Overview

Andrew Pickering retired from the university in summer 2015 and is now an emeritus professor in the department.

He is internationally known as a leader in the field of science and technology studies. He is the author of 'Constructing Quarks: A Sociological History of Particle Physics,' 'The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency and Science' and 'Kybernetik und Neue Ontologien,' and he is the editor of several collections of research essays, including 'Science as Practice and Culture' and (with Keith Guzik) 'The Mangle in Practice: Science, Society and Becoming.' He has written on topics as diverse as post-World War II particle physics; mathematics, science and industry in the 19th-century; and science, technology and warfare in and since WWII. His latest book, 'The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future' was published in 2010. It analyses cybernetics as a distinctive form of life spanning brain science, psychiatry, robotics, the theory of complex systems, management, politics, the arts, education, spirituality and the 1960s counterculture, and argues that cybernetics offers a promising alternative to currently hegemonic cultural formations. Growing out of his work on cybernetics, Andrew’s current research focusses on art, agency, the environment and traditional Chinese philosophy.

Pickering has held fellowships at MIT, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, Princeton University, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford and, most recently, Institutes for Advanced Study at the Universities of Durham, Konstanz and Bauhaus University, Weimar. With PhDs in physics (London) and science studies (Edinburgh) he moved from Britain to the United States in 1984, and was for many years professor of sociology and director of an interdisciplinary STS graduate programme at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, before moving to the University of Exeter in 2007.

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Research

Science and technology studies (STS); history, philosophy and sociology of science and technology; social theory; cybernetics; alternative forms of life, ancient and contemporary, especially those spanning science, technology, the arts, the environment and spirituality.

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Projects

• University of Konstanz, Institute for Advanced Study - funded by: University of Konstanz
• New Ontologies: A Series of Interdisciplinary Workshops - funded by: Gulbenkian Foundation

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Supervision

• Science & technology studies
• Social theory
• Agency, performance & emergence
• Cybernetics

I am currently very interested in intersections between sciences and technologies that thematise an ontology of emergence and related projects in other fields including the arts, the environment, Chinese philosophy, architecture, music, psychiatry, education, management, robotics, etc.

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Publications

_{Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.}

| 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 1995 | 1992 | 1984 |

2015

• Pickering AR. (2015) Cybernetics, International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, Elsevier, 645-650.
• Pickering AR. (2015) Laing beyond Words: Antipsychiatry as Performance, R. D. Laing in the Twenty-First Century: An Appraisal of His Contemporary Relevance, Routledge.
• Soler L, Trizio E, Pickering AR. (2015) Science as It Could Have Been: Discussing the Contingency/Inevitability Problem, Pittsburg University Press.
• Soler L, Trizio E, Pickering AR. (2015) Science as It Could Have Been: Discussing the Contingency/Inevitability Problem, Pittsburg University Press.
• Pickering AR. (2015) Afterword, Alien Agency: Research-Creation with the Nonhuman, MIT Press, 243-246.

2014

• Pickering AR. (2014) Islands of Stability: Engaging Emergence from Cellular Automata to the Occupy Movement, Zeitschrift für Medien- and Kulturforschung, volume 14, no. 1, pages 121-134.
• Pickering A. (2014) Cybernetic futures: Stanislaw Lem, Summa Technologiae, Technology and Culture, volume 55, no. 1, pages 245-248, DOI:10.1353/tech.2014.0027.

2013

• Pickering AR. (2013) Living in the Material World, Materiality and Space: Organizations, Artefacts and Practices, Macmillan, 25-40.
• Pickering AR. (2013) Cybernetics and the Politics of the Dark Universe, The Dark Universe, Sonic Acts XV, Sonic Acts Press, 89-108.

2012

• Pickering AR. (2012) Art and Agency, The Vibrancy Effect: An Anti-Disciplinary Expert Meeting, V2_ Publishing/NAi Publishers, 30-38. [PDF]
• Pickering AR. (2012) The Robustness of Science and the Dance of Agency, Characterizing the Robustness of Science after the Practice Turn in Philosophy of Science, Springer, 317-327.
• Pickering AR. (2012) The World since Kuhn, Social Studies of Science, volume 42, no. 3, pages 467-473.

