Mallory James
@secondordersocialresearch.com
political economy & engineering studies research. neurodiverse, first-generation college student, she/her. PhD anthropology, Chicago. academic writing teacher. energy expert on non-normative terms.
I haven't lived in DC for quite a while, but somehow I still was invited to this #Anthropology event, which I am appreciatively watching a recording of now: youtube.com/watch?v=6_1Q...
Surviving DOGE: Anthropological Adaptations and Career Shifts
YouTube video by Washington Association of Professional Anthropologists
youtube.com
December 16, 2025 at 7:13 AM
I haven't lived in DC for quite a while, but somehow I still was invited to this #Anthropology event, which I am appreciatively watching a recording of now: youtube.com/watch?v=6_1Q...
Anthropic settlement checks are arriving in the mail to book authors who suffered #AI #plagiarism. This reminds us that beyond a one-off check, #AcademicSky authors, #nonfiction #writers and community members need sustainable livelihoods and the ability to hope for a positive 'Future of Work.' (1/2)
December 16, 2025 at 6:51 AM
Anthropic settlement checks are arriving in the mail to book authors who suffered #AI #plagiarism. This reminds us that beyond a one-off check, #AcademicSky authors, #nonfiction #writers and community members need sustainable livelihoods and the ability to hope for a positive 'Future of Work.' (1/2)
"Thinking of AI technologies by means of the relationship
between mining (as a practice) and energy (as a concept)
reminds us of how regrettable environmental legacies can
hide behind a clean and innocent-sounding key term set forth
as a social good." #AI #STS
ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/112...
between mining (as a practice) and energy (as a concept)
reminds us of how regrettable environmental legacies can
hide behind a clean and innocent-sounding key term set forth
as a social good." #AI #STS
ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/112...
Special Issue Editorial: Extraction by Design—AI, Value, and the Future of Work
ieeexplore.ieee.org
December 15, 2025 at 8:38 AM
"Thinking of AI technologies by means of the relationship
between mining (as a practice) and energy (as a concept)
reminds us of how regrettable environmental legacies can
hide behind a clean and innocent-sounding key term set forth
as a social good." #AI #STS
ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/112...
between mining (as a practice) and energy (as a concept)
reminds us of how regrettable environmental legacies can
hide behind a clean and innocent-sounding key term set forth
as a social good." #AI #STS
ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/112...
"How can it be possible to predict a package’s arrival down to the hour, yet know almost nothing about the conditions of its manufacture?"
Indeed.
logicmag.io/scale/see-no...
Indeed.
logicmag.io/scale/see-no...
See No Evil
An investigation into how software wires global supply chains, and what code conceals.
logicmag.io
December 12, 2025 at 4:35 PM
"How can it be possible to predict a package’s arrival down to the hour, yet know almost nothing about the conditions of its manufacture?"
Indeed.
logicmag.io/scale/see-no...
Indeed.
logicmag.io/scale/see-no...
Our #energy #anthropology network panel for #EASA Poland 2026! . . . 👁️Thematizing visibility, mediation, and justice🔌🤨 Please send abstracts by 26 Jan.
nomadit.co.uk/conference/e...
nomadit.co.uk/conference/e...
P153: Opacity and Energy Knowledge: Getting to Just, Sustainable Energy Policy in a Polarizing World [Energy Anthropology Network (EAN)]
This panel explores changing cultural visibility and opacity of energy in anthropological research and impacts on energy justice and sustainability. It asks how scholars might contribute to “energy w...
nomadit.co.uk
December 10, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Our #energy #anthropology network panel for #EASA Poland 2026! . . . 👁️Thematizing visibility, mediation, and justice🔌🤨 Please send abstracts by 26 Jan.
nomadit.co.uk/conference/e...
nomadit.co.uk/conference/e...
I have words, and I am going to use them. I have a voice, and I am going to use it. #AmWriting
People in my birth country are trying to curtail the existence of the form of expertise my colleagues and I represent, #Anthropology.
But we won't be erased. We will persist! Go #SocialScience go! ❤️🔥💪🏼❤️🔥
People in my birth country are trying to curtail the existence of the form of expertise my colleagues and I represent, #Anthropology.
But we won't be erased. We will persist! Go #SocialScience go! ❤️🔥💪🏼❤️🔥
December 8, 2025 at 3:56 PM
I have words, and I am going to use them. I have a voice, and I am going to use it. #AmWriting
People in my birth country are trying to curtail the existence of the form of expertise my colleagues and I represent, #Anthropology.
