead of the conference, so that the session becomes a continuation rather than a first meeting.
More information, including the full program and the registration, can be found here.
30th April 2026, 14:00-16:00, RUSTlab (MB 4/165) at Ruhr-University Bochum
In February, the new book Staying with the Planet. The University That Tried to Reckon with Ecological Reality, Challenged Excessive Data Infrastructures, and Nurtured a Few Alternatives Not Planned For, written by Leman Çelik, Stefan Laser, Estrid Sørensen and Sandra Abels, was released. The authors are inviting anyone interested to a book launch at the RUSTlab on 30th April 2026.
More information can be found here. Everyone is most welcome!
April-September 2026
Estrid Sørensen was awarded a Fellowship at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg "Cultures of Computing" at the RWTH Aachen from April to September 2026. She will be studying scientific data centres, and particularly their cultures of high-performance computing (HPC). Digitalisation – and particularly HPC – is currently responsible for the highest increase in energy consumption, among others due to increase in artificial intelligence use. This is the case in private and corporate contexts, as it is the case in science. The project inquires how cultures of scientific HPC handle and are influenced by the paradox of the dual need for increased HPC in science and for reduction of energy consumption.
Summer Term 2025, MB 4/165 at Ruhr-University Bochum or Mining Museum Bochum and on Zoom
The programme for the 15th round of the RUSTlab Lecture series is now available. The lectures will take place on site in MB 4/165 and online via Zoom. Exceptions to this are the special events at the Mining Museum. This semester's guiding theme is "Scattered Grounds" and speakers include Leman Çelik, Stefan Laser, Estrid Sørensen and Sandra Abels (Ruhr University Bochum), Tobias Burgers (Fulbright University Vietnam), Suzette van Haaren (Ruhr University Bochum), Patrick Brodie (University College Dublin) and Thea Riofrancos (Providence College).
Please find more information here. Everyone is most welcome!
2026
Fabian Pittroff has initiated a new stsing working group, "Multiplying Data," which has already gathered more than a dozen interested scholars and met twice, most recently on 27 March at the Before Ruins conference. The group revisits critical data studies at a moment when AI is only the latest chapter in a longer story of how data come into being and are transformed. The group is especially interested in niche data, data in the everyday, and data that does not fit into any data centre — including the small, personal, and carefully observed data practices he encounters in humanities research. The initiative is timely: as universities and national infrastructures consolidate research data services, politics is turning into infrastructure that decides what data can be.
More information can be found here.
25th-27th March 2026, Ruhr-University Bochum
The RUSTlab is hosting the second stsing conference, which has the theme Before Ruins, at the Ruhr-University Bochum. Before Ruins asks how Science and Technology Studies can speak to the futures of post-industrial societies. Over the course of three days, the conference locates STS research explicitly within practical contexts, enabling participants to contribute and develop their research in relation to current issues in the Ruhr area. The focus is put on the engagement with concrete, situated cases. Besides the participation in one case, there will be keynotes, paper presentations as well as various social events.
More information can be found here.
9th March 2026, Mainz
On 9 March 2026, Fabian Pittroff will give a talk at the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz, as part of the CVMA workshop "Digitale Perspektiven." Under the title "Daten und Geist. Aus der Praxeografie geisteswissenschaftlicher Infrastrukturen," he presents findings from a praxiographic study of everyday research practices in the humanities and social sciences, offering a fresh perspective on how researchers actually handle data and infrastructures. Drawing on his own work developing infrastructures that respond to these practices, Pittroff contributes impulses for the design of humanities data infrastructures.
More information can be found here.
February 2026
Leman Çelik, Stefan Laser, Estrid Sørensen and Sandra Abels have published a new book: Staying with the Planet. The University That Tried to Reckon with Ecological Reality, Challenged Excessive Data Infrastructures, and Nurtured a Few Alternatives Not Planned For. It is part of the Virtual Lifeworlds book series, which emerged from the DFG Collaborative Research Center 1567. As the title suggests, the book deals with the hidden university data infrastructures. Through short speculative ethnographic texts and original line art, it offers witty and thought-provoking takes on the challenges data-driven science faces in times of climate change.
The book can be found here.
