The Global and the Local: The History of Science and the Cultural Integration of Europe. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science (Cracow, Poland, September 6-9, 2006) (original) (raw)

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 STEP (Science and Technology in the European Periphery) Initiative: Attempting to Historicize the Notion of European Science

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).

Re-connecting Central European Science: An Introduction

Science Interconnected: German-Polish Scholarly Entanglements in Modern History, 2022

This is the text version of the article. For the quotable version please consult // Dies ist eine ungesetzte Wordversion. Für die zitierbare Fassung sehe: Science Interconnected: German-Polish Scholarly Entanglements in Modern History, edited by Jan Surman et al. Marburg: Verlag Herder Institut 2022. ISBN 978-3-87969-466-2. (https://www.herder-institut.de/en/event/new-release-science-interconnected/ )

Fashioning the Discipline: History of Science in the European Intellectual Tradition

Minerva, 2006

This paper offers personal reflections on the fashioning of the history of science in Europe. It presents the history of science as a discipline emerging in the twentieth century from an intellectual and political context of great complexity, and concludes with a plea for tolerance and pluralism in historiographical methods and approaches.

The Science of Science (Naukoznawstwo) in Poland: The Changing Theoretical Perspectives and Political Contexts--A Historical Sketch from the 1910S to 1993

PubMed, 2015

The article sketches the history of naukoznawstwo (literally meaning the science connoisseurship or the science of science or science studies) in Poland from the 1910s to the end of the Cold War (1991), and the recovery of full political independence in 1993. It outlines the changing research perspectives of this interdisciplinary field of knowledge in Poland against a background of changing political conditions caused by the reconfigurations of the political order. The first part of the article concerns the period from the 1910s, when Poland was occupied by Russia, Prussia, and Austria, through the regaining of independence by Poland in 1918, the reconstruction of the state in 1918-1939; the second part--World War II; the third part--the period from the initial period of Soviet dominance (1944-1954) in Poland and simultaneously the beginnings of the Cold War (1947-1954), the period 1955-1956 (when the Polish state was liberated from Sovietization), through the different political crises in October 1956, March 1968, December 1970, and June 1976, to the emergence of the Independent Self-governing Trade Union Solidarity in September 1980, the end of the Cold War (1991), and the recovery of full political independence in 1993. The article outlines the fundamental achievements of prominent Polish scholars (among others K. Twardowski, M. Ossowska, S. Ossowski, T. Kotarbiński, K. Ajdukiewicz, S. Michalski, F. Znaniecki, B. Suchodolski, L. Fleck, M. Choynowski, Z. Modzelewski, S. Amsterdamski), politicians (among others B. Bierut, E. Krasowska), politicians and scholars (H. Jabłoński, S. Kulczyński), as well as committees (among others the Academic Section of the Józef Mianowski Fund, The Science of Science Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences), schools of thought (among others the Lvov-Warsaw School of Philosophy), and academic units (among others the Science of Science Seminar in Kraków, the Department for the History of Science and Technology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and The Department of Praxeology and Science of Science at the Institute for the Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences).