Blog Posts 2015-2018
Lectures
February-June 2018
Series of Talks: Thinking Sciences at Large Towards a Connected History of Science
Resuming the cycle of talks opened last year at the EUI by Pr. Stéphane Van Damme and the History of Science Working Group, we are pleased to present the program for this semesters’ “Thinking Science at Large – Towards a Connected History of Science”.
More details can be found on the EUI website.
This new cycle will open with Guillaume Lachenal (Paris-Diderot University) who will present on the 6th of February.
Convenors
2014-16
Déborah Dubald
Jose Beltran
2016-17
Chaterine Gibson
Martin Vailly
2017-19
Louis Le Douarin
06.02.2018
The Doctor Who Would Be King. Medical Utopias in the Afro-Pacific Region
Guilluame Lachenal, Pari-Diderot University
21.02.2018
Lighting the Enlightenment: Public Illumination in Paris in the Siècle des Lumières
Darrin McMahon, Dartmouth College
27.02.2018
Trespassing. Environmental History and Migrations
Marco Armiero, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm
15.03.2018
Travels, Ethnology, and Natural History
Henrique Leitāo, University of Lisbon
04.05.2018
Structuralism and Ontology: An Anthropological Journey
Philippe Descole, Collège de France
On Friday 4th of May, at 11.00, Prof. Philippe Descola, Professor at the Collège de France, chair of Anthropology of Nature, will give a lecture entitled ‘Structuralism and Ontology: An Anthropological Journey’.
This encounter, part of our cycle of conferences ‘Thinking science at large’, will be a great opportunity to learn from this world-famous thinker. The morning lecture will be followed in the afternoon by a time of exchange with the researchers.
It would be possible for the researchers to exchange with him during the afternoon. We are waiting for you.
(22.05.2018)
We are happy to share the video of our last event, part of the ‘Thinking science at large’ cycle. will be a great opportunity to learn from this world-famous thinker.
‘Structuralism and Ontology: An Anthropological Journey’ by Prof. Philippe Descola.
Philippe Descola is professor at the Collège de France, chair of Anthropology of Nature.
08.05.2018
Private Gardens and Public Spaces in Eighteenth century Paris
Gregory Brown, UNLV - University of Nevada
10.05.2018
Medicine and the Inquisition in Global Perspective
Maria Pia Donato
CNRS - Cagliari University
14.05.2018
Science and Satire in Early Modern England
Mordechai Feingold, California Institute of Technology
17.05.2018
The Roots of Anti-Hypotheticalism in Seventeenth-Century English Science
Robert Iliffe, Oxford University
28.05.2018
Galileo between Science and Myth
Massimo Bucciantini, Università di Siena
31.05.2018
From Cartesian to Freudian Wars: New Approaches on Controversies
Delphine Antoine-Mahut and Samuel Lézé, ENS Lyon
06.06.2018
Charisma at the Age of Revolutions
David A. Bell, Princeton University
18.06.2018
Material Practices of Science in a Global Context
Lissa Roberts (University of Twente)
Simon Schaffer (University of Cambridge)
Otto Sibum (Uppsala University)
Neil Safier (Brown University)
Juan Pimentel (CSIC)
James Delbourgo (Rutgers University)
19.06.2018
Exploring French Asia: Sciences and Knowledge
Blake Smith (Max Weber Fellow)
Sarah Easterby-Smith (St. Andrews)
Dorit Brixius (German Historical Institute, Paris)
Alexander Statman (Graduate School Global Intellectual History, Berlin)
Antoine Lilti (EHESS, Paris)
17-18.09.2015
Conference in honour of Roger Chartier — The Author’s Hand and the Printer’s Mind
Part of the conference will be live-tweeted under hashtag #EUIChartier
See conference programme below:
17-18 September 2015
European University Institute, Florence in collaboration with the French Institute, Florence
Teatro, Badia Fiesolana
Convenor: Stéphane Van Damme
Special Guest: Roger Chartier
Thursday 17 September 2015
Welcome words
0930-1100: Session 1
Scribal Publication and the Materiality of the Text
Chair: Jorge Flores
Peter Stallybrass, “Shakespeare after Chartier: Why the Materiality of the Text Matters.”
