10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17562
Like the many fortunate enough to cross his path, the STS Italia community and Tecnoscienza are particularly indebted with the sociologist of science and technology – and Moog synthesizer player – Trevor Pinch (1952-2021). Our journal gratefully remembers his human and intellectual generosity through the words of four researchers who encountered Trevor as a mentor, supervisor, colleague and source of inspiration for their life and work.
application/pdf
2038-3460
17562
1
en
Mariacristina Sciannamblo
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
STS Italia
Remembering Trevor Pinch
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
13
Editorial
2022-07-07
2023-06-30
2022-07-07
2023-10-26
9-24
TS
Mariacristina Sciannamblo
2022/07/07
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17562
9
Sapienza University of Rome
2038-3460
1
STS Italia
en
24
Remembering Trevor Pinch
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17562/16413
13
                                                                       In Memoriam
Remembering Trevor Pinch

                Attila Bruni                             Chris Hesselbein
                 University of Trento                       Politecnico di Milano

            Paolo Magaudda                           Mariacristina Sciannamblo
                 University of Padua                     Sapienza University of Rome




    Abstract: Like the many fortunate enough to cross his path, the STS Italia
    community and Tecnoscienza are particularly indebted with the sociologist
    of science and technology – and Moog synthesizer player – Trevor Pinch
    (1952-2021). Our journal gratefully remembers his human and intellectual
    generosity through the words of four researchers who encountered Trevor
    as a mentor, supervisor, colleague and source of inspiration for their life and
    work.

    Keywords: Trevor Pinch; mentoring; The Electric Golem; sound studies;
    STS Italia.

    Submitted: May 31, 2022 – Accepted: June 16, 2022

    Corresponding author: Mariacristina Sciannamblo, Sapienza University of
    Rome, Department of Communication and Social Research, Via Salaria 113,
    Roma, Italy. Email: mariacristina.sciannamblo@uniroma1.it


“So, keep up the good work and don’t forget to have fun!”:
Remembering Trevor

Mariacristina Sciannamblo and Chris Hesselbein

    Much has been written about Trevor Pinch since his passing in late
December of 2021. Italian STS scholars are of course very aware of his
role as one of the founders of the Social Construction of Technology ap-
proach and the field of Sound Studies as well as his contributions to re-
search and teaching in the form of articles, books (and book reviews!),
lectures, summer schools, and podcasts. Many of you have had the good
fortune of meeting Trevor in person, and some of you have had the
pleasure of seeing him play his beloved synthesizer. Something that is less
!
TECNOSCIENZA
Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
13 (1) pp. 9-24 - ISSN 2038-3460
www.tecnoscienza.net                              2022
10                                                          Tecnoscienza – 13 (1)


often reflected upon, but that is equally important to his role as a scholar,
is the way in which he supervised his students and how he helped them
become STS scholars in their own right.
    Everyone who has ever been around Trevor for even a short period
knows that he was able to strike up a conversation and build a connection
of some sort with almost anybody, any time. His curiosity, generosity, and
adventurousness allowed him not only to be open to what other people
had to say, but also to know how to make an apprehensive student feel
heard and appreciated by someone whom they might never have dreamt
of meeting let alone receiving a helpful reference from. In other words,
Trevor was a great scholar because he was also a great mentor and super-
visor, which is something that needs to be emphasized when reflecting on
his contributions to the field of STS. This is therefore not a celebratory
tribute to an academic super(rock?!)star, but an acknowledgment of Tre-
vor’s humbleness and the spaces and opportunities he provided for his
students to follow in his footsteps. Our joint piece highlights the interper-
sonal qualities of Trevor as a supervisor who built bridges for his stu-
dents, gave constructive criticism as well as critical support, and therefore
helped us to stand on our feet and follow our own intellectual pathways.
    Trevor as facilitator of social connections and builder of intellectual
bridges. As PhD students, we met at Cornell University in the autumn of
2014. At that time, Trevor and Chris were planning to do an “independ-
ent study” class on the use of everyday technology. The main reason for
this was that Chris came to the conclusion that he no longer wanted to
work on the project that he had been developing for his PhD, which was
partially caused by an interesting but otherwise dispiriting summer school
that he’d just attended with Trevor in Paris (where, perhaps entirely un-
surprisingly, Trevor has introduced him to “his friend Bruno”). In other
words, Trevor created space for Chris to take the time and figure things
out again. In true Trevor style, Mariacristina was invited to join the read-
ing group with Chris. We collectively read and discussed several works by
classic STS scholars (e.g., Ruth Schwarz Cowan, Lucy Suchman, and Judy
Wajcman) as well as beyond (e.g., David Edgerton, Tim Ingold, and
Wanda Orlikowski). Most of our meetings were held in one of Trevor’s
favourite meeting spots, namely Gimme! Coffee in downtown Ithaca.
While assembling the reading list for our meetings, Trevor, in his typical
casual manner, put us in touch with Nelly Oudshoorn, who co-edited the
How Users Matter volume with Trevor, and pointed us towards new and
exciting work that was being done in the field of user innovation in Den-
mark.
    A similar story involves Mariacristina, who first met Trevor in June
2013 at the STS Italia summer school in Ostuni to which he was invited
as a keynote speaker (Fig. 1). Grappling with the frustration and confu-
sion that comes with just having started a PhD, Mariacristina unexpected-
ly found herself sitting next to Trevor during the summer school’s first
Bruni, Hesselbein, Magaudda and Sciannamblo                               11

