Wunderkammer is the Centre for the History of the Sciences‘ reading group. For those who don’t already know, it is held fortnightly during term time, on odd weeks. This term we’ll meet in the back room of the Unicorn Pub on St Dunstan’s at 18:00. Here is the programme for the autumn term. Some readings are available online, but hard copies of all of them are made available in the office of the School of History. All are welcome to come along. Contact me if you have any questions or problems in getting hold of the readings.
14 October (Week 3): Time and Longitude as Popular (History of) Science introduced by Rebekah Higgitt
- Rebekah Higgitt, “The Contenders”, in Richard Dunn & Rebekah Higgitt, Finding Longitude: How Ships, Clocks & Stars Helped Solve the Problem of Longitude (Collins, 2014), pp. 34-65.
- Lewis Dartnell, “Time and Place” & “The Greatest Invention”, in The Knowledge (The Bodley Head, 2014) pp. 248-86.
28 October (Week 5): Objectivity introduced by Charlotte Sleigh/Omar Nasim
- Lorraine Daston & Peter Galison, “Epistemologies of the Eye”, in Objectivity (Zone Books, 2007), pp. 17-53.
- Omar Nasim, TBC
11 November (Week 7): The Scientific Life introduced by Ruth Wainman
- Steven Shapin, “The Scientist and Civic Virtues”, in The Scientific Life: A Moral History of a Late Modern Vocation (University of Chicago Press, 2008), pp. 165-208.
- Mike Savage, “1954: The Challenge of Technical Identity”, in Identities and Social Change in Britain Since 1940 (Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 67-92.
25 November (Week 9): Stepping Away from Social Construction? introduced by Rebekah Higgitt
- Harry Collins & Robert Evans, Rethinking Expertise, (University of Chicago Press, 2007), pp. 1-44
- Bruno Latour “Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern”, Critical Inquiry 30(2004): 225-48
9 December (Week 11): Beyond the Two Cultures introduced by Rebekah Higgitt/Charlotte Sleigh
- Guy Ortolano, The Two Cultures Controversy: Science, Literature and Cultural Politics in Postwar Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 28-65
- Second reading TBC
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