2011

• Pickering AR. (2011) Biological Computing, Eine Naturgeschichte für das 21. Jahrhundert: In Honor of Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Max Planck Institute for History of Science, 91-93.
• Pickering AR. (2011) The Politics of Theory: Producing Another World, with some thoughts on Latour, Assembling Culture, Routledge, 190-205.
• Pickering AR. (2011) Cyborg Spirituality, Medical History, volume 55, pages 349-353.

2010

• Pickering AR. (2010) Material Culture and the Dance of Agency, Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies, Oxford University Press, 191-208.
• Pickering AR. (2010) After Dualism, Questioning Nineteenth-Century Assumptions about Knowledge: III Dualism, SUNY Press, 49-104.
• Pickering AR. (2010) The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future, University of Chicago Press.

2009

• Pickering AR. (2009) The Dance of Agency, Ideas on the Nature of Science, Goose Lane Editions, 81-91.
• Pickering AR. (2009) 'Ventures with Vultures,' Essay review of Steven Shapin, The Scientific Life: A Moral History of a Late Modern Vocation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), Isis, volume 100, pages 868-871.
• Pickering AR. (2009) Beyond Design: Cybernetics, Biological Computers and Hylozoism, Synthese, volume 168, pages 469-491, DOI:10.1007/s11229-008-9446-z.
• Pickering AR. (2009) Cybernetics as Nomad Science, Deleuzian Intersections in Science, Technology and Anthropology, Berghahn, 155-162.
• Pickering AR. (2009) The Politics of Theory: Producing Another World, with Some Thoughts on Latour, Journal of Cultural Economy, volume 2, pages 197-212.
• Pickering AR. (2009) Cybernetics, Blackwell Companion to Philosophy of Technology, Blackwell, 118-122.
• Pickering AR. (2009) Psychiatry, Synthetic Brains and Cybernetics in the Work of W. Ross Ashby, International Journal of General Systems, volume 28, pages 213-230.

2008

• Pickering AR. (2008) Preface, The Mangle in Practice: Science, Society and Becoming, Duke University Press, vii-xiv.
• Pickering AR. (2008) Brains, Selves and the World in the History of Cybernetics, Global Spiral, volume 9 (3). [PDF]
• Pickering AR. (2008) The Mangle in Practice: Science, Society and Becoming, Duke University Press.
• Pickering AR. (2008) Emergence and Synthesis: Science Studies, Cybernetics and Antidisciplinarity, Technoetic Arts, volume 6 (2), pages 127-133.
• Pickering AR. (2008) New Ontologies, The Mangle in Practice: Science, Society and Becoming, Duke University Press, 1-14.
• Pickering AR. (2008) Culture, Science Studies and Technoscience, The SAGE Handbook of Cultural Analysis, SAGE, 291-310.

2007

• Pickering AR. (2007) Interview in 'Five Questions in the Philosophy of Technology', pages 159-170.
• Pickering AR. (2007) Kybernetik und Neue Ontologien, Merve Verlag.

2006

• Pickering A. (2006) Ontological Theatre. Gordon Pask, Cybernetics and the Art, THEATRUM SCIENTIARUM, VOL 3: SPEKTAKULARE EXPERIMENTE, pages 454-476. [PDF]
• Pickering AR. (2006) After Dualism, on ‘Challenges to Dominant Modes of Knowledge: Dualism, Suny Binghamton, 3rd - 4th Nov 2006, Proceedings of the Gulbenkian Foundation Conference.
• Pickering AR. (2006) Concepts and the Mangle of Practice: Constructing Quaternions, 18 Unconventional Essays on the Nature of Mathematics, Springer, 250-288.
• Pickering AR. (2006) Ontologisches Theater: Gordon Pask, Kybernetik und die Künste’ [‘Science as Theatre: Gordon Pask, Cybernetics and the Arts’, Spektakuläre Experimente: Praktiken der Evidenzproduktion im 17. Jahrhunder, de Gruyter, 454-476.
• Pickering AR. (2006) ‘Commentary on the Shape of Experiment, The Shape of Experiments, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, 233-235.