22nd January 2026, 17-18.00, online
Estrid Sørensen will participate in an event commemorating Michel Callon. Sadly, Michel Callon, one of the main figures of STS / ANT research, has passed away on July, 28 last year. Among his rich and broad oeuvre, his seminal scallops-study has challenged and transformed STS empirical methodology fundamentally. The "Marine STS"-group honors Michel's legacy by discussing this key study and it's impact on STS yesterday and still. The public discussion on Callon’s seminal study Some elements of a sociology of translation: Domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay (1984) will take place on Zoom. Besides Sørensen, the other participants are Kristin Asdal (Oslo), Endre Dányi (Munich), Jörg Niewöhner (Munich), and Cornelius Schubert (Dortmund). Tanja Bogusz (Hannover) will chair the discussion.
More information and the Zoom link can be found here.
January 2026
In the context of the possible futures of the Virtual University, Stefan Laser’s chapter in the book Virtuelle Universität – Geistes- und gesellschaftswissenschaftliche Zugänge, deals with generative predictions in the social sciences and humanities. Edited by Patrizia Breil and Florian Sprenger, the book resulted from the DFG-Sonderforschungsbereich 1567 'Virtuelle Lebenswelten' and explores the university as an institution of virtuality. Laser’s chapter aims to demonstrate that predictions about the virtual university as generative acts can be a valuable tool for critical and creative thinking about the future.
The book can be found here.
January 2026
Fabian Pittroff and Estrid Sørensen have co-authored a chapter in the book Virtuelle Universität – Geistes- und gesellschaftswissenschaftliche Zugänge. As part of the DFG-Sonderforschungsbereich 1567 'Virtuelle Lebenswelten' series, the book considers the university as an institution of virtuality. Moreover, it seeks to gather reflexions on this matter and combine them into a critical perspective on the virtualisation of the university. Their chapter concentrates on virtual research environments within the context of virtuality in everyday academic practice.
The book can be found here.
January 2026
A contribution about literature management in the virtual university was written by Leman Çelik, Mace Ojala and Fabian Pittroff for the book Virtuelle Universität – Geistes- und gesellschaftswissenschaftliche Zugänge. Edited by Patrizia Breil and Florian Sprenger, this book resulted from the DFG-Sonderforschungsbereich 1567 'Virtuelle Lebenswelten', and it deals with the virtuality of the university. One question it addresses is how virtuality is embedded in the everyday practices of university research, teaching, and (self-)administration. Çelik, Ojala and Pitroff’s chapter focuses on literature management as an everyday academic practice to think about this question.
The book can be found here.
January 2026
Mace Ojala and Leman Çelik contributed a chapter to the book Virtuelle Universität – Geistes- und gesellschaftswissenschaftliche Zugänge, edited by Patrizia Breil and Florian Sprenger. The book is part of the DFG-Sonderforschungsbereich 1567 'Virtuelle Lebenswelten' series, and explores the university as an institution of virtuality. Virtuality is considered both a medium and a subject matter for research, teaching, and the university. In the middle section of the book the contributors seek out the virtual in everyday academic life. Ojala and Çelik are doing this with regard to the office.
The book can be found here.
January 2026
Estrid Sørensen has published a chapter in the book Virtuelle Universität – Geistes- und gesellschaftswissenschaftliche Zugänge, edited by Patrizia Breil and Florian Sprenger. The book is part of the DFG-Sonderforschungsbereich 1567 'Virtuelle Lebenswelten' series, and explores the university as an institution of virtuality. Virtuality can be thought of as a medium for research, teaching, and the university. In her text, Sørensen discusses the modes that a university cultivating virtuality can adopt. With the relationship between the university and the rest of society in mind, she focuses on three modes: the as-if university, the slow university, and the planetary university. Her aim is to encourage reflection on the university and its role in changed and changing societies.
The book can be found here.
15th December 2025, 13-14.00, online
As a panelist, Estrid Sørensen will take part in second session of the free CODE learning and teaching webinar series of the University of London. The webinar series brings together leading scholars and practitioners to critically examine the conceptual foundations that underpin online and digital education. Frameworks, taxonomies, theories are the stock-in-trade of the online learning field. But what work do these theories actually do? How do they shape – or misshape – real practice? And what happens to them once they move into tools, templates, and institutions? The panel explores how theories emerge, circulate, stabilise, and sometimes mislead. The discussion will consider how theories are used in practice, how institutional and technological conditions shape their uptake, how ideas are forgotten and rediscovered, and how research can produce both strong and weak theoretical foundations.
