ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

What to Do with the “Heroes” of Science?

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

English Abstract

Abstract: Since at least the “new historiography” of the 1970s, historians of science have been free from the old paradigm that regarded science as the byproduct of individual agents and their discoveries. But how should historians approach canonical figures who cannot simply be ignored? How should they fit into the pluralistic stories historians now wish to tell and the teaching they are expected to provide? And what about those individuals who have been (largely) ignored, but whose work is no less canonical, including, e.g., Émilie du Châtelet or Marie Curie? How should historians tell their stories? Participants in this roundtable will begin by discussing their research and public facing initiatives related to Galen of Pergamon (Orly Lewis), Rene Descartes (Gideon Manning), William Harvey (Anita Guerrini), Giovanni Batista Morgagni (Maria Pia Donato), Ada Lovelace (Louisiane Ferlier), and Charles Darwin (John van Wyhe) in order to initiate a wider discussion about the relationship between history of science to general history, the utilization of digital and other media, and the ways and purposes of updating what we know about canonical figures in a rapidly changing cultural landscape and shifting perspectives on science and knowledge.

Sub Unit

• Roundtable

Chair

• Nathaniel Comfort, Johns Hopkins University

Participants

• Orly Lewis, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

• Gideon Manning, UCLA

• Anita Guerrini, Oregon State University, and University of California Santa Barbara

• John van Wyhe, National University of Singapore

• Louisiane Ferlier, Royal Society

• Maria Pia Donato, CNRS/IHMC, Paris

Session Organizer

• Gideon Manning, UCLA