16,584 research outputs found
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A contagious living fluid: objectification and assemblage in the history of virology
This article deals with the birth of `the virus' as an object of technoscientific analysis. The aim is to discuss the process of objectification of pathogen virulence in virological and medical discourses. Through a short excursion into the history of modern virology, it will be argued that far from being a matter of fact, pathogen virulence had to be `produced', for example in petri-dishes, test-kits and hyper-real signification-practices. The now commonly accepted objective status of `the virus' has been an accomplishment of a complex ensemble of actors. Indeed, this illustrates why objectification rather than objectivity has become the main focus of science and technology studies. The objectification of `the' virus was by no means a smooth process. It involved more than five decades of highly speculative and fragmented research projects before it became actualized as a separate discipline under the heading of virology. The specific objectification of viruses took place through an inter-disciplinary de-differentiation of research questions, methodologies, techniques and technologies. The main argument of this article is that viruses only became intelligible after the establishment of a virology-assemblage. Its inauguration in the early 1950s was radical and sudden because only then could the various substrands of virological technoscience affect each other through deliberate enrolment, and engender a universal intelligibility
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International terrorism as a nomadic war machine: reflections on the collapse of the World Trade Centre and its aftermath
The Analytic Bootstrap in Fermionic CFTs
We apply the method of the large spin bootstrap to analyse fermionic
conformal field theories with weakly broken higher spin symmetry. Through the
study of correlators of composite operators, we find the anomalous dimensions
and OPE coefficients in the Gross-Neveu model in dimensions
and the Gross-Neveu-Yukawa model in dimensions, based only on
crossing symmetry. Furthermore a non-trivial solution in the
expansion is found for a fermionic theory in which the fundamental field is not
part of the spectrum. The results are perturbative in and valid
to all orders in the spin, reproducing known results for operator dimensions
and providing some new results for operator dimensions and OPE coefficients.Comment: 42+3 pages, no figure
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Network
Network is a device for organising and conceptualising non-linear complexity. Networks defy narrative, chronology and thus also genealogy because they entail a multiplicity of traces. Networks problematize boundaries and centrality but intensify our ability to think in terms of flows and simultaneity. As a concept, network has been highly conducive to theorizing phenomena and processes such as globalization, digital media (Internet), speed, symbiosis and complexity. This in turn enables us to rethink what constitutes the foundations of intelligence, knowledge and even life itself. One particularly useful application of network as a concept is the notion of the gift, which is often seen as the archetypical figure for understanding the nature of economics and social relationships
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