collective dinner where she was posed that dreaded question that every
new PhD student wishes to avoid: “So, Cristina, what is your research
about?” After listening to Mariacristina splutter the words “gender”,
“technology”, “computing”, Trevor rattled off a series of books, articles,
and authors on “such an interesting topic”, specifically mentioning a
book on ham radio by Kristen Haring (the sister of Haring Keith the art-
ist), inspired by the t-shirt that Mariacristina was wearing, which featured
a design by Keith Haring. This first friendly meeting with STS continued
the following year at Cornell University, where Mariacristina spent a se-
mester as a visiting PhD student with Trevor’s crucial help.




             Figure 1. Trevor Pinch with students during a break at the
                     STS Italia summer school in Ostuni, 2013.
                            Picture by Assunta Viteritti.

    Trevor’s generosity and openness paired with his sharp critical wit and
knowledge of STS. Many months after the reading group, Chris presented
Trevor with a paper on mundane technologies that he hoped would be
the basis for one of his upcoming qualifying exams. Although Trevor en-
joyed a reference to the Italian soccer player Balotelli putting on his bib
and an argument about the problem with crispy fried eggs, he gave Chris
a firm kick in the butt (“I have the feeling you’re coasting, and that’s not
going to get you very far”). To drive a point home about the importance
of context, Trevor lifted up his leg to demonstrate how he had used a pa-
per clip to repair the zipper of his winter boot (“Users subvert technolo-
gies all the time!”). We also fondly recall his critical remarks about the
collapse of categories that some analytical approaches threatened to lead
to (“I don’t agree for a second that this table can have the same agency as
a human actor!”) as well as his genuine curiosity, mixed with amazement,
about the evolution of STS from the 1970s to the present, including his
12                                                          Tecnoscienza – 13 (1)


amused surprise at learning that the abstracts of some (very prominent)
fellow STS scholars had been rejected at recent 4S conferences.
    His intellectual journey in STS can be read in his fascinating
book/conversation with Simone Tosoni (2017) that traces Trevor’s deep
sense of belonging to STS, which is reflected in his commitment to build-
ing STS communities across the world (“I’m off to Kumamoto University
on Kyushu Island Japan on Tuesday for a week. Helping them build a
new program around STS and sustainability. Should be fun and interest-
ing!”). Trevor’s intellectual and professional commitments were never
separated from his personal curiosity and pleasure in interacting with
people and the many social relationships that he built over the years,
which was highlighted when winning the 4S Bernal Prize in 2018 (“It was
great seeing people and Lucy gave me lots of hugs”).
    Having met Trevor during our doctoral training, we cannot but em-
phasize his dedication to teaching and the support he gave to his students
whose stories and work were featured in almost every conversation with
him. Trevor’s willingness and desire, perhaps even need, to continue
teaching did not cease even during the most difficult times of living with
cancer. And his interest in and commitment to teaching and mutual learn-
ing did not stop at giving lectures and classes, but continued even while
sharing drinks or soups (with chips!) and hanging out at concerts or par-
ticipating in jam sessions (Fig. 2).




