The Scale and the Reactor

Abstract

The mainstream American legal academy, no less than American society as a whole, has struggled to understand and address new technology. Law professors are finally beginning to draw from science and technology studies (STS), a longstanding field devoted to greater nuance in the interplay between technology and society. This new direction for the field holds the potential to improve the quality and rigor of legal analysis of technology. Yet even as law and technology embraces STS, the field must take care not to abandon the normativity and pragmatism that characterizes and distinguishes American legal scholarship.

Keywords: science and technology studies, STS, law and technology