2005

• Pickering AR. (2005) Cyborg History and the World War II Regime, Jianghai Academic Journal, volume 6.
• Pickering AR. (2005) ‘From Dyes to Iraq: A Reply to Jonathan Harwood, of Perspectives on Science, volume 13, no. Technoscientific Productivity, special issue, pages 416-425.
• Pickering AR. (2005) ‘Decentring Sociology: Synthetic Dyes and Social Theory, Perspectives on Science, volume 13, no. Technoscientific Productivity, special issue, pages 352-405.
• Pickering AR. (2005) ‘A Gallery of Monsters: Cybernetics and Self-Organisation, 1940-1970, Mechanical Bodies, Computational Minds: Artificial Intelligence from Automata to Cyborgs, MIT Press, 229-245.
• Pickering AR. (2005) ‘Space—The Final Frontier, Collection, Laboratory, Theater, Walter de Gruyter, 1-8.

2004

• Pickering AR. (2004) ‘Mit der Schildkröte gegen die Moderne: Gehirn, Technologie und Unterhaltung bei Grey Walter,’ transl. by Gustav Rossler, .), Kultur im Experiment, Kulturverlag Kadmos, 102-119.
• Pickering AR. (2004) The Science of the Unknowable: Stafford Beer’s Cybernetic Informatics, in Raul Espejo (ed.), Tribute to Stafford Beer, Kybernetes, volume 33, pages 499-521.
• Pickering AR. (2004) The Science of the Unknowable: Stafford Beer’s Cybernetic Informatics, The History and Heritage of Scientific Information Systems, The History and Heritage of Scientific Information Systems: Proceedings of the 2002 Conference, pages 29-38.

2003

• Pickering AR. (2003) Interview with Andrew Pickering, Chasing Technoscience: Matrix of Materiality, Indiana University Press, 83-95.
• Pickering AR. (2003) On Becoming: Imagination, Metaphysics and the Mangle, Chasing Technoscience: Matrix of Materiality, Indiana University Press, 96-116.

2002

• Pickering AR. (2002) ‘To Epistemics and Beyond, Technoscience: Newsletter of the Society for Social Studies of Science, volume 15, no. 2, pages 19-22.
• Pickering AR. (2002) Cybernetics and the Mangle: Ashby, Beer and Pask, Social Studies of Science, volume 32, pages 413-437.

2001

• Pickering AR. (2001) Reading the Structure, Perspectives on Science, volume 9, pages 499-510.
• Pickering AR. (2001) Constructing Quaternions: On the Analysis of Conceptual Practice, La Scienzia come Pratica e Cultura, Edizioni di Comunità, 107-138.
• Pickering AR. (2001) ‘Science as Alchemy, Schools of Thought: Twenty-five Years of Interpretive Social Science, Princeton University Press, 194-206.
• Pickering AR. (2001) ‘Practice and Posthumanism: Social Theory and a History of Agency, The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, Routledge, 163-174.
• Pickering AR. (2001) From Science as Knowledge to Science as Practice, La Scienzia come Pratica e Cultura, Edizioni di Comunità, 3-29.

1995

• Pickering A. (1995) The mangle of practice, University Of Chicago Press.

1992

• Pickering A. (1992) Science as practice and culture, University Of Chicago Press.

1984

• Pickering A. (1984) Constructing quarks, University Of Chicago Press.

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Teaching

Modules taught

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Biography

1967-70 Oxford University, Open Scholarship at Wadham College.

1970 B.A. (Physics), First Class Hons.

1970-73 London University, University College.

1973 Ph.D. in theoretical high-energy physics, and Carey Foster Research Prize.

1973-74 Copenhagen University, Niels Bohr Institute: Research in theoretical HEP as Royal Society European Research Fellow.

1974-75 Science Research Council, Daresbury Lab., Daresbury, Warrington: Research Associate in theoretical HEP.

1976-84 Edinburgh University, Science Studies Unit: Research Fellow in History/Sociology of Science.

1984 Ph.D. in Science Studies. Thesis: ‘The History of Particle Physics: A Sociological Analysis’.

1985-94 Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

1987-2001 Director of STIM: interdisciplinary graduate program for studies of science, technology, information and medicine, UIUC.

1989- Joint appointment to Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, UIUC.

1994-2007 Professor, Department of Sociology and Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

2000-2004 Head, Dept of Sociology, UIUC.