But we won't be erased. We will persist! Go #SocialScience go! ❤️🔥💪🏼❤️🔥
People in my birth country are trying to curtail the existence of the form of expertise my colleagues and I represent, #Anthropology.
But we won't be erased. We will persist! Go #SocialScience go! ❤️🔥💪🏼❤️🔥
Reposted by Mallory James
The NSF Bio Anthro Program DDRIG, Cultural Anthrpology DDRIG, and Archaeology DDRIG have all been archived (as of yesterday afternoon). Please speak with your grad students and plan accordingly. To say I am angry and depressed about this is an understatement.
November 26, 2025 at 3:25 PM
The NSF Bio Anthro Program DDRIG, Cultural Anthrpology DDRIG, and Archaeology DDRIG have all been archived (as of yesterday afternoon). Please speak with your grad students and plan accordingly. To say I am angry and depressed about this is an understatement.
📖 Would you like to join us next week to discuss the book Carbon Technocracy: Energy Regimes in Modern East Asia (2022)? 📖 #STS #energy #anthropology #history #energyhistory #technologyhistory
Our reading group is meeting for the last time in 2025! (1/6)
Our reading group is meeting for the last time in 2025! (1/6)
November 28, 2025 at 11:27 AM
📖 Would you like to join us next week to discuss the book Carbon Technocracy: Energy Regimes in Modern East Asia (2022)? 📖 #STS #energy #anthropology #history #energyhistory #technologyhistory
Our reading group is meeting for the last time in 2025! (1/6)
Our reading group is meeting for the last time in 2025! (1/6)
Reposted by Mallory James
„Quiet, Piggy!“ Just think about that for a minute, and what it means to live in a time when a President can assault a woman in public like that without any consequences.
It‘s quite a testimony to the age of regression we live in.
It‘s quite a testimony to the age of regression we live in.
November 23, 2025 at 6:09 PM
„Quiet, Piggy!“ Just think about that for a minute, and what it means to live in a time when a President can assault a woman in public like that without any consequences.
It‘s quite a testimony to the age of regression we live in.
It‘s quite a testimony to the age of regression we live in.
Reposted by Mallory James
"...this infuses responsible professionalism with class-specific loyalties that could more readily serve to dampen, rather than amplify, critiques of engineering’s wider harms."
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
November 12, 2025 at 9:45 AM
"...this infuses responsible professionalism with class-specific loyalties that could more readily serve to dampen, rather than amplify, critiques of engineering’s wider harms."
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
"Universities provide the fundamental infrastructure for decision-making in industry and government. And they provide the tools for bolstering democracy - indeed, this was what the systems we have inherited from the post-war moment were largely for."
open.substack.com/pub/hannahfo... #AcademicSky
open.substack.com/pub/hannahfo... #AcademicSky
open.substack.com
November 13, 2025 at 10:35 AM
"Universities provide the fundamental infrastructure for decision-making in industry and government. And they provide the tools for bolstering democracy - indeed, this was what the systems we have inherited from the post-war moment were largely for."
open.substack.com/pub/hannahfo... #AcademicSky
open.substack.com/pub/hannahfo... #AcademicSky
LMU posted my publications onto the Department's page!! 🥰 www.en.ekwee.uni-muenchen.de/publications...
Articles in English - Institute for European Ethnology and Cultural Analysis - LMU Munich
www.en.ekwee.uni-muenchen.de
November 12, 2025 at 9:15 AM
LMU posted my publications onto the Department's page!! 🥰 www.en.ekwee.uni-muenchen.de/publications...
So interesting
this is just such a stark contrast to the general Western mood that climate politics is dead. THIS is what climate politics is about (the political economy of decarbonization). Everything else follows.
Ethiopia last year banned the import of new gasoline-powered cars. Nepal reduced import duties on EVs so much that they are now cheaper than cars with internal combustion engines. Brazil raised tariffs on car imports to compel Chinese automakers to set up plants inside Brazil. Etc
November 11, 2025 at 11:02 AM
So interesting
Just read this interesting piece from 2018 defining the "analog slot" for social studies of technology, and I think this concept should remain part of the conversation for #sts and #anthropology as we increase our attention to the social studies of #AI. doi.org/10.14506/ca3...
What Should an Anthropology of Algorithms Do?
| Cultural Anthropology
doi.org
November 8, 2025 at 9:51 AM
Just read this interesting piece from 2018 defining the "analog slot" for social studies of technology, and I think this concept should remain part of the conversation for #sts and #anthropology as we increase our attention to the social studies of #AI. doi.org/10.14506/ca3...
"But what if we do not have common problems, but bitter conflicts over the very definition of our problems, in a context of ever greater polarisation?"
