Meeting with Jérôme Denis and David Pontille

As part of the scientific activities organized to mark the 30th anniversary of the Spiral research center, the center welcomed Jérôme Denis and David Pontille (Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation, École des Mines de Paris) to Liège on Monday September 8 and Tuesday September 9. Several activities were organized:

September 8: seminar on the book "Fragilities" (2025)

Jérôme Denis and David Pontille spoke about the book they have just co-published with MIT Press, available at open access. In it, they situated "Fragilities" in the wake of the major contributions they have made to maintenance studies and science and technology studies. The lecture was followed by a question-and-answer session with the audience.

abstract: Fragilities is a collection of original essays exploring the generative dimensions of fragility, which can reveal new politics and ethics of maintenance and repair. At a time when it's easy to sink into defeatist melancholy, or even outright pessimism, fragility offers the opportunity to create a different world. In Fragilities, Fernando Domínguez Rubio, Jérôme Denis and David Pontille argue that we must pay attention to the moments when the bodies, things and worlds we inhabit begin to crack and reveal their fragility; it is in these instabilities that we can access valuable alternative modes of existence. The essays in this collection explore how the work of care, maintenance and repair attunes to fragilities rather than fighting against them. The volume features a strong team of prominent and emerging scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including anthropology, social studies of science, disability studies and sociology.

September 9: Site visit and discussion of "Le soin des choses" (Book of architecture award 2023).

Accompanied by architect Xavier Tonon (bureau d'architecture VIA), who worked with bureau Greisch on the restoration of Liège's Saint-Jacques church, a tour of the church's attic space was organized to observe the state of conservation of a complex metal structure designed to take the weight of the vaults, which had been installed by engineer H F Joway of Liège's Institut supérieur de Restauration de Monuments historiques. A panel discussion organized in the church brought together the perspectives of Jérôme Denis and David Pontille with those of the architect on the issues raised by heritage restoration.