News & Press

Call for Abstracts: Circulating Knowledge – 20 Years On Conference/Symposium

Mon, 25 Sep 2023 15:43:00 GMT

Call for Abstracts

Circulating Knowledge – 20 Years On
Conference/Symposium

Research, Translation, Teaching

August 7-10, 2024.

University of King’s College

Kjipuktuk - Halifax

Mi’kma’ki – Nova Scotia, CANADA

www.cosmolocal.org/conference

In August 2004, the Circulation of Knowledge conference—jointly organized in Halifax, Nova Scotia by the Canadian Society for History and Philosophy of Science, the British Society for History of Science, and the History of Science Society—set out challenges to the then-dominant centre-periphery models of the origins and dissemination of scientific knowledge. Jim Secord’s keynote address, “Knowledge in Transit”, outlined the issues at stake.

Scholarship on the circulation of knowledge has since exploded and it is time not only to take stock, but to open new research avenues in globalised History/Philosophy of Science and Science and Technology Studies. Circulating Knowledge – 20 Years On proposes to revisit the circulation of knowledge, 20 years after this pioneering conference, through a series of plenary presentations, individual talks, roundtables, and special events. The goal of the conference is to foster international collaborative exchange along the axes of research, translation, and pedagogy.

The event is co-sponsored by the History of Science Society, the British Society for the History of Science, and the Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science. Circulating Knowledge – 20 Years On will feature talks by Jim Secord (BSHS), Fa-Ti Fan (HSS), Arun Bala (Singapore), Sarah Qidwai (Regensburg), Lesley Cormack (UBC), Huynhee Park (NYU), Sundar Sarukkai (Anant), Geoff Bil (Delaware), and more.

We invite the submission of abstracts for potential 30-min. presentations exploring recent shifts in HPS and STS on 1) the reconceptualization of the global circulation of knowledges, 2) on the roles translation plays in both the circulation and creation of new knowledge, or 3) on pedagogical issues specific to the teaching of a global history of the knowledge of the natural world.

To increase accessibility and reduce our carbon footprint, the conference will be hybrid, offering participants the chance to present either online or in person at the University of King’s College, located in beautiful Kjipuktuk/Halifax in Mi’kma’ki/Nova Scotia.

Associated Virtual Exhibit:

Contributors are further encouraged to suggest a significant artifact that could be included in the virtual exhibit that will showcase the themes of the conference in a digital format. This artifact could be a manuscript, a scientific instrument, an artwork, a work of translation, a historical document, or any tangible item that enriches your exploration of the Circulation of Knowledge.

Submission guidelines

Abstract should be submitted as a Word (.doc) or pdf file to the submission email address:

circ20@dal.ca

and must include:

One file containing:
- Title of the paper
- Abstract of the paper (approximately 250 words; fully anonymized, i.e., without any information that would allow referees to identify the author.)
Include the following information:
- Contact information for all co-authors.
- Whether the presenters opt for on-site or online participation.
- Suggested artifact for the virtual exhibit, where possible (optional)

Submission deadline: Friday January 26, 2024.

Scholars in early stages of their career, including graduate students, are welcome and are invited to participate in the conference mentorship activities, which will offer them the opportunity to discuss their work with established scholars.

Travel grants to support low-income presenters will be available (presenters will be notified before the meeting of the amount they will receive but funds will only be distributed after the meeting and only upon presentation of original receipts).

For further questions and inquiries, please contact gmcouat@dal.ca

Program Committee:
Gordon McOuat (chair), Andrew Fenton, Sarah Qidwai, Dani Inkpen

Local Organizing Committee:
Melanie Frappier, Dani Inkpen, and Gordon McOuat.

(Sorry for X-posting!)

Cheers,

Dr. Gordon McOuat

Director, Cosmopolitanism and the Local in Science and Nature, East and West. SSHRC Partnership Development Project.

Professor, Contemporary Studies and History of Science and Technology Programmes

University of King's College/Dalhousie University

Halifax, NS B3H2A1

CANADA

www.cosmolocal.org

King’s and Halifax (Kjipuktuk) sit on unceded Mi’kmaw land in Mi’kma’ki.

African Nova Scotians are a distinct people whose histories, legacies and contributions have enriched Mi’kma’ki and Nova Scotia for over 400 years.

Isis December 2022 - Author Interview with Dr. Liv Grjebine

Thu, 5 Jan 2023 19:05:00 GMT

The December 2022 issue of Isis features an article by Dr. Liv Grjebine about an unlikely avenue for the popularization of Darwinism in France: a murder trial. “A Darwinian Murder: The Role of the Barré-Lebiez Affair in the Diffusion of Darwinism in Nineteenth-Century France” is free to read this month, and can be found here.

Dr. Grjebine received her Ph.D. in the history of science from La Sorbonne in 2019, and is presently a Visiting Postdoctorate Fellow and Teaching Assistant in the History of Science Department at Harvard University. Aaron Jackson, the Manuscripts Assistant for the HSS Editorial Office at Mississippi State, had a few questions for her.

Aaron Jackson: What first caught your attention and drew you to study the intersection of Darwin with French society and politics? Were you interested in Darwin in particular, or were you looking for a case study emblematic of a broader point, and if so why or what were those points? For context for our readers: Are there any analogous cases in the English-speaking world where a crime helped propel a scientist to cultural prominence?

