Historians have studied extensively how sciences begin. But how do they end? Previous attention to the founding, disciplinisation, and professionalisation of individual sciences has provided robust frameworks in which to think about the birth and growth of scientific knowledge communities. Less attention has been directed at how those same communities decay, dissolve, or evolve beyond the contemporary boundaries of science. SciEnds is a research network cultivating case studies of the ends of sciences in order to motivate a new approach to thinking about the developmental trajectories of scientific disciplines, communities, institutions, and the ordering of knowledge. This working group explores specific cases of the ends of sciences as well as reflects on general methodological questions raised by scrutinizing the unmaking of scientific practices.

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Upcoming Meetings

Wednesday, April 2, 2025, 10:00 - 11:30 am EDT

Our readings for April 2 are:

  • Shigehisa Kuriyama, "Translation and the History of Japanese Irritability," in Traduire, transposer, naturaliser. La Formation d'une langue scientifique moderne hors des frontières de l'Europe au XIXe siècle, ed. Pascal Crozet and Annick Horiuchi (Paris: Éditions L'Harmattan, 2004), 27-41.
  • Federico Marcon, “Honzogaku after Seibutsugaku: Traditional Pharmacology as Antiquarianism after the Institutionalization of Modern Biology in Early Meiji Japan,” in Antiquarianism, Language and Medical Philology, ed. Benjamin A. Elman (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 148–62.

Wednesday, April 2, 2025, 10:00 - 11:30 am EDT

Our readings for April 2 are:

  • Shigehisa Kuriyama, "Translation and the History of Japanese Irritability," in Traduire, transposer, naturaliser. La Formation d'une langue scientifique moderne hors des frontières de l'Europe au XIXe siècle, ed. Pascal Crozet and Annick Horiuchi (Paris: Éditions L'Harmattan, 2004), 27-41.
  • Federico Marcon, “Honzogaku after Seibutsugaku: Traditional Pharmacology as Antiquarianism after the Institutionalization of Modern Biology in Early Meiji Japan,” in Antiquarianism, Language and Medical Philology, ed. Benjamin A. Elman (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 148–62.

Wednesday, April 2, 2025, 10:00 - 11:30 am EDT

Our readings for April 2 are:

  • Shigehisa Kuriyama, "Translation and the History of Japanese Irritability," in Traduire, transposer, naturaliser. La Formation d'une langue scientifique moderne hors des frontières de l'Europe au XIXe siècle, ed. Pascal Crozet and Annick Horiuchi (Paris: Éditions L'Harmattan, 2004), 27-41.
  • Federico Marcon, “Honzogaku after Seibutsugaku: Traditional Pharmacology as Antiquarianism after the Institutionalization of Modern Biology in Early Meiji Japan,” in Antiquarianism, Language and Medical Philology, ed. Benjamin A. Elman (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 148–62.

Wednesday, April 2, 2025, 10:00 - 11:30 am EDT

Our readings for April 2 are:

  • Shigehisa Kuriyama, "Translation and the History of Japanese Irritability," in Traduire, transposer, naturaliser. La Formation d'une langue scientifique moderne hors des frontières de l'Europe au XIXe siècle, ed. Pascal Crozet and Annick Horiuchi (Paris: Éditions L'Harmattan, 2004), 27-41.
  • Federico Marcon, “Honzogaku after Seibutsugaku: Traditional Pharmacology as Antiquarianism after the Institutionalization of Modern Biology in Early Meiji Japan,” in Antiquarianism, Language and Medical Philology, ed. Benjamin A. Elman (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 148–62.

Wednesday, May 7, 2025, 10:00 - 11:30 am EDT

TBA

Wednesday, May 7, 2025, 10:00 - 11:30 am EDT

TBA

Wednesday, May 7, 2025, 10:00 - 11:30 am EDT

TBA

Wednesday, May 7, 2025, 10:00 - 11:30 am EDT

TBA

Group Conveners

Alex Aylward

Alex Aylward is Departmental Lecturer in History of Science at the Faculty of History, Oxford University. He works in history of the modern life sciences, especially evolutionary biology, genetics, and eugenics.

 

jmartin

Joseph Martin

Joseph Martin is Associate Professor of the History of Science and Technology at Durham University. He has published on the history of twentieth-century physical sciences and the philosophy of science and technology.

 

Michelle Pfeffer

Michelle Pfeffer is a historian at Magdalen College, Oxford. She is an early modernist focusing on history of science, religion, and scholarship in Europe with an emphasis on the history of astrology.

 

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