ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Making and Circulating Images, Their Impact and Influences on Different Fields of Science 2

Session Submission Type: Organized Session

English Abstract

The role of images in the historiography of science has gained increasing prominence over the past few decades. As powerful historical sources, images can reveal perspectives on the development of scientific fields that textual materials capture only in part. This organized session examines how different kinds of visual media—drawings, engravings, maps, photographs, and films—produced between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries across diverse geographical, cultural, and social settings, can reshape our understanding of scientific practices and knowledge-making.
The contributions in this session mobilize a variety of methodological approaches to explore the production, circulation, and uses of images in science. They address the materiality of visual artifacts; the roles of illustrators, engravers, and publishers; and the complex interactions between visual representations and their political and institutional contexts. By bringing these perspectives together, the session seeks not only to deepen current debates on the place of images in the historiography of science, but also to open new avenues for research and interpretation.

Sub Unit

• Organized Session

Chair

• Ermelinda Moutinho Pataca, University of São Paulo

Individual Presentations

• Hercule Florence’s photographic images in Brazil, 1833: history and materiality - Francis Melvin Lee

• Images in the journal História, Ciência, Saúde – Manguinhos (1994-2025): an overview of documentation and analysis. - Ermelinda Moutinho Pataca, University of São Paulo

• Science on Screen: Images and Typologies of the Scientist in Brazilian Dystopian Cinema (1964-1985) - Renan Siqueira da Silva

Session Organizers

• Breno Moura, UFABC, Brazil

• Ermelinda Moutinho Pataca, University of São Paulo