ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Sources beyond the Archive

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

English Abstract

Traditional archival materials such as manuscripts and documents represent just one kind of historical data. This roundtable brings together historians with expertise on other types of sources—those published in scientific journals, displayed in museums, stored in the cloud, and penned at home—to discuss the methodological and intellectual challenges and opportunities presented by sources beyond the archive.

Don Opitz, moderator.
Anna Doel on published, self-published, and unpublished biographies. These sources reveal information that rarely makes it to the archive. But they also present an interpretive challenge. How much trust can a historian put in documents like this? What is their value, and what are a scholar’s responsibility when using them?

Melinda Baldwin on scientific publications. Unlike candid manuscripts, lab notebooks, or correspondence, a published scientific paper or book cannot be read as a straightforward historical account of an experiment or theory. How should researchers approach these polished sources? What can they tell us about accepted scientific evidence and the conventions of scientific communication?

Geoff Belknap on visual and material sources. Rarely studied within their own visual and material contexts, such sources are typically placed within wider contexts of communications text. But objects and images are sources with their own methodological approaches. What are these approaches, how should these materials be preserved, and how has the digital turn affected them?

Paul Merchant on oral history. Interpreted rigorously, these narratives reveal the lived experience of scientists and can illuminate the role of emotion and feeling in the production of scientific knowledge. How should historians use these sources, and what can they tell us about the ways in which scientists have been understood and experienced?

Paul Rubinson on digital creations. Scientific work performed on and with computers—work that once existed on hardware and within databases—often leaves no physical record. Given the rapid obsolescence of hardware and software, such creations may no longer be accessible at all. What are the consequences of this obsolescence, and how can historians access the human science embedded in such work?

Sub Unit

• Roundtable

Chair

• Donald L. Opitz, DePaul University

Participants

• Anna Doel, American Institute of Physics

• Melinda Baldwin, University of Maryland

• Geoffrey Belknap, National Museums Scotland

• Paul Merchant, The British Library

• Paul Rubinson, Bridgewater State University