More information can be found here.
11th December 2025, 18-19.00, online
As part of the SPT maintenance and philosophy of technology special interest group for 2025, Mace Ojala and Marisa Cohn will be sharing their research on software maintenance. Their talk provides a much-needed contribution to our understanding of the epistemology of maintenance practices, by exploring the role of shared knowledge in the practices by which code is maintained over time.
December 2025
As part of the Medien | Denken lecture series organised by the Institute for Media Sciences, Mace Ojala & Tilman Richter gave a lecture on the significance of signing and signatures. In it, they examined what it means to transfer the act of signing into the digital world. Ojala and Richter argue that signing is an (fun) performance that cannot be transferred into the digital world without complications. In the digital world, it becomes a writing technique at the interface between body and document, used to identify oneself. The big question here is what significance this practice has when a signature consists of nothing but pixels and authenticity becomes relative.
In Cooperation with the Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography (PECE), Dr. Tim Schütz (University of California, Irvine) will organise a RUSTlab workshop dealing with a digital analytics for qualitative research. PECE has been a digital research infrastructure developed by ethnographers for over ten years. The open platform enables students and researchers to collaboratively archive, analyze, and publish research data multimodally with research participants. As part of the PECE Workshop Tour in the cities of Marburg, Frankfurt a. M., Berlin, Bremen and Bochum, Schütz, who is a member of the international PECE Design Group, provides insights into working with and within PECE instances. Using ongoing projects such as Environmental Governance: Global Record and the Critical Cultural Theory Archive (with material from George Marcus and Michael Fischer, among others), he will show how ethnographic research can be organized, networked, and published in PECE. Afterwards, workshop participants will work together to create initial content on the STS Infrastructures instance, focusing on the topic of data ideologies. In particular, the functionalities of PECE essays (including photo essays and timelines) will be made comprehensible in a practical way.
More information can be found here.
October 2025
Together with Andrei Korbut, Olga Galanova has edited the special issue ‘Discovery in Action’ in the journal Ethnographic Studies. Their special issue takes an expanded perspective on the concept of ‘discovery,’ moving away from purely scientific approaches to this phenomenon. Their goal is to recognise that discoveries are also made regularly in other professional and everyday situations. Galanova and Korbut criticise the dominance of the usual scientific approach and argue that scientific practices of discovery (as diverse as they may be) are often used as a paradigm for analysing other practices and contexts. One of the aims of this special issue is therefore to break with analytical habits and introduce other descriptive and conceptual resources that can be applied to the topic.
The special issue is a result of the workshop ‘Discovery Work’ of Practical Action in Different Institutional Settings, organised by Olga Galanova and Estrid Sørensen.
The special issue can be found here.
Winter Term 2025/26, MB 4/165 at Ruhr-University Bochum and on Zoom
The programme for the 14th round of the RUSTlab Lecture series is now available. The lectures will take place on site in MB 4/165 and online via Zoom. This semester's guiding theme is "Power Play" and speakers include Tim Schütz (University of California), Goda Klumbytė (Participatory IT Design, University of Kassel), Ruth Eggel (Cologne Game Lab, TH Köln) and Anne Pasek (Cultural Studies and the School of the Environment, Trent University). Please find more information here. Everyone is most welcome!
October 2025
Estrid Sørensen has contributed an article about stories told by different types of data: distant, engaged, responsible, collective and planetary. Her article has now been published in Alltage und Kultur/en der Digitalität (empirisch-) kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven auf den soziokulturellen Wandel, a publication based on the ÖGEKW conference of the same name, which took place in Klagenfurt in 2023. In her essay, Sørensen assumes that digital data – regardless of whether it is quantitative, semantic, photographic or in another form – is generally treated as representations of worlds that are separate from the data and therefore constitute distanced data. The article argues that data can also tell stories, thus becoming engaged data that is particularly suitable for ethnographic research. With distanced and engaged data, stories can not only be represented and told in different ways, they also enable different social and material relationships and complicate others.
The article can be found here.
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Last update: Jun 09, 2026