              Figure 2. Trevor with students during a concert by
             100% Black at the Bowl-O-Drome in Ithaca, NY, in
                    June 2019. Picture by Mehmet Ekinçi.
Bruni, Hesselbein, Magaudda and Sciannamblo                               13

    In this respect, we very much recognize him in the words of his col-
leagues and friends Wiebe Bijker and Karin Bijsterveld (2022), who write
that there was “for Trevor, no bigger compliment for his research than
being compared with a young PhD student”.
    We see him having fun in one of his “crazy busy summers” or winters,
joining STS workshops in Paris, going to 4S in Buenos Aires, performing
with Electric Golem at the GrassRoots Festival in Upstate New York,
challenging muskox in Trondheim (“that muskox ran right towards us
and the guide kept saying ‘Don’t challenge the muskox!’ I was taking
photos of course”), helping students with accommodation at Cornell and
providing them with bicycles (“Nelly Oudshoorn rode this one while we
were writing How Users Matter!”), enrolling students to be his roadie and
buying them a beer afterwards (“Don’t tell Bruce!” [department chair]),
walking around Trumansburg as a “Moog aficionado” and remembering
his earliest times at Cornell while building the STS programme, playing
guitar hero with his daughters, running a DIY synth building workshop,
and lapsing into Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder while emailing us.
Ciao Trevor, you are missed ever so much.

                                              ***
The Electric Golem

Attila Bruni

    When I was invited to write this short text about Trevor, I felt obliged
and somehow happy for having the opportunity of publicly expressing
the great fascination he had for me. As for all kind of fascinations, it hap-
pened all of a sudden and it rapidly grew. It did not happen through the
reading of his books (in that period, I was much more fascinated by ac-
tor-network theory, theoretically speaking), but at the 4S/EASST Confer-
ence in Copenhagen, in September 2012, thanks to Sally Wyatt. She in-
vited me to join and intervene in a small session celebrating the publica-
tion of the second edition of the famous book The Social Construction of
Technological Systems (Bijker, Hughes and Pinch, 1987/2012). More
people than I expected were there and the atmosphere was very joyful
and relaxed, but I started feeling a bit nervous when I realized that Wi-
jebe Bijker and Trevor Pinch were also there, so that they would have had
listen to me. My short intervention was intended to be ironic and provoc-
ative and (believe it or not) I still hold the notebook where I sketched it
(Fig. 3).
14                                                         Tecnoscienza – 13 (1)




                            Figure 2. Notebook.

    The point was that it was the first time I was meeting Trevor and
Wiebe Bijker, so that I had no clue about their sense of humor, but for
sure I did not want to sound silly or disrespecting. Then I noticed that
Trevor was wearing the same sneakers I had (Converse All Star, white),
and I felt reassured. So, I concluded my short speech addressing to him
the following question: “If this book was a long-playing, what kind of
music would it contain?”
    “Some kind of Pink Floyd-Van-Der-Graaf-Generator-psychedelic-
rock”, Trevor replied smiling. I was fascinated by that smiling, which I
would not know how to define. Once the meeting was finished, Trevor
approached me directly, and we chatted a lot about music. I told him I
spent a couple of years playing in a rock band after graduating at the uni-
versity, and he replied saying he was still playing in a band. And this was
the beginning.
    Approximately six months later, in February 2013, I met Trevor
again, this time in Trento and thanks to Massimiano Bucchi, who set for
him a quite peculiar situation. At that time, Trevor was doing some work
on the tacit and embedded dimension of expert knowledge, so we had a
“seminar in the kitchen”. We were in a separate area of a cafè/restaurant,
with a couple of tables equipped with various ingredients (salt, oil, water,
flour) and cooking instruments at our disposal. Instead of giving a lesson
or a formal speech, Trevor asked us to give him instructions on how to
make some fresh pasta and cook it. Although we were just fifteen people
(and all Italians), we immediately started to disagree with each other
about the right procedure and to give to Trevor opposite advices. Moreo-
ver, after a while, more than one person started picking up instruments
and ingredients showing in practical terms (e.g., rolling out the dough
with a rolling pin) what s/he meant by “thin”, “thick”, “soft” or “po-
rous”. There were also people who had simply no idea of how to make
fresh pasta, nor they declared themselves in terms of experts or passion-
ate cookers, but for some reason they also started to give their opinions,
Bruni, Hesselbein, Magaudda and Sciannamblo                              15

