The text comes from Bruno Latour’s Pandora’s Hope and is large part of its chapter one. It starts with a famous question addressed to Latour by a scientist “do you believe in reality?” It marks the starting point of the investigation of the role of science studies, their work, and the way they account science, and way they are attacked do fi ercely by so called “science warriors”. Science studies are viewed as critical towards well known model of two cultures. Instead they offer another model – one situating science deeply in the heart of collective life.

The article discusses the problems of change in science and society. It analyzes the argumentation strategies for change and progress and those defending the status quo including the ambigous role of the traditional pursuit of truth and knowledge.

The text defi nes such notions as culture, cultural studies, fundamental sciences, and culturalism. It argues that cultural studies are fundamental sciences in three important senses: 1) theoretical (the object of research of science has its inevitable cultural dimension), 2) practical (the ability to manipulate signs, symbols, information and other products of culture is crucial in the age of cognitive capitalism), and also 3) axiological (in the context of contemporary ecological risks we cannot aim at further conquest of Nature, but we should rather try to understand mechanisms shaping various  spheres of culture: economics, religion, tradition, art, politics and science).

The main aim of the article is to propose a new version of sociology of literature under the name of ANT-ology of literature. In the first part of the text I sketch a map of modern controversies on status and situation of literature and literary studies in contemporary world. I underline the fact that descriptions of this situation proposed by literary and academic establishment is always critical and that in fact this diagnosis are presented from conservative point of view. Afterward I discuss classical approaches of sociology of literature starting in 19th century till present-day and cultural sociology of literature connected with cultural turn in humanities and social sciences. However, I underline that all those approaches are anthropo- and textocentric. Hence, the crucial is the last part of the article. I argue on the necessity of application of Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory into the literary studies and I describe possible advantages of ANT-ology of literature. If we take seriously into consideration the ideas of human and nonhuman actors, collective instead of society, abandon the “context”, focus on empiric and case studies, and if we will follow the actors, etc., presented version of literary studies will be entirely different – redefined and renewed.

The article presents the thesis claiming that postconstructivist view is the best tool to describe and analyze such phenomena as modern risk, scientific controversies, climate change and global warming denial movement. I consider Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory (ANT) the best examples of postconstructivist thinking. They allow to picture both science and technology as spheres of collective practice, materially situated and instrumentally rooted. They postulate a posthumanist, antiessentialist, ecological politics in which climate change and the role of non-humans may be represented in a satisfactory way.

The article investigates a theoretical framework that would enable effective and fruitful studies of biomedicalization. Biomedicalization is the ongoing expansion of medical discourse, the dynamics of which is determined by technological developments. It is related with the dominant economic interests and power. It generates new areas of risk and the scientific controversies. The first discussed theoretical framework is the medical sociology and the sociology of health and illness. Although both proposals have much to offer, they are not sufficient for the problem of biomedicalization. Their main weaknesses are: exclusion of biological knowledge about the disease, the tendency to reductionism, lack of interest in the controversies. Because of these shortcomings, the author of the paper postulates that medical sociology and the sociology of health and illness should be supplemented by actor-network theory. The main points are: the adoption of relational and hybrid way of thinking about social phenomena, broadening the definition of agency and special interest in the controversies.

The author considers the way contemporary genetics employs the notion of the gene. She studies its history and contemporary senses, being especially interested in how genetics defines sex. She presents the history of seeking for genetically defined masculinity pointing out how it has established oversimplified model of the phenomenon of biological sex. She underlines the role of feminist critiques in developing less narrow-minded views of sex in biology.
The author shows that biology and especially genetics has promised to resolve doubts concerning human nature and the nature of sexes. Making this kind of promises can be interpreted as a special way of dealing with human fears which have appeared together with development of contemporary science and modern technologies and its impact on the world. It concerns especially fears of the interventions in natural environment and applications of the results of the research in genetics to medicine, both of which change the society and its values. When genetics has promised to find causal correlations between given genes and organisms’ properties, it was supposed to explain the source of diseases or even human personalities or specific social relations. Unequivocal explanations were needed to calm us down, to reduce fears, to allow us to state that this is how we are „by nature” made. As it turned out genetics was not able to fulfilled these promises for as the author is going to show, its objects of studies are more complex and complicated than the genetics have assumed.

The aim of the article is to present how postconstructivism tries to overcome the dualistic distinction between nature and culture (and why this is so important issue). In order to do this, the author of the text compares postconstructivism with cultural constructivism (and its way of dealing with above-mentioned dualism). The former is represented by Bruno Latour, the latter is represented by Richard Rorty. Cultural constructivists want to weaken the nature/culture distinction by persuade us that every object of our knowledge is a cultural object and one should never use nature as an argument. Postconstructivists say that we should stop using both the notion of nature and the notion of culture in our debates.

The article presents some remarks on Andrzej Szahaj’ s “Culture of humiliation” published in “Odra”. I accept author’s two theses. First of them disputes on polish TV programs like “Poland got talent” or “Top Model” and how they mirror the condition of our society and the ideology spread throughout the country Neo-Liberal ideology. Second thesis states that “culture of humiliation” is proportional directly to the social equality. I did a search on other likewise TV programs that would show examples of that kind of culture. Here are some of them: “Chcę być piękna”, “Łabędziem być”, “Kuchenne rewolucje”, “Ugotowani”, “Perfekcyjna Pani Domu”, “Rozmowy w toku”. I also pay attention to the fact, that these programs have equivalents in media designed for kids which makes Neo-Liberal model part of socialization.