Liv Grjebine: My research on Darwin first focused on the debates within the French scientific community. I wanted to understand why France, which had been one of the first countries to produce transformist theories at the beginning of the 19th century, had been one of the last to recognize the legitimacy of Darwin’s theory. It was while studying Darwin’s correspondence that I realized the complexity of the debate and the involvement of non-scientists. Some wrote to the English scientist to exchange observations, others to propose their own interpretations. The letters of these amateurs testify to a real infatuation of a literate public with Darwinism. I then sought to evaluate the extent of this curiosity by reading the general and popular press. In the year 1878, the number of references to Darwin in the press
increased very sharply, and that is how I discovered the Barré-Lebiez affair. I often tell students that our profession as historians is comparable to that of a detective - we investigate the past by confronting testimonies and collecting evidence, in order to reconstruct a historical framework. This is really the feeling I had during this research, where I had to reconstruct the course of the crime and understand the motivations of the murderers. What struck me immediately when I read about the case was its similarity to the plot of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Killing in the name of the right of the strong to dispose of the weak is present in Raskolnikov as well as in Barré and Lebiez. From the beginning, Darwin’s theory is taken out of context to justify the ideas and actions of both. The fact that anyone can discuss the theory of evolution without even having read The Origin of Species is both its main strength and its main weakness. Are there other examples in the history of science of a crime that popularized the work of a scientist? The first example that comes to mind is that of the primatologist Dian Fossey, whose murder by poachers in 1985 in Rwanda brought media attention to her defense of gorillas. The film dedicated to her,
Gorillas in the Mist, with Sigourney Weaver, made her famous.

What were some interesting finds you came across in your research? Anything unexpected or any “lightbulb moments” that made you take your article in a particular direction?

What surprised me the most in this research was the influence of the public and especially the media in the legitimization of a scientific theory. From the emergence of a mass press in the middle of the 19th century, newspapers acquired an important power in the circulation of knowledge. When Darwin is elected to the Academy of Sciences in Paris, after six rejections, the academicians are careful to specify that this is not a recognition of his theory of evolution, but of his work in botany. However, immediately, a part of the republican press - which defends the Republic against the traditional religious and monarchical principles - explains that it is a recognition of the theory of evolution! This is the story that is spread among the public, even though the reservations of the academics hardly circulate in the media. By giving this reading, the press liberates the debate and authorizes more public speeches by scientists in favor of Darwin, since his theory becomes more socially acceptable. It becomes less appropriate to insult him publicly or to despise his theory too openly. Finally, the press created and relayed a kind of fake news that for once benefited the circulation of science!

Were there any fun anecdotes or perhaps points you are passionate about that you couldn’t include in the article but want to share with your readers?

This case also contributed to the emergence of a type of literary narrative in France, little known, that of the struggle-for-liffer. The plot is often the same: an ambitious young man resorts to murder to climb the social ladder more quickly, for example by marrying rich women and then killing them. I find it really interesting to study how Darwinism has inspired literary narratives according to national culture. In England and in France, it was very much involved in the emergence of science fiction stories. For example, at the end of the century, Jules Verne wrote a book, The Village in the Treetops, in which he questions the future of humanity by imagining a scientist who becomes the leader of a village of beings intermediate between apes and humans. This is a fascinating historical period to study because it mixes metaphysical questions, on the meaning of human existence, and social questions, on the meaning of the existence of European societies. During the trial of Barré and Lebiez, the president of the court and the conservative press repeatedly express this anguish of a future where men would become beasts, without God or king to govern them. These questions continue to occupy people’s minds today, and science is often held responsible for the loss of meaning in life, as if a better understanding of the world would make it less wonderful. Barré and Lebiez’s trial is the embodiment of a centuries-old accusation against science: by
distancing people from religion, it would deprive them of ethics and make them nihilistic.

The main argument of your article seems to dovetail well with your forthcoming book. Could you tell us a bit about how the article illustrates the theme of your book?

During the covid-19 pandemic, the power game between scientists, politicians and public opinion was particularly visible in many countries, in the United States and in Europe. In a context of increasing fake news and conspiracy theories, some have deduced that a strict separation between these actors should be maintained and that non-scientists should respect the authority of scientists. My article and more broadly my forthcoming book, Popular Darwin, seek to challenge the opposition between an ignorant public and more rational and open scientists. The opposition is less clear-cut, and without being relativistic, it is necessary to place scientific dissemination in a broader context, where openness to debate is not always the prerogative of scientists. In fact, the circulation of knowledge is sometimes more complex and surprising. In my book, I show how the French scientific elite of the second half of the 19th century opposed Darwin’s theory in the name of tradition and religious principles. At the same time, a broad public debate was emerging in Paris and in the provinces, in a wide variety of places and social circles. Darwin’s theory corresponded to the questions that agitated post-revolutionary French society, about its relationship to the past, to violence and to its future. This is what allowed it to captivate the public, even though the scientific elite sought to limit its diffusion. Finally, and this is one of the surprising aspects of my research, it is in part the interactions between the scientific and public debates that contribute to the legitimization of the theory of evolution in France.