Fernando Bouza, “Publicación manuscrita y mercado en el Siglo de Oro ibérico.”
Coffee Break
1130-1300: Session 2
Dematerialising the Book, Unmaking Authorship
Chair: Maria Pia Paoli
Caroline Callard, “Autorship et spectralité dans L’Angleterre de Cromwell: les fantômes du médecin-astrologue Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654?)”
Anne Béroujon, “Libraire clandestin, imprimeur imaginaire, auteur supposé. La question de l’assignation d’un livre défendu, la Religieuse en chemise (1683-1692)”
Lunch
1400-1600: Session 3
Printer’s Minds: Re-ordering Authorship
Chair: Antoine Lilti
Lodovica Braida “Les silences de l’auteur. Anonymat et autocensure au XVIIIe siècle. Giuseppe Parini comme Miguel de Cervantes”
Anne Saada, “Publier : quoi? Pourquoi? Comment? Les Savants de l’université de Göttingen au XVIIIe siècle”
Linda Gil, “La première édition des (Euvres complètes posthumes de Voltaire (Kehl, 1784-1789) : un processus éditorial en réseau”
Coffee Break
1615-1800: Session 4
Documenting, Archiving, Performing : when places mattered
Filippo de Vivo, “Patrician voice, notarial hand. Recording speech in early modern chanceries”
Laurent Cuvelier, “Des mains de l’imprimeur aux regards citadins: affiches et placards parisiens au XVIIIe siècle”
Etienne Anheim, “Bibliothéque des papes et leurs transmissions”
Friday 18 September 2015
0900-1100: Session 5
Telling by Hands: Heterography, Inscriptions and Signatures
Chair: Antonella Romano
Charlotte Guichard, “La main de l’auteur et la touche du peintre: Signature, Autographie dans la peinture du 18e siècle”
Jean-Marc Besse, “Cartouches, parerga, signatures: à propos de quelques formes de l’inscription de l’auteur dans la cartographie ancienne (16e-18e siècle)”
José Beltran Coello, “Tinkering with Ferns: Father Charles Plumier’s Hand and the Practices of Printmaking in Natural History Books”
Coffee Break
1115-1300: Session 6
Beyond the Printed Revolution: Envisioning Scribal Science
Chair: Paola Molino
Juan Pimentel, “Among Angels, Ghosts and Men. A Reading of Chartier from the History of Science”
Isabelle Laboulais, “Publication manuscrite et fabrication de la réputation: les écrits d’Antoine Grimoald Monnet (1734-1817)”
Yasmine Marcil, “La Condamine et l’inoculation contre la variole. Le Mémoire et ses vicissitudes éditoriales”
Lunch
1430-1630: Session 7
Frontiers Tales: Following Texts, Connecting Worlds
Chair: Stéphane Van Damme
Antonella Romano, “Impressions de Chine. Auteurs, imprimeurs et lecteurs dans la fabrique catholique des savoirs sur l’empire du milieu”
Rafael Mandressi, “Lafréry, Wechel, Plantin: trajectoires européennes et métamorphoses de l’imprimé anatomique dans la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle”
Neil Safier, “Este es un buen viajero”: Travelers and their libraries”
Coffee Break
1700-1800: Coda
Roger Chartier
11.2016
Lists: Translating Ethnographic Data Tables into Maps
Lists are often treated as a ‘matter-of-fact, unrhetorical, and innocent’ source by historians (Delbourgo & Müller-Wille 2012, 711). At the same time, they can be daunting to work with because of the sheer volume of information they contain: inventories and census data often run to many hundreds or even thousands of pages. Taking as our inspiration the 2012 special issue on “Listmania” in Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society, in the November meeting of the EUI History of Science Working Group, we explored some of the ways in which we might begin to tackle lists as a historical source.
Bringing Ethnographic Lists and Maps Together
At the outset of my research on ethnographic cartography in the Russian Empire, I was reluctant to focus too heavily on statistical data. Not only has this topic already been extensively researched, but I was also more interested in the spatial definition of ethnographic areas rather than the quantitative numeration the Empire’s inhabitants. However, as my research developed, I became increasingly aware that list-making was closely intertwined with map-making in fascinating ways.
