Anto Mohsin

About

Anto Mohsin is assistant professor in residence in the Liberal Arts Program at Northwestern University in Qatar and an affiliated faculty of the Science in Human Culture Program at Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. He is a science and technology studies (STS) scholar specializing in the history and sociology of science and technology, with a focus on Indonesia in the twentieth century and a broader interest in Southeast Asia. His research explores the intersections of infrastructure, energy, and society, particularly how technological systems shape, and are shaped by, social and political dynamics. His research interests encompass disaster and environmental studies, particularly their intersections with energy infrastructure.

His first book, Electrifying Indonesia: Technology and Social Justice in National Development (University of Wisconsin Press, 2023), examines the sociopolitical history of electrification in Indonesia from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth century. It received the Association of Asian Studies First Book Subvention award. His next book project investigates the maintenance and repair of electrical facilities, making legible the intricate upkeep of power lines and substations and the laborers responsible for this work.

At Northwestern Qatar, he teaches undergraduate courses on science, technology, environment, and disasters in society, as well as the history of knowledge production in Asia. His research encompasses various topics in STS, with peer-reviewed articles published in journals such as Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia; East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal; The Korean Journal for the History of Science; and Arcadia. He has published a chapter on community resilience in the edited volume The Sociotechnical Constitution of Resilience (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and on electric infrastructure development on borderland regions in the anthology Infrastructure and the Remaking of Asia (University of Hawaii Press, 2022). 

Prior to joining Northwestern Qatar, he held a Henry Luce Postdoctoral Fellowship in Asian Environmental Studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. He received his doctoral degree in STS from Cornell University.

Teaching

• Interdis 242 Topics in STS: Introduction to Science and Technology Studies
• Interdis 242 Topics in STS: Science, Technology, and Society
• Interdis 242 Topics in STS: Our Electrified World
• Interdis 379 Topics in STS: Examining Disasters from an STS Perspective
• Interdis 379 Topics in STS: Energy, Environment, and Society
• Interdis 379 Topics in STS: Asia in Focus

Research interests

• Social studies of science
• Social studies of technology
• History of science and technology
• Energy and environmental studies
• Disaster studies
• History of modern Indonesia
• Science journalism studies

Selected publications

• Mohsin, Anto. (2023). Electrifying Indonesia: Technology and Social Justice in National Development. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
• Mohsin, Anto. (2023). Peripheral Infrastructure: The Electrification of Indonesia’s Borderlands” in Infrastructure and the Remaking of Asia edited by Max Hirsh and Till Mostowlansky. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
• Mohsin, Anto. (2018) “The Overseas Fellowship Program: A Technoscientific Scholarship Program in New Order Indonesia,” The Korean Journal for the History of Science 40-2 (August): 275-303.
• Mohsin, Anto. (2023). “Coping with Indonesia’s Mudflow Disaster,” in The Sociotechnical Constitution of Resilience A New Perspective on Governing Risk and Disaster edited by Sulfikar Amir. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Mohsin, Anto. (2017). “The Sidoarjo Mudflow and the Muddiness of an Environmental Disaster." Environment & Society Portal, Arcadia Spring 2017, no. 5. Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. https://arcadia.ub.uni-muenchen.de/arcadia/article/view/125
• Mohsin, Anto. (2017, Spring) “Lighting ‘Paradise’: A Sociopolitical History of Electrification in Bali,” East Asian Science, Technology, and Society: An International Journal. 11:9-34.
• Mohsin, Anto. (2014, March). “Wiring the New Order: Indonesian Village Electrification and Patrimonial Technopolitics (1966-1998),” Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 29(1): 63-95.
• Mohsin, Anto. (2015, April). “Jakarta Under Water: The 2007 Flood and the Debate on Jakarta’s Future Water Infrastructure” Jurnal Wilayah dan Lingkungan, 3(1): 39-58.
• Mohsin, Anto. (2016, July). Beyond Words review of W. Bernard Carlson’s Understanding the Inventions that Changed the World.  “Epic Audio-Visual History of Technology Course by a Historian of Innovation” in Technology and Culture 57(3): 657-660.
• Mohsin, Anto. (2015) Book review of Sulfikar Amir’s The Technological State in Indonesia in East Asian Science, Technology, and Society: An International Journal. 9:95–99.

Awards & Honors

• Qatar National Research Fund Undergraduate Experience Research Program Grant (19-155-5-030)
• Cornelia Ye Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award: 2013
• American-Indonesian Cultural and Educational Foundation Grant: 2013-2014