MUSE seminars

 

Medical Museion hosts a seminar series aimed at investigating current questions and problems facing science communication and museum practices in the light of the recent history of the biomedical sciences. The papers will present scholars working on material culture, science communication, medical science and technology studies and related fields. The Museion MUSE seminar series is part of a science communication/public engagement research project aimed at developing new research-based and experimental methods in science communication, as well as furthering theoretical engagements in this area.

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When and Where? Seminars will take place at 15.00-16.30 in the auditorium at Medical Museion at Bredgade 62, 1260 København K.

 

 

Coming up

(see also Calendar):

 

June 1st, 2012: From the Body as Factory to Eating Information: A Short History of
Metabolism

Speaker: Hannah Landecker, UCLA

Metabolism, understood as the chemical conversions of food into bodily matter and energy, has since its formulation as a scientific concept in the nineteenth century been a fundamental aspect of biochemistry, philosophies of life, and to a certain extent, social and political theories of the social body (continue reading).

 

Past seminars:

 

January 26th, 2012: From Material Culture to Material Heritage: History of Contemporary Science Beyond the Linguistic Turn

Speaker: Roland Wittje, University of Regensburg

 

Getting our hands dirty in the messy worlds of the laboratory and the storage room, and to entangle with the commemorative practices of scientists and technicians when it comes to contemporary material heritage, does not belong to the common experiences of historians of science. Studying contemporary laboratories and their materiality has so far been the domain of sociologists and ethnographers. Despite the recent ‘material turn’ in cultural studies, engagement with the material world often remains a linguistic exercise, extending at the utmost to an excursion to the sanitised and academically encultured world of the museum exhibit.

For historians of science, I argue, engaging with the ‘unfinished’ material world of contemporary science poses many opportunities. By taking the material seriously beyond the linguistic turn and exploring local university departments and their recent histories through their material heritage, we can observe everyday science and confront scientists and technicians’ cultures with those of historians. By engaging with recent material heritage, we can make an important contribution to enhancing awareness about this heritage, its implications for history writing, as well as its documentation and preservation.