Firstly, the data used to make ethnographic maps was taken from lists and tables compiled as a result of fieldwork expeditions, local censuses, and provincial statistical data books (памятная книжка). The job of the cartographers, who I was focusing on in my research, was to translate this statistical demographic data into a graphical and cartographical medium.
Secondly, on a deeper level, lists and maps have in common that they communicate information based on a two-dimensional spatial logic. In lists and tables, words, or numbers are placed on the page in vertical columns and horizontal rows. On maps, coordinate points are plotted along the x- and y- axes. So, in addition to studying the maps themselves, I became increasingly interested in thinking about the similarities between list-making and map-making as ways of communicating ideas about ethnographic classification.
Statistical Tables
Not all cartographers went on fieldwork expeditions themselves and most relied instead on statistical data gathered from other sources, such as the provincial statistical commissions. This data was presented and circulated in the form of tables, which generally followed a similar format: ethnographic groups were listed horizontally across the page as column headings and provinces, districts, or parishes (depending on the scale of the statistical study) were listed vertically down the page as row headings. The number of inhabitants pertaining to each ethnographic group was listed for each locality. In this way, an overview of the ethnographic composition of the population of all “European Russia” could be synthesised onto a single sheet of paper.
Ethnographic Taxonomies
Ethnographers worked with the same statistical data tables, however they were more interested in schematising the information to say something about the relationships between the ethnographic groups lists in row or column headings. Curly brackets (or braces) were often used to indicate that groups were part of a single ethnographic “family”. This technique also allowed ethnographers to create hierarchies by portraying branches and nesting sub-groups.
Legends: Another Kind of List?
Map legends often closely resembled taxonomic lists in the way that they arranged information about the ethnographic groups depicted in vertical columns. Some maps, such as Aleksandr Rittikh’s Ethnographic Map of European Russia (1875), even incorporated curly brackets into the legend to sort the ethnographic groups into “families”. Compiling a map legend, however, also took the taxonomisation process a step further by assigning a corresponding colour to each ethnographic group. Ethnographic groups perceived as being close kins to one another, were rendered in similar shades of a single colour. Differences between the various ethnographic families were emphasised using contrasting colours.
Lost (and Gained) in Translation
As in every translation process, some aspects of the statistical and ethnographic lists were “lost” in the transformation of the data into a cartographical medium. For example, ethnographic maps in the mid-nineteenth century mostly did not convey any information about the relative numbers of inhabitants belonging to each ethnographic group or population density. Moreover, itinerant or nomadic populations who had no sizeable or fixed area of permanent habitation often simply disappeared. Instead, these choropleth maps converted the information contained in each row of the data table into a flat, enclosed, and homogeneous block of colour.
At the same time, cartography was not simply a method for graphically visualising the information contained in a statistical list, but also played a significant role in shaping the ideas about population categorisation. As Georg von Mayr (1841-1925), a statistician and professor of statistics at the University of Munich, observed: ‘The map differs significantly from the diagram, in that it contains not merely a sensual illustration of the table provided as evidence, but also something new that the table cannot represent’ (Mayr 1874: 15). By using graphical techniques such as shading, lines and chromatics, maps could make powerful statements about the distribution and borders between ethnographic groups, as well as the nature of their relationship to one another.
Thank you to Déborah Dubald for the opportunity to collaborate in putting together this session of the EUI History of Science Working Group and to think about my research from a new perspective.
Catherine Gibson
Researcher, European University Institute
For more information about Catherine’s current research on ethnographic maps, see http://historicalbalticmaps.com/
REFERENCED WORKS
Delbourgo, James and Staffan Müller-Wille. “Introduction.” Isis 103:4 (2012), 710-715
Mayr, G. von. Gutachten über die Anwendung der graphischen und geographischen Methode in der Statistik. Munich: gedruckt bei J. Gotteswinter, 1874.