#AcademicSky #research #science
Horizon Europe’s collaborative projects ask for the impossible www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/hori...
#AcademicSky #research #science
Horizon Europe’s collaborative projects ask for the impossible www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/hori...
Horizon Europe’s collaborative projects ask for the impossible
Social sciences funding would be best spent on narrower calls. But would it dry up if we stopped pretending we can save the world, asks Andreas Schedler
www.timeshighereducation.com
November 6, 2025 at 8:37 AM
"But what if we do not have common problems, but bitter conflicts over the very definition of our problems, in a context of ever greater polarisation?"
#AcademicSky #research #science
Horizon Europe’s collaborative projects ask for the impossible www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/hori...
#AcademicSky #research #science
Horizon Europe’s collaborative projects ask for the impossible www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/hori...
Random heartwarming news: Yesterday, I discovered that the Bavarian State Library, which does not allow people to wear their coats into the library, started providing red blankets to be used by the students inside the library who are cold 🥰
#gratitude
#gratitude
November 5, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Random heartwarming news: Yesterday, I discovered that the Bavarian State Library, which does not allow people to wear their coats into the library, started providing red blankets to be used by the students inside the library who are cold 🥰
#gratitude
#gratitude
So many of the doors that I walked through have closed behind me: 😢
Admissions are literally paused at the place that built my mind 🧠and asked me to become more than I was:
socialsciences.uchicago.edu/programs-stu...
We hope it's temporary . . . 🚪😿 #Science #academicchatter #educationsky
Admissions are literally paused at the place that built my mind 🧠and asked me to become more than I was:
socialsciences.uchicago.edu/programs-stu...
We hope it's temporary . . . 🚪😿 #Science #academicchatter #educationsky
Doctoral Programs | The University of Chicago Division of the Social Sciences
socialsciences.uchicago.edu
November 5, 2025 at 12:32 PM
So many of the doors that I walked through have closed behind me: 😢
Admissions are literally paused at the place that built my mind 🧠and asked me to become more than I was:
socialsciences.uchicago.edu/programs-stu...
We hope it's temporary . . . 🚪😿 #Science #academicchatter #educationsky
Admissions are literally paused at the place that built my mind 🧠and asked me to become more than I was:
socialsciences.uchicago.edu/programs-stu...
We hope it's temporary . . . 🚪😿 #Science #academicchatter #educationsky
I am *still* not using Facebook or Instagram, or corporate-controlled outlets NYT or Wall Street Journal, from April 2025 to now. My attention is valuable--yours too💰
Here's a how-to guide: imaginethenews.com/media-libera...
#MediaLiberationDay #MediaRevolution #TheRevolutionWillNotBeMonetized
Here's a how-to guide: imaginethenews.com/media-libera...
#MediaLiberationDay #MediaRevolution #TheRevolutionWillNotBeMonetized
Media Liberation Day
On November 5, 2025, The Media Revolution (UK) is launching the Media Liberation Day campaign, a movement bringing awareness to the rupture in the legacy mainstream media system. Now captured by...
imaginethenews.com
November 5, 2025 at 9:32 AM
I am *still* not using Facebook or Instagram, or corporate-controlled outlets NYT or Wall Street Journal, from April 2025 to now. My attention is valuable--yours too💰
Here's a how-to guide: imaginethenews.com/media-libera...
#MediaLiberationDay #MediaRevolution #TheRevolutionWillNotBeMonetized
Here's a how-to guide: imaginethenews.com/media-libera...
#MediaLiberationDay #MediaRevolution #TheRevolutionWillNotBeMonetized
Reposted by Mallory James
The 400 richest Americans are now worth a record $6.6 trillion.
The entire bottom 50% of America is worth just $4.2 trillion.
Read that back.
When 400 people control more wealth than half a country’s population, we have a very serious problem.
The entire bottom 50% of America is worth just $4.2 trillion.
Read that back.
When 400 people control more wealth than half a country’s population, we have a very serious problem.
November 3, 2025 at 1:30 AM
The 400 richest Americans are now worth a record $6.6 trillion.
The entire bottom 50% of America is worth just $4.2 trillion.
Read that back.
When 400 people control more wealth than half a country’s population, we have a very serious problem.
The entire bottom 50% of America is worth just $4.2 trillion.
Read that back.
When 400 people control more wealth than half a country’s population, we have a very serious problem.
Five years ago, my newest @engrstudies.bsky.social paper was chapter 2 of my #Anthropology dissertation.
I am trying to keep the space alive for the intersection of disciplinary knowlege X a topic that lots of interdisciplinary and #STS scholars have already 👣 traveled through.
