ABSTRACT
‘One long series of creative blunderings.’ When it comes to characterising his career, Professor Paul N. Edwards, director of the programme in Science, Technology & Society (sts) and senior research scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (cisac), as well as professor of information and history at the University of Michigan, has no reservations. His peers, however, seem to deeply appreciate the outcome of all these ‘blunderings,’ as they recently awarded him the prestigious J. D. Bernal Prize from the Society for Social Studies of Science. At Stanford, Edwards finds that students don't take time anymore to mentally and conceptually explore. ‘They're looking for jobs and credentials, and the exploratory impulse is stifled by their environment and background. I constantly tell them to relax.’ That exploratory impulse is exactly what he finds at the ias, where he is an esteemed external faculty member and regularly organises workshops and seminars.
