winding down

Just about to head out to the last day of the conference, which ends toward midafternoon with a promising joint plenary by Annemarie Mol and Kathleen Stewart.

Before then, I’ll be hearing, among other things, a Gratton paper on Nancy that he says will refer to both me and Meillassoux. Gratton is a blunt enough character that it could well be a frontal attack, so I’d better be listening closely in order to respond.

Have a relaxing day to kill in Manchester tomorrow; Sunday is the travel day, and Monday are my first classes back in home sweet home al-Qahira.

This has been a flawlessly organized conference. It seems to be the “APA” of the British science, technology, and society people. John Law will reportedly be on board as a director soon, and he sounded excited by the group when we spoke with him last night.

Speaking of Law, his presentation yesterday was on foot and mouth disease, and I’ve never seen more dead cows on PowerPoint than he showed. Fortunately, he said in response to my question, accompanying the snipers and vets who killed the cows was not part of his fieldwork. That would have deserved the name of STS noir.