The STS program at Vassar College celebrated its 50th anniversary.  To mark the occasion we organized a conference on “Science and the Culture Wars,” April 3-5, 2025 held at the Vassar Institute for the Liberal Arts.

Naomi Oreskes gave the keynote address, the Pauline Newman ’47 Distinguished Lecture, “From Anti-Government to Anti-Science and Back Again”.

Additionally, around 25 academics from different disciplines including STS, sociology, history, law and cultural studies joined for panels and discussions on a number of topics including “Politics of Medical and Public Health Controversies”, “Science and Religion in Culture and the Courts”, “Making Scientific Identities and Boundaries”, “Critical Discourses in Medicine”, and more.

The conference also featured a Vassar STS alumn panel, several faculty teach-ins on “AI, Algorithms, and Justice”, “Reproductive Technologies and women’s Health”, and “Climate Change and the Anthropocene”, as well as a documentary film screening of Plan C with a Q&A with Director Tracy Droz Tragos.