suggesting things they heard or saw other people doing in other occa-
sions.
    Thus, without the need of introducing any particular concept or theo-
ry, Trevor threw the participants in a typical technoscientific controversy:
who was right? Who could claim to be right and on what basis? Was
there a unique cooking technique or were there more options? On what
basis was the knowledge deployed legitimated? Moreover, as it sometimes
happens when you have different groups of actors referring to different
sources of knowledge and techniques, the pasta we made was not that
good, as everybody were probably concentrated on demonstrating the
“truth” of their procedure, more than on making some good fresh pasta.
    That evening, Trevor and I had dinner together. This time, we chatted
a lot about music and food as well, and I was surprised by how easy it was
to conversate with him: he always had a story to tell, but he was curious
about other’s people experiences; he was ironic and provocative but nev-
er disrespecting his interlocutor; he had his own convictions, preferences
and tastes, so that he was ready to argue about that until exhaustion; most
of the time, he smiled and seemed extremely at ease and this contributed
in constructing a good conversational atmosphere. Last but not least, it
was possible to converse with Trevor almost about everything: literature,
cinema, tv series, music, alternative movements, sociology, history, phi-
losophy, food, drinks, sports, politics, personal relationships… and, of
course, science and technological processes in society.
    During that dinner I asked him to join the next STS Italia Summer
School, which was supposed to take place in the Apulian courtyard a few
months later, in a masseria (a typical old Italian farm) now refurbished as
an artistic residential space. This meant, for example, that all the main
sessions would have had taken place in a large hall which was basically a
space for theatre workshops and rehearsals. So, basically no chairs (peo-
ple had to sit on some cushions, directly on the floor), and given that
there was the parquet, everybody had to take off their shoes, speakers in-
cluded (Fig. 4). Moreover, we would have all ate together (the cook of the
masseria would have been in charge of our meals, mostly vegetarian) and
slept in the same space, although participants would have had to sleep in
shared spaces, whereas speakers would have had their own private rooms.
16                                                          Tecnoscienza – 13 (1)




                          Figure 3. Seminar Room.

     To say it explicitly, it was not everybody’s cup of tea. But Trevor was
so enthusiastic, that he immediately accepted, with that undefinable
smiling which already caught me the first time I saw him. And this was
the second time.
     Now it is mid-June and we are in the Apulia region (South-East of
Italy), in the countryside just near Ostuni, surrounded by olive trees, 6
km from the sea. It is hot but windy, and during the afternoon everybody
have finally reached the masseria. The only missing one is Trevor, whose
flight was late and who is in a car (my car, actually) with Paolo Magaudda
driving him to his final destination.
     We are about twenty-five people altogether (participants, invited
speakers, and organizers) and we are going to have our first dinner sitting
in the garden of the masseria. We are already sat down and Trevor and
Paolo arrive precisely in the moment when three enormous cups of
orecchiette alla crudaiola (typical Apulian pasta seasoned with fresh
tomatoes, basils, and grated ricotta cheese) are brought to the table by
our cook. Everybody is smiling and looking at each other, but we
basically do not know each other, so that somebody has to break the
initial embarrassment, take one of the spoons on the table, and start
filling his/her or somebody’s else plate. And the one who takes the spoon,
largely smiling, is Trevor; and needless to say, he serves all the people on
the table, before serving himself. So that the welcoming for the
participants of the summer school is Trevor Pinch offering them a plate
of orecchiette alla crudaiola. Too brilliant to be planned, but thanks to the
spontaneity of Trevor and his playful attitude (Fig. 5).
Bruni, Hesselbein, Magaudda and Sciannamblo                                17




                 Figure 4. Summer School lunch break with Trevor.

