The monthly seminar "Early Science in Conversation" invites experts from different fields and with varied perspectives to examine the ways in which science defines itself and what the history of science is as a discipline. We will especially encourage collective reasoning about conceptions of science and the methodologies with which we inquire about our sources. Among other things, we will reflect on what have been regarded as premodern scientific and proto-scientific practices, their methods, and their techniques. This interdisciplinary encounter seeks to deepen the history of science’s awareness of its own agenda and to open up new pathways. The conversational format, along with lectures and discussions of work in progress, aims to build fruitful connections across the intellectual spectrum of the MPIWG.

These meetings facilitate discussions that take into account how insects/bugs/critters/species have been integral for knowledge production cutting across diverse political, social, and aesthetic thought, or practices. Insects offer us concrete, material ways to rethink the legacies or vestiges of disciplinary thinking and the practices by which different types of knowledge are created, owned, and used. By encouraging cross-disciplinary collaborations among scholars who employ a variety of sources concerning insects, a dialogue is advanced that stitches together different practices, subfields, and languages or geographies. In doing so, the topic of “insect histories” is addressed with mind to understand the social, political, economic,  and epistemic significance of tiny animals encourages the participants to challenge the “normal”/dominant contours of the history of science to engage with non-human agencies. The resulting essays from this series will aspire to identify ways to think about insects as processes and multitudes, and as connective agents between and among disciplines, cultures, languages, and other norms.

This research seminar is hosted by the Bordeaux-Berlin WORKING GROUP ON TRANSLATING VALIDITY IN PSYCHIATRIC RESEARCH and brings together historians, philosophers, psychiatrists, and biomedical researchers.

China’s push to become a leading science power is unprecedented in its speed, scope and, arguably, success. Reactions to China’s rise in global science are dichotomous: some anticipate that science made in China may come to dominate global academia while others deem it impossible to achieve scientific leadership under an authoritarian regime. A focus on rankings and statistics alone is apparently not enough to grasp the origins, characteristics, and the possible futures of China as a science superpower.

This monthly lecture series will bring together fresh empirical insights and intriguing theoretical reflections about the development of the science system in the People’s Republic of China and its global integration. Representing a variety of social science perspectives, our guest speakers will explore the evolution of Chinese science policy, interactions of societal norms and values and academia in the PRC, factors that enable or constrain scientific innovation, the global reception of scientific output and investment from China, the securitization of international collaboration, and much more.

The monthly reading and works-in-progress group will investigate childbirth technologies across regions, cultures, and time periods. Guiding questions include how technologies emerge from childbirth-related practices and how practices change reproductive bodies and obstetrical tools. We will discuss our own work-in-progress as well as secondary literature, depending on the interests of the participants. One focus will be on the comparative epistemic and socio-material relations of these technologies. Instead of understanding knowledge and object as separate issues, we explore how they emerge together and what kind of relations are enacted through them.

These meetings facilitate discussions that take into account how insects/bugs/critters/species have been integral for knowledge production cutting across diverse political, social, and aesthetic thought, or practices. Insects offer us concrete, material ways to rethink the legacies or vestiges of disciplinary thinking and the practices by which different types of knowledge are created, owned, and used. By encouraging cross-disciplinary collaborations among scholars who employ a variety of sources concerning insects, a dialogue is advanced that stitches together different practices, subfields, and languages or geographies. In doing so, the topic of “insect histories” is addressed with mind to understand the social, political, economic,  and epistemic significance of tiny animals encourages the participants to challenge the “normal”/dominant contours of the history of science to engage with non-human agencies. The resulting essays from this series will aspire to identify ways to think about insects as processes and multitudes, and as connective agents between and among disciplines, cultures, languages, and other norms.

The LMRG Colloquium is a venue for members and guests of the Lise Meitner Research Group, "China in the Global System of Science," to share work in progress on an ongoing basis. It is an opportunity to raise questions, discuss methodological challenges, or get feedback on preliminary conclusions. We aim to create a supportive atmosphere that combines rigorous criticism with genuine curiosity.

Since its inception in 2016, the Visualization and Material Culture of the Heavens project in Department III at the MPIWG has been built around a database established using ResourceSpace, an open source platform provided by Montala. In the process of further developing both project and database, we are hosting a hybrid workshop that aims to bring the participants into a discussion on how to use the database to answer research questions. 

The two main themes will be:

1. How to formulate research questions for productive use of the database.
2. How to apply digital humanities methods to conduct comparative analyses.

We have invited scholars interested in astral image research and digital humanities, as well as IT experts and museum specialists, to learn from each other and discuss methods and strategies to facilitate the use of the database and other digital humanities tools for research purposes.

Timetable

Day 1: The VoH Database

Day 2: DH Tools beyond the VoH Database

China’s push to become a leading science power is unprecedented in its speed, scope and, arguably, success. Reactions to China’s rise in global science are dichotomous: some anticipate that science made in China may come to dominate global academia while others deem it impossible to achieve scientific leadership under an authoritarian regime. A focus on rankings and statistics alone is apparently not enough to grasp the origins, characteristics, and the possible futures of China as a science superpower.

This monthly lecture series will bring together fresh empirical insights and intriguing theoretical reflections about the development of the science system in the People’s Republic of China and its global integration. Representing a variety of social science perspectives, our guest speakers will explore the evolution of Chinese science policy, interactions of societal norms and values and academia in the PRC, factors that enable or constrain scientific innovation, the global reception of scientific output and investment from China, the securitization of international collaboration, and much more.