Overview
The Department is saddened by the passing of our friend and colleague, Trevor Pinch. Read more here.
Professor Trevor Pinch's main research centers on three areas: (1) the sociology of technology and how users engage with technology, (2) sound studies and music and in particular the development of musical instruments and sound objects, (3) markets and the economy with specific attention to the study of selling and persuasion.
His most recent book is series of interview conducted by Italian Media Scholar, Simone Tosini, Entanglements: Conversations on the Human Traces of Science, Technology and Sound, MIT Press 2017.
He is also a performing musician with the Electric Golem.
He was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Maastricht in 2012 and received the 2018 J.D. Bernal career award from the Society for Social Studies of Science read more about his award here.
Research Focus
Professor Trevor Pinch's main research centers on three areas: (1) the sociology of technology and how users engage with technology, (2) sound studies and music and in particular the development of musical instruments and sound objects, (3) markets and the economy with specific attention to the study of selling and persuasion
Professor Pinch is currently researching the use of sound by social psychologist, Stanley Milgram. He is also collaborating with Serge Belongie on a project concerning the computer recognition of musical instruments http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2017/03/radical-collaboration-through-machine-learning and he also is collaborating with researchers at EPFL in Lausanne over the digitization of the Montreux Jazz Festival Archive.
Publications
- Entanglements (with Simone Tosini). Cambridge: MIT Press, 2016.
- The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies (edited with Karin Bijsterveld). New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
- Living in a Material World: Economic Sociology Meets Science and Technology Studies (edited with Richard Swedberg), Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008.
- Dr Golem: How To Think About Medicine (with Harry Collins), Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006; Chinese translation: Shanghai Scientific and Technological Education Publication House, 2007; Hungarian Translation: Scolar Kaido, 2008; Korean Translation, MINUMSA Publishing Group, 2010.
- Sound Studies: New Technologies and Music (edited with Karin Bijsterveld) Special Issue of Social Studies of Science, 34, 635-817, 2004.
- How Users Matter: The Co-Construction of Users and Technologies (edited with Nelly Oudshoorn). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003.
- Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer (with Frank Trocco). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.
- "New Introduction to the Social Construction of Technological Systems," (with Wiebe Bijker). Anniversary edition of The Social Construction of Technological Systems, edited by Wiebe Bijker, Thomas, P. Hughes and Trevor J. Pinch. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012.
- "Wittgenstein"s Visit to Ithaca in 1949: On the Importance of Details," (with Richard Swedberg). Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory, 2012, 1-28.
- "Book Reviewing for Amazon.com: How Socio-technical Systems Struggle to Make Less From More," in Managing Overflow in Affluent Societies, in Barbara Czarniawska and Orvar Löfgren (eds.). New York and London: Routledge, 2012.
- "The Invisible Technologies of Goffman's Sociology: From the Merry-Go-Round to the Internet," Technology and Culture, 51, 2010, 409-424.
- "On Making Infrastructure Visible: Putting the Nonhumans to Rights," Cambridge Journal of Economics, 34, 2010, 77-89.
- "Technostalgia: How Old Gear Lives on in New Music," (with David Reinecke) in Sound Souvenirs: Audio Technologies, Memory, and Cultural Practices, (Karin Bijsterveld and Jose van Dijck, eds.). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009, 152-166.
- "Karen Barad, Quantum Mechanics, and the Paradox of Mutual Exclusivity," essay review of Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning, by Karen Barad, Social Studies of Science, 41, 2011, 431-441.