Difference between revisions of "Bruno Latour"

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Born 1947 in Beaune, France. Sociologist of science best known for his books We Have Never Been Modern, Laboratory Life, and Science in Action. Although his studies of scientific practice were at one time associated with social constructionist approaches to the sociology of science, Latour has diverged significantly from such approaches. Along with Michel Callon and John Law, Latour is one of the primary developers of actor-network theory (ANT), a quasi-constructionist approach influenced by the ethnomethodology of Harold Garfinkel, the generative semiotics of Algirdas Julius Greimas, and the maverick sociology of Durkheim's rival Gabriel Tarde. If Latour has a single project, it is to clean up discussions about science so that perspectives are clearer and standards more easily recognized. Yet he is deeply entrenched in the problems of complexity and accepts few simplifications that are not reasonably defensible.
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'''Bruno Latour''' (1947) is a sociologist of science best known for his books ''We Have Never Been Modern'', ''Laboratory Life'', and ''Science in Action''.  
  
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==Works==
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(in French unless noted)
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* ''Laboratory Life: the Social Construction of Scientific Facts'', Sage, 1979. {{en}}
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* ''Science In Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society'', Harvard University Press, 1987. {{en}}
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* ''The Pasteurization of France'', Harvard University Press, 1988. {{en}}
  
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==Biography==
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* ''Nous n'avons jamais été modernes. Essai d’anthropologie symétrique'', La Découverte, 1991.
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** ''[http://monoskop.org/log/?p=380 We Have Never Been Modern]'', trans. Catherine Porter, Harvard University Press, 1993, 157 pp. {{en}}
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** ''[http://monoskop.org/log/?p=380 Jamais fomos modernos. Ensaio de antropologia simétrica]'', trans. Carlos Irineu da Costa, 1994. {{pt}}
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** ''[http://monoskop.org/log/?p=380 Нового Времени не было. Эссе по симметричной антропологии]'', trans. Д. Я. Калугина, 2006. {{ru}}
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** ''[http://monoskop.org/log/?p=380 Nunca fuimos modernos. Ensayo de antropología simétrica]'', trans. Víctor Goldstein, 2007. {{es}}
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** ''[http://monoskop.org/log/?p=380 我们从未现代过. 对称性人类学论集]'', trans. 刘鹏 and 安涅思, 2011. {{cn}}
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* ''[http://monoskop.org/log/?p=439 Aramis, or the Love of Technology]'', Harvard University Press, 1996, 336 pp.
  
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As a student Latour originally aggregated in philosophy and was deeply influenced by Michel Serres. He quickly developed an interest in anthropology, however, and undertook fieldwork in the Côte d'Ivoire which resulted in a brief monograph on decolonization, race, and industrial relations.  From there Latour shifted his research interests to focus on laboratory scientists. Latour rose in importance following the 1979 publication of ''Laboratory Life: the Social Construction of Scientific Facts'' with co-author Steve Woolgar.  In the book, the authors undertake an ethnographic study of a neuroendocrinology research laboratory at the Salk Institute. This early work demonstrated that naïve descriptions of the scientific method, in which theories stand or fall on the outcome of a single experiment, are inconsistent with actual laboratory practice, in which a typical experiment produces only inconclusive data that is attributed to failure of the apparatus or experimental method, and that a large part of scientific training involves learning how to make the subjective decision of what data to keep and what data to throw out; a process that to an untrained outsider looks like a mechanism for ignoring data that contradicts scientific orthodoxy.  
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* ''[http://monoskop.org/log/?p=381 Pandora's Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies]'', Harvard University Press, 1999, 336 pp. {{en}}
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* ''[http://monoskop.org/log/?p=653 Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy]'', trans. Catherine Porter, Harvard University Press, 2004, 307 pp. {{en}}
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* ''[http://monoskop.org/log/?p=110 Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory]'', Oxford University Press, 2005, 301 pp.
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* editor, with Peter Weibel, ''[http://monoskop.org/log/?p=2228 Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy]'', MIT Press, 2005, 1072 pp. {{en}}
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* with Vincent Antonin Lépinay, ''[http://monoskop.org/log/?p=1411 The Science of Passionate Interests: An Introduction to Gabriel Tarde’s Economic Anthropology]'', Prickly Paradigm Press, 2009, 100 pp. {{en}}
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* ''[http://monoskop.org/log/?p=9216 Enquête sur les modes d’existence. Une anthropologie des Modernes]'', Paris: La découverte, 2012, 504 pp.
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** ''An Inquiry into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns'', trans. Catherine Porter, Harvard University Press, 2013, 520 pp. {{en}}
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* [http://www.cairn.info/resultats_recherche.php?soumettre=Lancer+la+recherche&larech1=bruno+latour&dans1=A&etou2=AND&larech2=&dans2=&etou3=AND&larech3=&dans3=&etou4=AND&larech4=&dans4=&etou5=AND&larech5=&dans5=&etou6=AND&larech6=&dans6=&annee1=&annee2=&chk_revue=on&chk_ouvcol=on&chk_ouvref=on&chk_mag=on&chk_edm=on&discipline=&editeur=&revue=&mag=&revmag=&recol= More]
  