2007-2015 Professor, Department of Sociology and Philosophy, University of Exeter. Now Emeritus Professor.

Honours, visiting positions, etc

1984-85 Exxon Fellow, Program in Science, Technology and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

1986-87 Member of the School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ.

1992-93 Sabbatical year, Dept of History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge University, England.

1993-94 Shelby Cullom Davis Fellow, Dept of History, Princeton University.

1997-98 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow. Visiting Professor, Depts of Philosophy and Information and Media Science, Århus University, Denmark (Spring 1998). Associate, Center for Advanced Study, UIUC (Fall 1998). Senior Fellow, Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology, MIT; Visiting Scholar, Department of History of Science, Harvard University (Fall 1998).

2000 Visiting Professor, Center for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities, University of Bergen, Norway (May 2000).

2000-6 Visiting Scholar, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany (June-July 2000; July 2001; July-August 2002; Nov-Dec 2004; May-June 2005: June-July 2006).

2002-3 Sabbatical year, Science Studies Unit, University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

2005-6 Fellow, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, UIUC.

2006-7 Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, CA.

2010-11 Distinguished Fellow, Institute for Advanced  Study, and Pemberton Fellow, University College, Durham University (Oct-Dec 2010).

Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study, University of Konstanz, Germany (Jan-Sept 2011).

2011-12 Professor of Sociology at Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea

2011 Member, Studies of Science-Technology Governance research group, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea

2012-13 Fellow, Internationales Kolleg für Kulturtechnikforschung und Medienphilosophie (IKKM), Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Germany.

2007- Member, Steering Committee, Centre for Traditional East Asian Medicine, University of Westminster, London. Editorial positions

1986-90 Joint Editor (with R. A. Jones and L. Hargens) of annual series Knowledge and Society: Studies in the Sociology of Science, Past and Present (JAI Press).

1988- Editorial advisory board of Science Communication (Sage).

1993- Advisory editor of Perspectives on Science: Historical, Philosophical, Social (University of Chicago Press).

1993-2003 Consulting Editor, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science (Pergamon).

1995- Editorial Board, Information and Organization, (formerly Accounting, Management, and Information Technologies) (Pergamon).

1995-97 Consulting Editor, American Journal of Sociology (U. Chicago P.).

1996- Editorial Advisory Board, Science, Technology, and Human Values (Sage).

2003- Consulting Editor, Cybernetics & Human Knowing (Imprint Academic).

2005- Advisory Board, REPRESENTACIONES. Revista de Estudios sobre representaciones en arte, ciencia y filosofía. Journal of Studies in Representation in Art, Science and Philosophy (Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina) (in Spanish and English).

2007- International Advisory Board, Culture, Economy and the Social, book series, Tony Bennett, Penny Harvey and Kevin Hetherington (eds) (London: Routledge).

Grants (US)

1989-90 NSF grant no. DIR-8912095, ‘Making Sense of Science.’ ($40,000)

1992-93 NSF grant no. SBE-9122809, ‘Science and the Mangle of Practice.’ ($60,000).

2002-3 NSF grant no. SES-0094504, ‘The History of Cybernetics: Ashby, Beer and Pask’ ($85,000).

2002 NSF grant no. 0135300, ‘Dissertation Research: Visualization and Representation in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI): A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Scientific Research in the United States and India,’ ($10,000) (co-PI: Amit Prasad).

2005 NSF grant for dissertation research: ‘(Un)Bounding DSM 300.3: Exploring the Negotiation of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in Three Communities of Practice’ (co-PI: Anne McCloskey).

GRANTS (UK)

2010            Gulbenkian Foundation, ‘New Ontologies,’ €65.500, for three international workshops (beginning Exeter Oct 2010).

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More information

Media Work

A 2010 video interview with Andrew Pickering at Nottingham University on the history of cybernetics is available here. A 'podcast' of an interview with Professor Pickering (and Ian Hacking) which was originally broadcast in the 'How to Think About Science' series on CBC radio (5/12/07) is available here.

New Ontologies

In October 2010 a two-day workshop at Exeter supported by the Gulbenkian Foundation brought together artists and academics around the theme of 'new ontologies.' All of the discussions at the meeting can be downloaded as audio files here.

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