This is a call for the organization of a panel on “Visual Cultures of
Science” at the 19th Annual Conference of SHARP
(http://www.sharpweb.org/), devoted this year to the theme ‘The Book
in Art& Science’,and taking place in Washington D.C., July 15-17, 2011.
Details on the call are below. If you are interested in participating
in this panel, please contact Josep Simon ([log in to unmask])
before November 26, 2010.
"Visual Cultures of Science"
In recent decades the study of visual representations has become one
of the most active areas in history of science, technology and
medicine. Since the 1970s this field of inquiry has deepened and
diversified to include the study of a wide range of visual
representations produced in scientific practice, of techniques of
representation, and of uses of visual knowledge. The analysis of the
production, circulation and use of visual representations in science
has benefited from interaction between disciplines such as history,
sociology and philosophy of science, art history, book history,
history of education, education studies, and science popularization.
Images occupy a special place in this context, for their power to
encapsulate scientific knowledge, their capacity to communicate to
various publics, and their flexibility in the production of meanings
through the interaction of producers and users. Moreover, images
contain special codes and modes of representation and there is a wide
diversity of visual cultures which change in time and space. All in
all, the production, circulation and use of images have played a major
role in scientific practices.
Scientific practice produces a wide range of visual representations of
nature which are also tools for the production of new knowledge.
Visual representations in science often cut across the categories of
research, teaching, and the popular. The study of the production,
reproduction, circulation, and appropriation of images offers an
excellent basis from which to understand the shaping of scientific
knowledge. The analysis of the production and manipulation of images,
the debates around these practices and the making of visual standards
can have a major role in our understanding of disciplinary change and
in the design of new narratives in history of science and in
interdisciplinary interaction between visual studies, science studies
and book studies.
This panel intends aims to tackle questions such as:
- How have techniques of visual representation and practices of visual
appropriation shaped the making of scientific knowledge?
- How can we classify scientific images, what are the ways of
characterizing their specific properties, and how do they interact
with the objects that they represent?
- What interactions have there been between visual, textual and oral
knowledge?
- Are there national, disciplinary, and social cultures of visual
representation and appropriation in science, technology and medicine?
- How does the form and materiality of images affect their meaning?
- What is the role of draughtsmen, engravers, printing technicians,
photographers and other visual technicians in the making of scientific
knowledge?
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Dr. Josep Simon
Institut de Recherches Philosophiques
Université Paris Ouest
200, avenue de la République
92001 Nanterre, Bâtiment L
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www.ihmc.uv-csic.es/cv.php?id=14&idioma=Ing
http://www.uoa.gr/step
http://schct.iec.cat/plaers/index_plaers_ang.htm
http://schct.iec.cat/school_11/spring11_index.htm
http://www.pickeringchatto.com/physics
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