The circulation of Science and Technology
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Historiography has recently acknowledged that circulation of ideas and techniques plays a central role in the understanding of their evolution. Given that science and technology are international achievements, their dissemination could be the most distinctive element in their construction. Circulation is not a simple change of geographical place; it carries with it epistemological and philosophical changes as a result of the crossing of cultural and political boundaries. Networks cover a wide range of local settings, actors, institutions and interests, both in the production of new science and technology, and in the reception and appropriation of known science and technology.
The conference should stimulate studies and debates about the dissemination of science and technology: first, the circulation of ideas, theories, methods and practices; second, of objects, instruments, machines, artefacts, seeds, plants, minerals, drawings, illustrations, inscriptions, paintings…; third, of texts: manuscripts, printed books, textbooks, journals, letters, book notes; fourth, of scientists and technicians around the world in “grand tours”, trips for leisure, lecturing, business and industrial espionage; and fifth, of information about institutional organization, transmission of knowledge and the influence of local contexts, among others.