    In the following days, the school articulated through various sessions
and structured speeches, but the added value was clearly the serendipi-
tous discussions that take place not just in dedicated times and spaces,
but also in the shade, by the sea, or at night, while having a drink. And
the added value of the added value was Trevor, who ineffably participat-
ed to all the discussions, listening and giving suggestions to all the partic-
ipants, while making fun of the absurdities and the contradictions of aca-
demia, and struggling every time somebody mentioned ANT or “inter-
species ethnography”.
    Some of the discussions we had during those days translated into a
“conversation” who appeared on Tecnoscienza (Bruni, Pinch and Schu-
bert 2013), but on the last evening, we nearly quarrelled, because in my
opinion Trevor was too “straight” with one participant who was observ-
ing ethnographically the life of flies in a Brazilian laboratory working on a
new malaria vaccine. But he kept saying: “As my friend Harry Collins
says, of course there is a difference between a person and a dog: the dog
doesn’t laugh, doesn’t dress, and doesn’t ride a car, so… why should we
bother about the distinction between humans and non humans, given that
there is a distinction?!”.
    But that was it: Trevor was authentic and had no doubts in acting
and/or speaking his mind directly, no matter if the issue at stake was serv-
ing the orecchiette or arguing about the relation/distinction between hu-
mans and non-humans.
    At the end of the summer school, Trevor gave a present to me, some-
thing really precious and which I would have never expected: a copy of a
CD of the band he used to play with (Fig. 6), the Electric Golem (such a
perfect name!). It is definitely one of the CDs I am most proud to hold
and in its title is the clue about the peculiar smiling of Trevor. The music
is “some kind of Pink Floyd-Van-Der-Graaf-Generator psychedelic-
rock”. And I will keep on listening to it. Thank you, Trevor!
18                                                             Tecnoscienza – 13 (1)




         Figure 6. “Smiling like an angry turtle”, by the Elecric Golem.


                                      ***
Trevor Pinch in Three Episodes

Paolo Magaudda

    I decided to write this piece because Trevor Pinch has been quite an
important and positive person in my academic and para-academic trajec-
tory. At a careful inspection of my memory, for several reasons that also
include a good dose of coincidence and serendipity, I realised that Trevor
has had an influence on several choices I have made in my scientific life.
As I will recall, during my days as a university student in communication
studies, more than 20 years ago, the discovery of the Social Construction
of Technology (SCOT) approach he developed with Wiebe Bijker (Pinch
and Bijker 1984) was the first step to meet the science & technology stud-
ies (STS) field. At the same time, his personality and academically eccen-
tric interests (such as his passion for analogue music synthetisers) reso-
nated a lot with my own (for instance, I too played and still have a real
passion for this musical instrument), including his trajectory within the
alternative music scene in the late ‘60s in London before enrolling in a
master’s degree at the University of Manchester: this, no doubt, led to
some of my identification with his interests and inclinations, which also
reinforced my affinity with his scientific work. Moreover, all my opportu-
nities to spend time with him allowed me to deeply enjoy his personal at-
titude and easy-going personality. Thus, I have several memories that I
would like to share about him and his work.
    To make sense of them, in the next few pages, I will put in practice C.
Wright Mills’s (1959) sociological imagination, especially his invitation to
Bruni, Hesselbein, Magaudda and Sciannamblo                              19

intersect individual biographies with wider patterns in social dynamics.
Hence, I will recall three specific episodes in my biography that involve
Trevor in different ways and attempt to connect them with wider dynam-
ics in STS and in scientific dynamics at large, in the hope that some of my
personal experiences could resonate more broadly with those of other
scholars who have crossed paths with Trevor.

