Despite Covid not yet being fully under control, East Asian STS scholars have gradually resumed their regular activities–in both conventional and innovative ways–in the wake of the first wave of the pandemic and have actively engaged in responding to it.
After the cancellation of its annual meeting in 2020 due to the pandemic, the History of Science Society of Japan, one of the oldest STS organizations in East Asia, resumed the meeting on 22 and 23 May 2021. Hosted by Kobe University, with EASTS editors Togo Tsukahara and Akihisa Setoguchi as local committee members, the meeting was conducted virtually. In addition to regular presentations and symposia/roundtables, it included two special symposia–one in memory of the historian of technology in Japan and former EASTS editor Aaron Moore (1972–2019) and his intellectual legacy, and the other on Covid from a history of science perspective (a memorial essay on Aaron Moore appeared in vol. 14, no. 1). Other STS-related sessions included symposia on the tenth anniversary of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake disaster and on the history of personal hygiene in the era of the pandemic. For a full program of the meeting, see https://sites.google.com/view/kagakusi2021/.
Last year Taiwan was lucky to survive the onslaught of Covid, and its academic activities were not much hindered. However, perhaps for the same reason, the Taiwan STS Association did not specifically address collective opinions on Covid and its social impact except for a plenary panel held at its annual meeting in Hsinchu in July 2020. This year the annual meeting of the Taiwan STS Association was arranged to be held at National Dong Hwa University on 26 and 27 June 2021, which would mark its first time of meeting in Eastern Taiwan. EASTS editor Emma Kowal, an authority in this field and current president of the TransAsiaSTS network, was invited to deliver a keynote speech on indigenous and scientific knowledges in epigenetic science. It would have been the first time that EASTS and its publishing partner Routledge had formally attended such an occasion together. Unfortunately, due to a sudden local outbreak of Covid that started on 15 May, the meeting was regrettably postponed and the new meeting dates and format have not been determined. For a full program of the meeting as it was originally planned, see
http://sts.org.tw/%e5%b9%b4%e6%9c%83/2021%e5%b9%b4%e5%b9%b4%e6%9c%83/2021-%e8%ad%b0%e7%a8%8b.
