6th ESHS Conference, Lisbon 2014

Communicating Science, Technology and Medicine

The 6th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science will be held in Lisbon, 4-6 September 2014 and is organized by the Interuniversity Centre for the History of Science and Technology(CIUHCT),a research centre associated with the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon and the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of the New University of Lisbon.

The theme of the conference is “Communicating Science, Technology and Medicine”.

Communicating science, technology and medicine has always been central to the scientific and technological enterprise, but across ages and spaces agents, audiences, means, aims and agendas behind this complex process have varied considerably. The interpretations put forward by historians of science, technology and medicine have also changed considerably. Historians have been compelled recently to move away from former historiographical categories opposing creative producers to passive recipients and consumers, and contrasting the production of knowledge with its transmission. The vertical model of diffusion has been superseded by a horizontal conception of circulation and appropriation of science, technology and medicine, which gives voice to various actors and to their different, often contradictory, agendas. Within this framework, practices of science, technology and medicine appear as involving in an essential way forms of communication, to such an extent that the distinction between the making and the communicating of science, technology and medicine is ultimately blurred.

The 6th ESHS aims at stimulating historical and historiographical studies and debates on the communication of science, technology and medicine along the following sub-thematic clusters.

1) Human and non-human agents: experts, amateurs, and institutions;

2) Networks of circulation and communication of knowledge;

3) Means of communication: correspondence, papers, books, textbooks, popularization outlets, newspapers, radio, theatre, films, cartoons and internet;

4) Spaces and modes of communication: conferences, classrooms, public demonstrations, exhibitions, instruments, collections and museums;

5) Audiences: lay and specialized audiences, consumers;

6) Rhetorical devices;

7) Communication in the European Periphery;

8) Communication in a globalized world: challenges and constraints; ideology of communication, hegemonic values and commercialized science, technology and medicine

Deadlines (NEW)

Symposia Submission (theme and rationale of symposium and abstract of papers) – 10 Jan 2014
Decision regarding accepted symposia – 10 February 2014
Abstract Submission for stand-alone papers)– 10 March 2014
Decision regarding accepted papers – 10 April 2014

Language

Abstracts, presentations and proceedings should be in English, preferably.

Fees

Early registration fee (deadline 30 April 2014)