    1. On a Book

     The first episode I will recall is perhaps the most basic and simple
one, but it is important because it represents my first encounter with Tre-
vor’s work and with STS in general. This occurred at the end of 2000,
when I was a master’s student in my final year at the University of Bolo-
gna, approaching the decision of having to pick my final thesis topic. As
an amateur electronic musician and DJ, I started to cultivate the idea of
focusing my thesis on the social and cultural implications of electronic
music technologies. Thus, I engaged several teachers in conversations for
suggestions and support. In one of these talks, Giuliano Pancaldi, a pro-
fessor of the history of science and among the earliest Italian scholars to
turn an eye to STS (see Pancaldi 2020), suggested checking out a book
that could help me with my endeavour. That book was an edited collec-
tion of chapters written mainly by historians of technology and edited by
Robert Fox (1996), which included as an opening chapter a review writ-
ten by Trevor, in which he outlined the evolution of the SCOT approach,
also addressing its developments and some of the criticisms raised over
the years (Pinch 1996).
     This episode was not just my first encounter with Trevor but also my
very first dive into science and technology studies at large. This original
imprinting was possibly also a reason why, in the following years, I had a
particular attachment to the original approach to technology elaborated
by Trevor and Wiebe Bijker, even though in that period SCOT was prob-
ably being superseded as the major approach to technology by Actor-
Network Theory (ANT), which was much less schematic and more fasci-
nating. However, for a novice ANT was also less easy to implement than
SCOT, which, on the contrary, offered a straightforward approach to ad-
dress the evolution of technological innovation in relation to social groups
and the wider social context.
     Anyway, this chapter by Trevor and the discovery of the SCOT ap-
proach in general imprinted me to STS, and I think all this deeply influ-
enced not only the development of my thesis, but more generally, some of
the subsequent choices in my academic career, mostly because this was
the moment in which I understood that it was possible to focus a scien-
tific trajectory on technology from a social and cultural point of view.
Overall, this episode possibly reflects the huge influence that Trevor’s
work on SCOT has had on many young students keen to focus their in-
20                                                         Tecnoscienza – 13 (1)


terest on technology in a period in which this was a not-so-common
choice in the social sciences.

     2. On a Journal

     The second episode I want to recall is related to the moment in which
I definitively decided on the research topic of my PhD dissertation on
music listening technologies and how another trajectory in Trevor’s scien-
tific work – sound studies – was instrumental in my final decision. It was
the end of 2004, it was also the end of my first year as a doctoral student
in the Sociology Department of the University of Padua, and I was still
focused on working on music technologies. This topic was not a simple
choice because at that time common subjects for a PhD thesis in my de-
partment were, much more than today, rooted in traditional sociological
paths. Therefore, issues such as MP3 music files and iPod players looked
quite eccentric. One of the strategies that I explored to negotiate my in-
terests within this relatively traditional context was to connect them to
other perspectives considered more sociologically sound at that time,
such as the role of music in social movements or the economic and organ-
isational dimensions in music production.
     Quite coincidentally, just when I had to present my final research plan
to the PhD board, a special issue of Social Studies of Science edited by
Trevor and Karin Bijsterveld came out, focusing on sound studies, with a
strong emphasis on music technologies (Pinch and Bijsterveld 2004). At
that time, I had already read Trevor and Frank Trocco’s book on the ana-
logue synthesizer (Pinch and Trocco 2002), and I was appreciating the
book on users Trevor and Nelly Oudshoorn had edited the year before
(Oudshoorn and Pinch 2003). In any case, this perfectly timed special is-
sue on sound studies was crucial to my decision. The special issue explic-
itly declared a new field of study, sound studies, which fully correspond-
ed with my interests in music technology and was published by a leading
journal in the field in which I was hoping to focus my PhD research.
When I read that special issue published just a few weeks before I had to
lock in my choice, it was a sort of revelation: if the renowned Trevor
Pinch was working on these topics, then it would be fully legitimate for
me to follow the same path. A few days later, I went to my probable su-
pervisor, Federico Neresini, who was already working in STS, to discuss
the special issue, and he could not but agree with this view: in just a few
days I submitted my research proposal on music technologies to the PhD
committee.
     This personal episode does not just reflect the contingencies of my
choices or the overlapping interests between Trevor and me. Rather, I
think it reveals more broadly the role that Trevor played in that period to
help STS embrace not just the study of sound technologies, but more
generally media technologies and topics more directly related to cultural
Bruni, Hesselbein, Magaudda and Sciannamblo                              21

