It is time for science and technology studies (STS). The meaning of the past and threats to the future are hotly contested. Scientists simultaneously proclaim epochal ruptures and extrapolate present trends into the next millennium. New technologies promise to help us “be present” even as they stretch our attentions to the breaking point. The nature of time is of central importance to modern intellectual, cultural, and political life, and STS is well-positioned to address how divergent temporalities structure our public and private lives, environmental imaginaries, and embodied experiences. Recent work on the sciences of prediction and forecasting, the vital politics of science fiction, and the Anthropocene suggest some of the many ways scholars of STS can and should intervene in broader debates that trouble the present moment.

Panels: Experiencing Time, Embodying Time; Apocalyse Now?; Scholarship NOW; Is Ancient Science Studies an Anachronism?