Joseph A. Renow

Joseph Renow's research focuses on the intersections of society, culture, and expertise, so I think a lot about what scientists, engineers, and physicians think, say, and do when they are busy being experts. A common theme in his work is the places where experts do what they do. What exactly happens within the hallowed spaces of universities, labs, and hospitals? How do these places help make expertise happen? Past projects include the design and later use of a university library, and the birth and promotion of an archeological field-site and museum. In both projects the sites themselves were instrumental in stabilizing the materials and practices from which facts are made, especially the students and publics that must be convinced, cajoled, and coerced into compliant supporters. Renow's current project asks how the spaces of hospitals divide patients (figuratively and literally) into subjects, samples, pathogens, and disease, so that medical practitioners can expand their gaze, social control, and career trajectories.