phenomena. Indeed, up until that moment, the incursions by STS schol-
ars on the terrain of media-related phenomena and cultural contents were
quite rare and disjointed. Relevant books, such as the edited collection of
essays by Tarleton Gillespie and others (2014) on media technologies,
were still a decade away, and topics like music, movies and other cultural
practices were mostly absent from the landscape of STS, with very few
exceptions. At that time, I think the core trend in STS was still to invest
in topics considered more “serious” and as part of a process of discipli-
nary boundary work, which was implicitly focused on positioning STS
more as an interface with hard sciences and well away from any sort of
“cultural studies” of technologies (the so-called “Sokal affair” was at that
time still quite present in the evolution of the intellectual relationships
between human, social and hard sciences; see Hilgartner 1997). In those
years, Trevor’s work played an important role in supporting a more inclu-
sive view of which topics could be considered plausible in STS. In doing
so, he also contributed to supporting eccentric and still not fully legiti-
mised research patterns within STS.

    3. On a Car

    Let us go to the third and last episode I want to recall about Trevor.
This episode is much more personal, and I decided to focus on it because
I think that Trevor would have liked to be remembered not just for his
important scientific accomplishments but also for the kind person he was,
something that is, of course, strongly connected to the great scholar and
mentor he also was.
    To recall this episode, we need to take a step forward in time. During
the decade that followed my PhD, I met Trevor on different occasions.
For example, in 2006, I had the opportunity to do a long interview with
him when we were both in Montreal, where I was attending the graduate
course in sound studies held by Jonathan Sterne, and Trevor had been
invited as a speaker. During this interview, Trevor presented a narrative
of his entire career and his own views about the evolution of science stud-
ies and STS. This interview was published in Italian in the journal Studi
Culturali (Magaudda 2008) and in an updated version in English in Cul-
tural Sociology in 2014 (Magaudda 2014a; 2014b). This interview was an-
other very important moment in my relationship with Trevor, but the epi-
sode that I want to share here is another one.
    It was the summer of 2013, when STS Italia organised its biannual
summer school at which Trevor was one of the speakers, I was one of the
organizers (a version of his speech was later published in Tecnoscienza;
see Bruni et al. 2013). This summer school featured a residential ap-
proach and was settled in a “Masseria”, a farmhouse in Puglia’s country-
side located in the south of Italy close to Ostuni. Students, tutors and
speakers spent several days living together in the same place (Fig. 7).
22                                                          Tecnoscienza – 13 (1)




                          Figure 7. The “Masseria”.

    As the school was organised with a grassroots approach, to manage
participants’ transportation, we rented a minivan for the students, and we
had a car for the speakers. One afternoon, I was the driver in charge of
conducing that car.
    That late afternoon, we spent some time visiting the enchanted town
of Alberobello, but it had become quite late, and we needed to bring
someone to the train station, hence, we had to drive very quickly in our
vehicles. I was driving the car with Trevor in the passenger’s seat and two
other colleagues in the back seat. I was following the minivan driven by
Attila Bruni (a distinguished car driver), who was driving very fast, well
above the speed limit, pushing the limits of my driving skills. Therefore, I
had to employ extreme concentration as I drove quickly across those nar-
row and twisting country roads. At a certain point, the colleagues in the
back seat started to be quite worried (if not literally scared) about the
speeds at which we were driving, a worry that was expressed both on
their concerned faces and with quietly voiced complaints. It was not a
comfortable situation; I had to follow the minivan at a high speed, and it
was vital to remain concentrated on the road. However, I was distracted
by the worries coming from the back seats.
    In that situation, Trevor’s presence was of great help. Not only did he
appear to be the only relaxed person in an otherwise tense environment,
but he seemed to really enjoy that adventurous ride, as his attitude re-
sembled that of a pupil on a sort of funny carousel ride. That evening, af-
ter our lively journey, he even invoked that episode as the local version of
The Italian Job, a blockbuster released the year before featuring a crazy
car chase scene in the inner city of Milan. In such an uncomfortable situa-
tion, Trevor put his trust in my driving skills, providing reassurance to the
other people sitting in the rear and putting people at ease in that typical
way of his. That really was one of those circumstances in which having a
Bruni, Hesselbein, Magaudda and Sciannamblo                                  23

