Imagining, Critiquing, and Doing: An Interview with Ruha Benjamin

Abstract

During the 10^th STS Italia Conference (11-13 June 2025) at the Politecnico di Milano, Chris Hesselbein sat down for an interview with Ruha Benjamin who delivered the conference’s opening keynote. This interview is not just in lieu of a transcription of her keynote speech, but serves also as an opportunity to draw out the (dis)connections between imagining, critiquing, and doing. In the interview, Benjamin also reflects on the role of emerging technologies in shaping and limiting our imagination, on the relationship between academic critique and political action and how this has shifted in STS over the past decades, and last, on the importance of solidarity as the bedrock for politically-engaged scholarship.