The Joys of Moderating

This week my efforts came to fruition at the Bielefeld-ZiF-ESF conference on the politicization of science. My adviser and I have been organizing this endeavor for about 8 months or so, and our work was finally realized in an intense 5-day series of talks, presentations, and posters from an interdisciplinary group of philosophers, sociologists, journalists, nano scientists, at least one gravity wave physicist, and a handful of historians.
Being the first conference that I've had a hand in organizing, I would venture to say that it was a great success. In addition to the constructive interdisciplinary dialogue (which happens so rarely!), Bielefeld was able to pull in some prominent thinkers in the HPS community including Helga Nowotny of the European Research Council, Norton Wise of UCLA, John Dupré of Exeter, journalist Dan Greenberg (author of Science, Money, and Politics: Political Triumph and Ethical Erosion), Philip Kitcher of Columbia U, as well as many other interesting personalities. The result was a week of dialogue between thinkers at Bielefeld's ZiF (Center for Interdisciplinary Research, aka Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Forschung), whose wheels I worked throughout the week to oil.

By far the most exhausting portion of the work last week was the unending moderating of talks, whose weight I mostly bore alone. Several stories emerged during the week, and will be featured in a future (this week) post, along with pictures, as I secure the rights from the relevant parties to pass on these tales of interest.