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After a research project examining the sociology of primatologists, Latour followed up the themes in ''Laboratory Life'' with ''Les Microbes: guerre et paix'' (published in English as ''The Pasteurization of France'' in [[1984]]). In it, he reviews the life and career of one of France's most famous scientists [[Louis Pasteur]] and his discovery of microbes, in the fashion of a political biography. Latour highlights the social forces at work in and around Pasteur's career and the uneven manner in which his theories were accepted.  By providing more explicitly ideological explanations for the acceptance of Pasteur's work more easily in some quarters than in others, he seeks to undermine the notion that the acceptance and rejection of scientific theories is primarily, or even usually, a matter of experiment, evidence or reason. Another work, ''Aramis, or, The Love of Technology'' focuses on the history of an unsuccessful mass-transit project. More recently Latour has turned to more "theoretical" and programmatic works.  In the late 1980s and 1990s, he was one of the key thinkers in [[actor-network theory]].  His more theoretical books include ''Science in Action'', ''Pandora's Hope,'' and perhaps his most popular work, ''We Have Never Been Modern''.  
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==Conversations and interviews==
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* with Michel Serres, ''Eclaircissements'', Francois Bourin, 1990.
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** ''[http://monoskop.org/log/?p=2230 Conversations on Science, Culture, and Time]'', trans. Roxanne Lapidus, University of Michigan Press, 1995. {{en}}
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* Geert Lovink, Pit Schultz, [http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9709/msg00006.html "There is no information, only transformation: An Interview with Bruno Latour"], 1997. {{en}}
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* with Graham Harman, ''[http://monoskop.org/log/?p=3924 The Prince and the Wolf: Latour and Harman at the LSE]'', Zero Books, 2011, 146 pp. {{en}}
  
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Latour and Woolgar produced a highly heterodox and controversial picture of the sciences.  Drawing on the work of Gaston Bachelard, they advance the notion that the objects of scientific study are ''socially constructed'' within the laboratory—that they cannot be attributed with an existence outside of the instruments that measure them and the minds that interpret them.  They view scientific activity as a system of beliefs, oral traditions and culturally specific practices— in short, science is reconstructed not as a procedure or as a set of principles but as a culture. Latour's [[1987]] book ''Science in Action:  How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society'' is one of the key texts of the sociology of scientific knowledge.
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==Links==
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* http://www.ensmp.fr/~latour
  
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After spending more than 20 years at the Centre de sociologie de l'innovation at the École des Mines in [[Paris]], Latour moved in 2006 to the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris, where he is the first occupant of a Chair named for the aforementioned Gabriel Tarde.  Latour is related to a well-known family of winemakers from Burgundy and is not associated with the similarly-named estate in Bordeaux.  In recent years he has also served as one of the curators of successful art exhibitions at the [[ZKM]] in [[Karlsruhe]], [[Germany]], including "Iconoclash" (2002) and "Making Things Public" (2005).
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[[Category:Writers|Latour, Bruno]]
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==Central concepts==
 
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*[[actant]]
 
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*[[actor-network]]
 
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*[[Obligatory passage point ]]
 
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*Translation
 
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*[[Black box (systems)]]
 
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==Articles==
 
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* Geert Lovink, Pit Schultz, [http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9709/msg00006.html "There is no information, only transformation: An Interview with Bruno Latour"], 1997.
 
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* [http://www.cairn.info/resultats_recherche.php?soumettre=Lancer+la+recherche&larech1=bruno+latour&dans1=A&etou2=AND&larech2=&dans2=&etou3=AND&larech3=&dans3=&etou4=AND&larech4=&dans4=&etou5=AND&larech5=&dans5=&etou6=AND&larech6=&dans6=&annee1=&annee2=&chk_revue=on&chk_ouvcol=on&chk_ouvref=on&chk_mag=on&chk_edm=on&discipline=&editeur=&revue=&mag=&revmag=&recol= Latour's articles]
 
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==References==
 
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* Latour, Bruno and Woolgar, Steve (1979).  ''Laboratory Life: the Social Construction of Scientific Facts'', Sage, Los Angeles, USA.
 
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* William Kornfeld and Carl Hewitt (1981).  The Scientific Community Metaphor, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, SMC-11.
 
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* Latour, Bruno (1987). ''[[Science In Action|Science In Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society]]'', Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass., USA.
 
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* Latour, Bruno (1988). ''The Pasteurization of France'', Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass., USA.
 
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* Latour Bruno (1992). "Where are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts", pp. 225-258 in: ''Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change'', edited by W.E. Bijker & J. Law, MIT Press, USA.
 
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* Latour, Bruno (1993). ''We have never been modern'', Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass., USA.
 
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* Latour, Bruno (1996). ''Aramis, or the love of technology'', Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass., USA.
 
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* Latour, Bruno (1999).  ''Pandora's hope: essays on the reality of science studies'', Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass., USA.
 
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* Latour, Bruno (2004). ''[[Politics of Nature|Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy]]'' (translated by Catherine Porter), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., USA.
 
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* Latour, Bruno (2005).  ''Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory'', Oxford University Press,  UK.
 
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http://www.ensmp.fr/~latour
 
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[[Category:Media culture writers|Latour, Bruno]]
 

Revision as of 17:38, 26 February 2015

Bruno Latour (1947) is a sociologist of science best known for his books We Have Never Been Modern, Laboratory Life, and Science in Action.

Works

(in French unless noted)

  • Laboratory Life: the Social Construction of Scientific Facts, Sage, 1979. (English)
  • Science In Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society, Harvard University Press, 1987. (English)
  • The Pasteurization of France, Harvard University Press, 1988. (English)

Conversations and interviews

Links

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