person who believes in what you are doing at your side, when even you
yourself is questioning what is going on, is of great importance. And Tre-
vor was really the right person to play that role.
    I recall this episode because it reflects quite well the positive and sup-
portive presence that Trevor was able to be in many situations. This espe-
cially included the occasions when Trevor was dealing with students and
other colleagues as they opined about their work, when support from a
well-established scholar was not in any way granted; thus, it was an even
more important resource. I experienced this several times when I dis-
cussed my work with Trevor, but I also saw him do the same on many oc-
casions when talking to other people. I think this was part of Trevor’s
subtle and distinctive talent, both personally and scientifically, when in-
teracting with others. This rare quality of Trevor’s is what I will remem-
ber most fondly, together with the memories of our discussions about sci-
ence, technology and our analogue music synthesizers.




Figure 8. VII STS Italia Conference, 2018 (Padova, IT): warm greetings from the
STS Italia community to Trevor Pinch, invited as keynote speaker but ultimately
                    not able to participate to the conference.

References

Bijker, W. and Bijsterveld, K. (2022) IN MEMORIAM – Trevor Pinch (1952-2021).
    EASST Review Volume, 41 (1), in https://www.easst.net/article/in-memoriam-
    trevor-pinch-1952-2021/ (retrieved May 10, 2022).
24                                                                   Tecnoscienza – 13 (1)



Bruni, A., Pinch, T. and Schubert, C. (2013) Technologically Dense Environments:
   what For? What Next?, in “Tecnoscienza: Italian Journal of Science & Technol-
   ogy Studies”, 4 (2), pp. 51-72.
Fox, R. (ed.) (1996) Technological Change: methods and Themes in the History of
   Technology, London, Routledge.
Gillespie, T., Boczkowski, P.J. and Foot, K.A. (eds.) (2014) Media Technologies: es-
    says on Communication, Materiality, and Society, Cambridge, The MIT Press.
Hilgartner, S. (1997) The Sokal affair in context in “Science, Technology, & Human
    Values” 22 (4), pp. 506-522.
Magaudda, P. (2008) Cultura e pratica delle tecnologie, dalla fisica quantistica alla
   musica elettronica: intervista a Trevor J. Pinch, in “Studi Culturali”, 5 (1), pp. 83-
   114.
Magaudda, P. (2014a) The broken boundaries between science and technology studies
   and cultural sociology: introduction to an interview with Trevor Pinch, in “Cul-
   tural Sociology”, 8 (1), pp. 63-76.
Magaudda, P. (2014b) Studying Culture Differently: From Quantum Physics to the
   Music Synthesizer: an Interview with Trevor Pinch, in “Cultural Sociology”, 8
   (1), pp. 77-98.
Oudshoorn, N. and Pinch, T. (eds.) (2003) How Users Matter: the Co-construction of
  Users and Technology, Cambridge, The MIT Press.
Pancaldi, G. (2020) What Can We Learn from the History of STS in Italy? A Few
   Hints for the Future, in “Tecnoscienza: Italian Journal of Science & Technology
   Studies”, 11 (1), pp. 35-42.
Pinch, T. (1996) The social construction of technology: a review, in R. Fox (ed.),
   Technological Change: methods and Themes in the History of Technology, Lon-
   don, Routledge, pp. 17-36.
Pinch, T. and Bijker, W. (1984) The social construction of facts and artefacts: or how
   the sociology of science and the sociology of technology might benefit each other, in
   “Social Studies of Science”, 14 (3), pp. 399-441.
Pinch, T. and Bijsterveld, K. (2004) Sound studies: new technologies and music, in
   “Social Studies of Science”, 34 (5), pp. 635-648.
Pinch, T. and Trocco, F. (2003) Analog Days: the Invention and Impact of the Moog
   Synthesizer, Cambridge, Harvard University Press.
Tosoni, S. and Pinch, T. (2017) Entanglements: conversations on the Human Traces
   of Science, Technology, and Sound, Cambridge, The MIT Press.
Wright Mills, C. (1959) The Sociological Imagination, Oxford, Oxford University
   Press.!
