Histories of Science in Latin America and Asia: A Conversation Across Regions
Organizers: Karin Rosemblatt (University of Maryland), Elisa Sevilla (Universidad San Francisco de Quito), Gabriela Soto Laveaga (Harvard University), Wendy Fu (Emory University and Academia Sinica), Charu Singh (University of Cambridge)
This session brings together historians and anthropologists of science, medicine, and technology in Latin America and Asia to initiate a dialogue for future collaboration. Building on developments in the global history of science in the past two decades, the organizers invite scholars to explore and establish themes of mutual interest across these regions.
Scholars interested in similar themes across regions could potentially collaborate on panels at the annual HSS and SHOT meetings. These meetings are scheduled for October (SHOT, Long Beach, CA) and November 2023 (HSS, Portland, OR), and proposals will be due in spring 2023.
We will kick off the discussion by asking, which objects of study, units and scales of analysis, and scholarly methods have been used by STM scholars of the Iberian empires, postcolonial Latin America, and the Caribbean, and by scholars of East Asia, South Asia, South-east Asia, and the Middle East? The readings below will provide a starting point for discussion, but our main aim is to invite ideas for collaboration from participants.
Ralph Bauer & Marcy Norton (2017), ‘Introduction: entangled trajectories: indigenous and European histories,’ Colonial Latin American Review, 26:1, 1-17, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10609164.2017.1287321
Marwa Elshakry (2010), ‘When Science Became Western: Historiographical Reflections,’ Isis, 101:1, 98-109, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/652691
Gabriela Soto Laveaga (2018), ‘Largo dislocare: connecting microhistories to remap and recenter histories of science,’ History and Technology, 34:1, 21-30, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2018.1516850