professor of sociology, criticism and interpretive theory

Professor Pickering joined the UIUC faculty in 1985. He holds an appointment in the Sociology Department and is director of the Graduate Program for Interdisciplinary Studies of Science, Technology, Information and Medicine (STIM) and a member of the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory. His books include Constructing Quarks: A Sociological History of Particle Physics, The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency, and Science, and an edited volume, Science as Practice and Culture. His current research focuses on interrelations between large-scale developments in science, technology, and society. During his appointment, he plans to do research on the history and sociology of cybernetics. There is growing scholarly interest in this field as an exemplary instance of a new nonreductive scientific paradigm (quite different from standard approaches in the natural and social sciences) that emerged from World War II. He is especially interested in exploring the relation between various strands of cybernetics and his own earlier work in social theory and metaphysics. Pickering has been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton; a Shelby Cullom Davis Fellow at Princeton University; and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow.