Ways of knowing the field

International Conference on the History of Fieldwork, Cartography and Scientific Exploration

Text from: www.fieldstudies.dk/107581

Carlsberg Academy, Copenhagen, 13-15 August 2008

Call for Papers

This conference aims to bring together leading historians from a number of disciplines to explore different ways of knowing the field as they have been conducted within a range of technological and scientific practices.

Scholars wanting to present a 30-minute paper at this conference are invited to submit a 500-word proposal to the organizing committee before 1 March 2008 at cjries@ruc.dk.


Organizers

The conference is organized by The Danish Network for the History and Sociology of Scientific Fieldwork and Expeditions, and The Danish Research School in Philosophy, History of Ideas and History of Science.

Background

Since the 19th century, standards of credibility, objectivity and accountability have been defined according to ideals manifested in the carefully composed framework of the scientific laboratory. Fieldwork and cartography, on the other hand, are by definition conducted in intimate, unpredictable and unorganized interaction with particular places and with local actors that influence, shape and to some degree may even create end results.

While this may have earned knowledge produced in the field a reputation for being further removed from the scientific ideal set up by the laboratory standards, fieldwork remains a crucial tool for making the world knowledgeable. Traditionally, fieldwork, field studies and field sciences have served as collective designations for a host of heterogeneous of practices related to the collection and production of data, objects, maps and meaning. Measuring, counting, mapping, excavating, interviewing and experimenting - such activities have all been conducted `in the field' in order to provide information and material thus transformed into objects for technological or scientific processing elsewhere.

Historically, the botanical, zoological, geological, geographic and political sciences along with cartography were among the first areas of inquiry to go into the field in search of knowledge and discovery. A closer analysis of the cultural and historical variations of the roles of fieldwork in these as well as in other domains of knowledge will enhance our understanding of field practices, and their role in the production of meaning and knowledge about the world.

Social and collective remembering in organizations

Guest lecture

Mandag 25/2 kl. 15-16.30,
Copenhagen Business School, Kilen Ks43
Fredriksberg


Lecturer: Steve Brown

The concept of organizational memory usefully draws our attention to the practices and problems involved in preserving the past in the present. But it also suggests that we view memory as a static set of capacities shared across individuals and organizations. In contrast, I will present a social psychological view of memory which focuses on remembering as a communicative practice. Remembering is something which is jointly performed by persons, and mediated by objects, artefacts and place. Using a series of empirical examples, I will seek to demonstrate how this approach can reveal subtle interactional processes in which the past is subject to continuous reconstruction. Memory is not simply about preservation, it is the active invocation of a version of the past which occurs in the course of ongoing interaction in the present. We must then see the psychological dimensions of organizational behaviour as both performed-into-being through interaction and also as perpetually unfinished or open-ended.

Forårets program I STS-læsekredsen

19/2, 22/4, 27/5
Alle dage fra kl 13.00-15.30
Copenhagen Business School
nstitut for Ledelse, politik og Filosofi
Porcelænshaven 18a
Frederiksberg



STS-læsekredsen holder i alt tre møder i foråret. For tilmelding og tilsendelse af tekster, send mail til Birgitte Gorm Hansen bgh.lpf@cbs.dk


STS-læsekredsen er en specialiseret læsekreds der i øjeblikket er situeret på Copenhagen Business School, institut for Ledelse, Politik og Filosofi.
Den har tidligere fungeret på IT universitet samt under forskerskolen på Institut for Organisation og Arbejdssociologi, Copenhagen Business School.
Kredsen har fungeret uafbrudt siden september 1999 og beskæftiger sig med tekster og debatter inden for, i nærheden af og i forlængelse af Aktør-netværksteori og Science, Technology and Society Studies. Alle møder er åbne og indlæsthed i STS er ingen forudsætning for deltagelse.
Ph.d-studerende kan få tildelt 1 ECTS point for deltagelse i minimum 3 møder per semester. Spørgsmål og kommentarer kan rettes til Birgitte Gorm Hansen bgh.lpf@cbs.dk

Psychopathology of Schizophrenia:
100 years

A conference

April 24-26, 2008
Lausanne, Switzerland

Program and other material: chuv.ch/psychiatrie/dpc_pge_evenements.htm

On April 24th, 1908, Eugen Bleuler introduced the term "schizophrenia" in his Berlin lecture to the German Society for Psychiatry. In order to mark this 100 years anniversary, the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Lausanne, in collaboration with the University of Copenhagen (Hvidovre Hospital, Department of Psychiatry, and Center for Subjectivity Research) has organized a conference entitled Psychopathology of Schizophrenia: 100 Years, to be held in Lausanne, Switzerland, from 24th to 26th April, 2008.

The killing of Polish officers in Katyn, finding of the bodies in 1943, and the conclusions and consequences

Torsdag d. 3. april kl. 19.30
Auditoriet
Medicinsk Museion
Bredgade 62
1310 København K


Temamøde i Dansk Medicinsk-historisk Selskabs Møderne er åbne for alle. Tilmelding er ikke nødvendig.

Professor em. Timothy W. Harding, formerly Université de Genève
Professor Harding will give an account on the Katyn Affair based on the papers presented at a meeting "Experts et expertises medicales dans les crises humanitaires" convened by Université de Genève and the International Committee of the Red Crox 18-21 April 2007 in Geneva. Professor Harding will outline recent knowledge about the history of the Katyn affair, he will inform on the German initiated and organised mission of forensic experts to Katyn in April 1943 and report on the findings concerning the fate of the mission's participants, one of whom was a Dane. He will also briefly touch upon other examples involving medical expertise in illucidating and disclosing violations of human rights conventions, which were presented at the Geneva meeting.

Direktør Morten Kjærum, Institut for Menneskerettigheder
In light of the Katyn Affair, Morten Kjærum will discuss the role of medical expertise in present human rights violations. He wil further discuss the present controversy between the Polish view that the killing of the officers constituted a genoicidal act and the Russian opinion that it was a "war criminal act".

(Disse to foredrag vil blive holdt på engelsk)


DR's tv-program "Kraniet fra Katyn"
Aftenen wil slutte med en præsentation af DR's tv-program "Kraniet fra Katyn", som beskriver den danske deltager i den internationale retsmedicinske mission til Katyn i 1943, Helge Tramsen, og hans skæbne. Journalist Lisbeth Jessen, der har stået for produktionen, vil være til stede og vil efter fremvisningen give en kort redegørelse for udviklingen efter produktion af programmet og besvare spørgsmål.

History in the flesh

- investigating the historicized body

Til lykke til Adam Bencard med Ph.D-graden for afhandlingen: History in the flesh - investigating the historicized body"


"History in the Flesh" is a historiographical study of a number of historical, philosophical, sociological and anthropological approaches of the body over the last 30 years. Framing his thesis as a contribution to the emerging critical engagement with the so called linguistic, cultural and discursive turns in the humanities. Adam Bencard particularly criticizes the New Cultural Historians' focus on the historicized body, that is, the idea of the body as a thoroughly cultural construct. Instead he proposes an understanding of the body based on the concept of 'presence' (Gumbrecht, Runia)."
(Text from:The blog of Medical Museion)

Read more:

Resumé of Adam Bencard's dissertation `History in the Flesh': Resumé

Blog: The presentation

Aglaias dans
På vej mod en æstetisk tænkning

Af Dorthe Jørgensen
DKK 378.00
350 s.
Udkom 8. februar 2008


Der er brug for mere filosofisk tænkning. Den filosofiske tænkning kan kvalificere forståelsen af, hvad f.eks. videnskab, humaniora og universiteter er. Den har også betydning for handlingslivet, f.eks. for politikken og pædagogikken.

Dorthe Jørgensen demonstrerer igennem 34 tekster, at man -hvor uvant det end lyder - må bevæge sig på et vist abstraktionsniveau for at tænke konkret.

Teksterne spænder fra aviskronikken til disputatsforsvaret, men deler den samme stræben efter at formulere og praktisere en æstetisk tænkning.

For hvad er det for filosofisk tænkning, der er brug for? Det er erfaringsnær filosofi. Filosofien må være fænomenologisk, og det betyder, at den må være æstetisk. Det handler om i tanken at kunne være flere steder på én gang. Så man kan bringe begreberne i bevægelse og favne vidt, tænke nyt uden at sætte tradition og overlevering over styr. Denne udvidede tænkning er den æstetiske tænkning: Den er skøn.



Tekst fra: Aarhus Universitetsforlags side om bogen

Stafet-interview med

Peter C. Kjærgaard

Fag: Videnskabshistorie
Titel: Lektor, ph.d.
Ansættelsessted: Institut for Filosofi og Idéhistorie, Aarhus Universitet


Hvad er den sidste fagrelaterede bog, du har læst?

Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion.


Er der en bog, du vil anbefale?

David Edgerton, The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History since 1900. Den vigtigste bog i 2007. Den er lige kommet i paperback, så der er ingen undskyldning for ikke at købe og læse den.


Hvad er den mest interessante artikel, du har læst inden for de sidste par måneder?

Steven Shapin, Hyperprofessionalisation and the Crisis of Readership in the History of Science (ISIS 96, 2006). Jeg læste den da den udkom og har lige genlæst den i forbindelse med et phd-kursus for Danmarks Forskerskole for Historie. Den er stadig lige aktuel--og som med Edgertons bog, for alle. Det er umuligt ikke at komme til at tænke.


Hvad er den sidste konference, du har været til?

Darwin Industries, Inc.--Getting in Gear for 2009, Aarhus Universitet 7-8. februar, hvor førende Darwinforskere fra hele verden var med til at kaste et kritisk blik på hvad vi og alle mulige andre gør inden det går løs til næste år, hvor Darwin har 200-års fødselsdag og det er 150 år siden, han udgav Om Arternes Oprindelse.


Er der et eller flere nyhedsbreve eller andre net-aktiviteter, du vil anbefale?

www.stm.au.dk, www.darwin.au.dk og www.bshs.org.uk.


Er der et eller flere tidsskrifter, du vil anbefale?

Notes and Records of the Royal Society har store ambitioner om at blive et mere professionelt videnskabshistorisk tidsskrift og med Robert Fox som redaktør er man godt på vej. Værd at holde øje med.


Giv et bud på et centralt spørgsmål for forskningen i dit felt.

Hvordan vi håndterer de mange og udbredte misforståelser om evolution, der myldrer overalt i medier og blandt almindelige mennesker. Vi har på universiteterne et vigtigt ansvar og bliver nødt til at tage det alvorligt.

Giv et bud på en udbredt misforståelse.

At vi som forskere nødvendigvis skal indrette os strategisk efter tidens brandinghysteri og pleje institut- og institutionsinteresser i stedet for at udnytte alle muligheder for at tale sammen, udveklse ideer og lad den frie forskningsinteresse styre vores arbejde.


Ville du tage imod en tidagestur til månen?

Naturligvis. Det har jeg drømt om så længe jeg kan huske.


Har du en helt?

Min hustru. Ingen har imponeret mig som hende.


Hvem vil du give stafetten videre til?

Matthias Heymann, der er ny lektor i teknologihistorie og et meget velkomment frisk pust på Aarhus Universitet.