HOST - Journal of history of science and technology - 4th Annual Workshop (2009) will be held at ICS December 14 th and 15th. The workshop theme is places of modern science: situated laboratories, dispersed artifacts. Participants are Tiago Saraiva (Institute of Social Sciences - University of Lisbon) | Tom Gieryn (Indiana University) | Richard Burckhardt (University of Illinois) | Marta Macedo (University of Coimbra) | Ana Cardoso de Matos (CIDEHUS, University of Évora) | Stuart Leslie (John Hopkins University) | Simon Naylor (University of Exeter) | Lino Camprubi (University of California Los Angeles) | Maria do Mar Gago (Institute of Social Sciences - University of Lisbon) | Julia Gaspar (CIUHCT - University of Lisbon) | Ana Simões (CIUHCT - University of Lisbon) | Robert Fox (University of Oxford)

Spatial issues are a major subject in the historiography of science. Historians have become increasingly suspicious of accounts portraying scientific activity as a placeless mental endeavour belonging to the ethereal realm of ideas, concepts and theories; leaving aside any concern with the low spheres of practices, instruments and facilities. Multiple laboratory ethnographies were particularly good in revealing the significance of looking at local dimensions of knowledge production. And it is now difficult to separate many modern scientists from their urban settings. Who would dare today to speak about Faraday ignoring his London context, about Helmholtz and being oblivious about Berlin, or about Einstein and not mentioning Bern? But historians of science have also explored how such located knowledge was put into circulation through standardization procedures that enabled its dispersion through multiple scales. Together with a geographical horizontal dispersion of the institution of the modern laboratory through many different countries came a social vertical dispersion that made laboratory artifacts a key component of modern life. This workshop intends to explore the tensions between the local and ubiquitous character of modern science. Its main motivation lays on the conviction that delving into such tension has a great potential for illuminating the role of modern science in modern society thus helping to make history of science narratives more relevant for general history:

1) Local Lab - How is knowledge locally produced?

What is the role of laboratories in producing institutional authority (learning, facts, technologies...)? How to look at scientific facilities?

2) Travels - How and where do modern laboratories travel? Displacements of instruments, people and knowledge;

3) Landscapes - the translations of science and technology into formations in the landscape; the dispersion of science into the urban, regional or national scales.

WORKSHOP CHAIRMAN
Tiago Saraiva (Institute of Social Sciences - University of Lisbon)

MEMBERS
Ana Carneiro (CIUHCT, Faculty of Sciences and Technology - New University of Lisbon); Maria Paula Diogo (CIUHCT, Faculty of Sciences and Technology - New University of Lisbon); Henrique Leitão (CIUHCT, Faculty of Sciences - University of Lisbon); Ana Cardoso de Matos (CIDEHUS, University of Évora); Ana Simões (CIUHCT, Faculty of Sciences - University of Lisbon).

ORGANIZING INSTITUTIONS
Institute of Social Sciences (ICS) - University of Lisbon; Interuniversity Center of History of Science and Technology (CIUHCT) - New University of Lisbon, University of Lisbon; Interdisciplinary Center for History, Cultures and Societies (CIDEHUS) - University of Évora.