Science and technology in the European periphery: Some historiographical reflections (original) (raw)
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MAIN TRENDS AND THEORETICAL INNOVATIONS IN CURRENT HISTORIOGRAPHY
The last decades of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century have been marked by deep changes in the structure and content of social sciences and humanities and in the methodology of these fields of knowledge. In this rapidly transforming intellectual context a radical reorganization of historiography has taken place. Comparing some aspects of historiographical situation of the mid-twentieth century with that of the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century, one can see fundamental differences in the understanding of the subject and methods of historical cognition, the content and nature of historical knowledge, in the definition of its status and narrative style as well as the possibilities of the further interpretations of historical text. It was already at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s that serious theoretical discussions took place in which new conceptions were being shaped, formulations refined and the platform for the future consensus was being built. Numerous monographic studies and collections of essays not only reflected the challenges of the time, encountered by historians at the turn of the two centuries and eras, but demonstrated a whole range of reactions to these challenges.
Centaurus, 2012
This article recapitulates the various historiographical discussions which have been taking place within STEP (Science and Technology in the European Periphery) since its foundation in 1999. The main aim of these discussions has been to historisize the notion of 'European science' and bring to the surface the heterogeneity of the sciences within the region historically called Europe. By emphasizing the notion of appropriation of ideas and practices by the various localities, the STEP discussions have strongly criticized the diffusionist model and have pointed out the limits of its applicability. Furthermore, the essay discusses the new themes and approaches articulated in the articles of two special issues of Nuncius (Nations, Science, Identities: Historiography of science in the European periphery) and Centaurus (Making the Paper: Science and Technology in Spanish, Greek and Danish Newspapers around 1900).
The polyvalent preoccupations of modern historiography
Metascience, 1997
N 1992-95 I was involved in a collaborative research project in Cambridge which was focused on science in Europe around the turn of the century, and which involved the development of two exhibitions in the Whipple Museum of the History of Science. One of the most vital questions we discussed in curating an exhibition on the creation of the physics laboratories in the late nineteenth century concerned something we had not been able to approach in our displays. We regarded the rise of physics to be integral to and dependent on the expansion of the modern empires through the new technologies of power and especially communication. However, focused as we were on two centres of European power-the laboratory and the international exhibitions of the period-how could our displays indicate the work of physics in the periphery, its impact on the indigenous peoples who saw those telegraph cables being laid through their lands by colonial powers? We had one image which indicated some of the complexities of the situation as we saw it, of Stanley being led through the forest by an entourage of Africans, with the heading 'What is wanted in darkest Africa is the Electric Light. On Stanley On'. We were fairly sure the racism of the image would be recognised and repudiated by our modern audience, and that they would appreciate the ironies of the Eurocentric focus on Stanley in the circumstances, but less sure that its technological imperialism would be seen as problematic in any way. So that particular piece of nineteenth-century advertising did not go up on the wall, but was incorporated in our guide book, where at least it could be embedded in the contextualisation of our historical approach)
Introduction to special issue of Histories: (New) Histories of Science, in and beyond Modern Europe
Special issue of "Histories" (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/histories/special\_issues/histories\_of\_science)), 2024
In this Special Issue, (New) Histories of Science, in and beyond Modern Europe, we do not attempt to provide an all-encompassing overview of all research areas, methodological and theoretical approaches, and narratives that constitute the histories of the various sciences. Instead, we present contributions on a broad spectrum of current research topics and (new) approaches, highlighting their ramifications and illustrating their ties to neighboring disciplines and (interdisciplinary) areas of research, e.g., philosophy of science, science and technology studies, gender studies, or intellectual history. Moreover, the contributions exemplify how histories of science can be written in ways that not only move across but also challenge temporal and spatial categories and categorizations, including hegemonic understandings of “modernity”, Eurocentric views of the development of science and the humanities, or certain notions of center-periphery. They deal with histories of specific disciplines, specific research objects and phenomena, and with specific practices, while they also explore the historicity of certain ideals of scientificity (in the sense of the German Wissenschaftlichkeit). Furthermore, some papers are dedicated to selected methods and perspectives of current approaches in the histories of science. Among them is a focus on practices, including the everyday actions involved in engaging in science, but also on the specific spaces and places of knowledge production, as well as on the media of knowledge transfer and communication.
The historical science studies gained their modern form during the long twentieth century. The aim of this workshop is to explore the history of this field of study. The term “modern historical science studies” should be understood as a heuristic concept, which indicates a difference from more traditional forms of history of science. The reason behind the choice of this concept is that modern historical science studies are characterized by an interdisciplinary approach to the historical objects of the sciences, whereas more traditional history of science was mainly written as an experience-based reflection by representatives of the respective scientific disciplines themselves. For example, only from the late nineteenth and especially the twentieth century, social science approaches have played an increasingly important role in the historical reflection on the sciences. The contributions to the workshop focus on practices, the circulation processes of concepts, and individual representatives of different approaches to the history of science. Hereby, also the humanities are considered. Furthermore, a purely ‘western’ focus is to be avoided, and the historical science studies in Eastern Europe is to be equally taken into account.