News

Call for Papers: Silence in the History and Communication of Science Conference, Imperial College London, 17th December 2013

Silence is often construed negatively, as a lack, an absence. Yet silences carry meaning. They can be strategic and directed at particular audiences; they can be fiercely contested or completely overlooked. Silence is not only oppressive but also generative, playing a key role in creative and intellectual processes. Conversely, speech, whilst seeming to facilitate open communication, can serve to mask important silences or can replace the quietude necessary for insightful thought with thoughtless babble.

Despite a currently dominant rhetoric that assumes that openness in science is an inherent good, science – and its communication – depends as much on discontinuities, on barriers and lacunae, as it does on the free flow of information. This conference will bring together STS scholars and Science Communication Studies scholars to explore both the positive and negative features of silence in scientific practice and the communication of science.

Keynote: ‘The Sounds of Silencing’ by Professor Brian Rappert, Exeter University, author of Experimental Secrets.

Possible topics include:

Media silences in the reporting of science. The silencing of specific groups in public controversies about science. Tacit knowledge as silent performance. Withdrawals and periods of creative silence in the history of science. Silent subjects in scientific research. Laboratory secrets, scientific competition and the silencing of science Institutionalised secrecy in scientific practice. Laboratory design and the creation of silent spaces. Interdisciplinary silence and the limits of collaboration. Anonymous/pseudonymous authorship. The negative impacts of impact, public engagement, FoI and other instruments of openness on scientists. … and much much more!

Deadline for proposals: Monday 30th September.

More information about the conference and call for papers is available here https://www3.imperial.ac.uk/humanities/sciencecommunicationgroup/research/silencesofscience

This call for papers is organized by AHRC Science in Culture Theme Research Network ‘The Silences of Science’

Fractured Histories: Discovering Women Scientists in the Archive, Women in Science Research Network

16th July, The Royal Society, London

The history of women’s participation in science is an incomplete and fractured one: for much of the nineteenth century women were typically excluded from ‘masculine’ scientific societies and networks and so negotiated a space to work only at the periphery of their disciplines. As a result, evidence of their scientific contribution is incomplete, scattered and often hidden in the archive.

This workshop seeks to identify women working in science – defined in its broadest sense – from 1830 through to the twentieth century; our aim is to find previously neglected or concealed trails and to use them to evolve a strategy for locating and interrogating records which illuminate the history of scientific women. We shall ask key questions including: What evidence do we already have and where are the gaps? Why were some women recognised by scientific societies and others not? In what ways should we define ‘inclusion’ and ‘exclusion’ in science? To what extent can we understand women’s experience as scientists as a gendered one?

Speakers include Anne Locker (Institute of Engineering and Technology), Joanna Corden (The Royal Society) and Patricia Fara (University of Cambridge).

Forget- Me- Not: Memory and Forgetting in the Digital Age, The Memory Network

7th June, NESTA, London

This event explores the state of memory in the digital age. You can be part of a memory experiment that demonstrates the importance of forgetting and join a panel discussion on the state of memory with a diverse group of scientists.

Speakers include Elad Ben Elul (The Album People), Sebastian Groes (University of Roehampton), Michela Magnas (Stromatolite), Holly Pester (Sound Poet), Jon Silas (University of Roehampton), Hugo Spiers (UCL)

Breaking Down Barriers, Law, Technoscience and Society, Technoscience, Law and Society: Interrogating the Nexus

6th June, Arts Catalyst, London

The event is organised jointly with the Arts Catalyst, and will provide a first opportunity to explore some of the key aspects of the relationships between law, science and society that the Network seeks to interrogate. This discursive event will be organised around displays of and introductions to the work of artists Carey Young and the Critical Art Ensemble, and academic presentations pertaining to debates in law and science. The event will foster new forms of discussion, which will in turn structure future network meetings.

To register for a place and for more information, email klsresearch@kent.ac.uk

31st May 2013, CRASSH, Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DT

This workshop continues an important set of debates and reflexions on the interaction between histories of the sciences and models of global history.  These debates ask fundamental questions about what science has meant on the global stage and how sciences have come to take form through global confrontations, connections and politics.

This new meeting marks the first of three workshops funded by the AHRC. This first workshop marks the visit to Cambridge of Prof. S. Irfan Habib (Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Chair, Delhi, India) and Dr.Keith Breckenridge (University of Witwatersrand, South Africa). The aim in the first instance is to link UK-based scholars with those working in South Asia and Africa on questions of the sciences’ past. The network is also connected with the Centres of South Asian Studies and African Studies and the Faculty of History and the Department of History and Philosophy of Science in the University of Cambridge. The workshop will involve discussions of work-in-progress by Habib and Breckenridge, and will involve presentations from graduate students based in the Faculty of History and in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge.

More information about the day and how to register is available on the CRASSH, Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities website.

The workshop is organized by AHRC Science in Culture Theme Research Network ‘Exploring Traditions: Sources for a Global History of Science’

13th April 2013, Science Museum Dana Centre, 165 Queen’s Gate, London SW7 5HD

Workshop organised by AHRC Science in Culture Theme Museums and the Public History of Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine Research Network which brings together the Science Museum, London, Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past, University of York and the Centre for the History and Philosophy of Science, University of Leeds. This is the third in a series of workshops providing an opportunity for historians of science, technology and medicine to meet museum professionals to discuss issues in the public culture of the history of science.

More information about this event is available on the Science Museum website.

12th April 2013, Senate House, University of London, Malet St, London, WC1E 7HU

Full day training session for applicants shortlisted for AHRC Science in Culture Large Grants funding. The day was an opportunity to consider the challenges of interdisciplinary working and managing large research grants. Speakers included Professor Andreas Roepstorff, Aarhus University and Dr Joëlle Proust, Institute Jean Nicod, Paris. This event took place at the University of London.