05.12.2016
Chasing Unicorns and Amassing Rhinos to Think about the History of Knowledge
with Bruno A Martinho, HEC3 & Camille Sallé, HEC1
Do not miss our next session on:
‘Chasing Unicorns and Amassing Rhinos to Think About the History of Knowledge’
with Bruno A Martinho (HEC3) & Camille Sallé (HEC1)
Monday 5/12/2016, 17:00-19:00
Location: Sala dei Levrieri, Villa Salviati, European University Institute, Florence
How do historians of knowledge and science deal with materials? And what do materials do to the history of knowledge? Reversely, how are notions of science and knowledge approached by historians of material culture? This session will be centred on a case study presented by Bruno A. Martinho, and will aim at opening the discussion on these questions and some methodological issues encountered when approaching material culture. Especially, we will examine the extent to which those questions related to material culture and materiality can bring together and blur the lines between various fields of history. We will consider the possibility of thinking outside categories produced by material culturel/history of science approaches, as well as more powerful questionnaires obtained from crossed methodologies.
05-07.04.2017
British Society for the History of Science Postgraduate Conference
Organised at the EUI in collaboration with the Centre Alexandre-Koyré
Just a few weeks to go before the big day!#BSHSPG2017 poster and programme are now officially out, and you can register here(please note that speakers are not expected to register) and have a closer look at the programme from here.
(01.10.2017)
The Postgraduate Conference of the British Society for the History of Science was held at EUI in collaboration with the Centre Alexandre-Koyré (Paris) from 5-7 April 2017. The full report of the conference is available here.
22.11.2017
Early Modern Collecting in Scandinavia
Valdemar Grambye, Visiting Student, University of Southern Denmark
2017
02.05.2017
José Beltrán — Nature in draft images and overseas natural history in the work of Charles Plumier (1646-1704)
2018
21.03.2018
Mikkel Munthe Jensen — From learned cosmopolitanism to scientific inter-nationalism : the patriotic transformation of Nordic academia and academic culture during the long eighteenth century
19.01.2018
Annelie Grosse — The (self-) fashioning of an eighteenth-Century Christian philosopher : religion, science and morality in the writings and life of Jean Henri Samuel Formey (1711-1797)
28.11.2018
Simon Dumas Primbault — Esprits de papier : une histoire matérielle du travail savant à travers les brouillons de Viviani et Leibniz (ca 1650-1700)
11.10.2019
Mikko Toivanen — Colonial tours : the leisure and anxiety of empire in travel writing from Java, Ceylon and the straits settlements, 1840-1875
2019
29.11.2019
Déborah Dubald — Capital nature: A History of French Municipal Museums of Natural History, 1795-1870
Catherine Gibson — Nations on the drawing board: ethnographic map-making in the Russian Empire’s Baltin provinces, 1840-1920
2020
26.05.2020
Bohdan Shumylovych — Mediating the land, landing the media Soviet Ukrainian television and popular media culture, 1957-1989
29.09.2020
Martin Vailly — Le monde au bout des doigts : François Le Large, le globe de Coronelli et les cultures géographiques dans la France de Louis XIV
16.10.2020Ekaterina Rybkyna — Playing with radio waves: radio amateurs in Russia, 1920-1930s
11.03.2016
Viviani, Galileo, Ghiberti: The Manuscript Traces of Florentine Science
The first visit will take us to the Manuscript Department of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze: ‘Viviani, Galileo, Ghiberti: the manuscript traces of Florentine science’ on Friday, 11 March, 10 am.
Meeting point: front door of the BNCF, Piazza dei Cavalleggeri, 1 – 50122 Firenze, at 9:55am.
Everyone is welcome, but places are limited. Please register with Simon Dumas Primbault: simon.dumas@eui.eu
10.09.2015
The History of Science working group is a non-official, student-led group aimed at bringing together PhD researchers with similar interests in History of Science. Thus, the group’s members engage with a wide coverage of topics ranging from natural history over imperial science to amateur inventions, from seventeenth-century France to Interwar Russia. In our blog, we wish to bring forward the diversity of research in History of Science, to seek for a broader understanding of history of science and review available instruments, which includes reading of classics but also examining recent methodological approaches. As a student-led project, we wish to maintain a wide scope of the published material, with a nevertheless strong emphasis on the rich and necessary links with other historical fields, and with history in general.