I am trying to keep the space alive for the intersection of disciplinary knowlege X a topic that lots of interdisciplinary and #STS scholars have already 👣 traveled through.
October 29, 2025 at 11:25 AM
Five years ago, my newest @engrstudies.bsky.social paper was chapter 2 of my #Anthropology dissertation.
I am trying to keep the space alive for the intersection of disciplinary knowlege X a topic that lots of interdisciplinary and #STS scholars have already 👣 traveled through.
I am trying to keep the space alive for the intersection of disciplinary knowlege X a topic that lots of interdisciplinary and #STS scholars have already 👣 traveled through.
Reposted by Mallory James
Wow. Harvard nuking its PhD programs
- Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75%
- Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60%
- Social Sciences by 50–70%
- History by 60%
- Biology by 75%
- The German department will lose all PhD seats
- Sociology from six PhD students to zero
- Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75%
- Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60%
- Social Sciences by 50–70%
- History by 60%
- Biology by 75%
- The German department will lose all PhD seats
- Sociology from six PhD students to zero
Harvard FAS Cuts Ph.D. Seats By More Than Half Across Next Two Admissions Cycles | News | The Harvard Crimson
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences slashed the number of Ph.D. student admissions slots for the Science division by more than 75 percent and for the Arts & Humanities division by about 60 percent for th...
www.thecrimson.com
October 21, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Wow. Harvard nuking its PhD programs
- Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75%
- Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60%
- Social Sciences by 50–70%
- History by 60%
- Biology by 75%
- The German department will lose all PhD seats
- Sociology from six PhD students to zero
- Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75%
- Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60%
- Social Sciences by 50–70%
- History by 60%
- Biology by 75%
- The German department will lose all PhD seats
- Sociology from six PhD students to zero
There's another energy reading group starting up! Perfect for those who prefer to meet earlier in the day, earlier in the week:
📖 I'm excited to convene a virtual reading group on #EnergyHeritage with @energy-ethics.bsky.social! Engaging w/ scholarship, fiction & artistic projects, we'll meet monthly from Nov-April for discussion and creative responses. Details + registration: energyethics.st-andrews.ac.uk/cee-reading-...
CEE Reading Group | Energy Ethics
energyethics.st-andrews.ac.uk
October 29, 2025 at 10:56 AM
There's another energy reading group starting up! Perfect for those who prefer to meet earlier in the day, earlier in the week:
Hi #STS! I am sure that many if you have read and/or taught the work of 'our' Ludwig Fleck--who technically pre-dated STS although claimed as canonical for history and philosophy of science for "Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact" (1979 [1935])--but here's some biographical info...(1/3)
Vaccine subterfuge: How vaccine-makers fooled the Nazis from inside a concentration camp lab
Confined first at Auschwitz then Buchenwald, a Jewish microbiologist conspired with a ragtag team of scientists and rebels to send dud typhus vaccines to the German soldiers on the eastern front.
www.gavi.org
October 28, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Hi #STS! I am sure that many if you have read and/or taught the work of 'our' Ludwig Fleck--who technically pre-dated STS although claimed as canonical for history and philosophy of science for "Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact" (1979 [1935])--but here's some biographical info...(1/3)
Reposted by Mallory James
Whenever people complain about the number of folks relying on food stamps, it is worth reminding them that SNAP is, by too large of a degree, a subsidy for corporations that refuse to pay a living wage and their political allies who reject public policy prescriptions to reduce income inequality.
October 27, 2025 at 1:11 AM
Whenever people complain about the number of folks relying on food stamps, it is worth reminding them that SNAP is, by too large of a degree, a subsidy for corporations that refuse to pay a living wage and their political allies who reject public policy prescriptions to reduce income inequality.
Reposted by Mallory James
Ann Johnson Institute Writing Retreat for #HPS & #STS scholars, 6-12 July 2026 at Ampersand Inn, Newton New Jersey. Theme is "Context of Discovery in Science & Technology", and the objective is project completion. 10 scholars will be selected. Applications due 17 November 2025
sc.edu/study/colleg...
sc.edu/study/colleg...
The Ann Johnson Institute for Science, Technology and Society - McCausland College of Arts and Sciences | University of South Carolina
sc.edu
September 14, 2025 at 6:28 PM
Ann Johnson Institute Writing Retreat for #HPS & #STS scholars, 6-12 July 2026 at Ampersand Inn, Newton New Jersey. Theme is "Context of Discovery in Science & Technology", and the objective is project completion. 10 scholars will be selected. Applications due 17 November 2025
sc.edu/study/colleg...
sc.edu/study/colleg...