Recent science and technology studies have been characterized by a rich diversity of research directions, manifesting several trends apparently counter to one another. On the one hand stands the rich tradition of detailed microstudies of experiments, instruments, and scientific practice; on the other hand are grouped studies grander in scope, aimed at examining science within the framework of cultural production. This volume of sixteen essays seeks common ground among these different approaches by juxtaposing work from historically focused science and literature studies with work inspired by poststructuralist philosophy and semiotics.
Viewing science as a form of cultural production and rejecting the belief in an objective truth, these 16 essays attempt to find the compatibility between the Derridean deconstruction approach and the historical-constructivism approach to the philosophy of science by juxtaposing work from historically focused science with work inspired by poststructuralist philosophy and semiotics. Among the topics explored are the use of illustration as persuasion strategy in Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals , aesthetics and the development of astrophotography, and the use of representation in cartography. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.
Metaphors of inscription and writing figure prominently in all levels of discourse in and about science. This volume of 16 essays examines the subject by juxtaposing work from historically focused science and literature studies with work inspired by poststructuralist philosophy and semiotics.
1. Inscription practices and materialities of communication Timothy
Lenoir;
2. The language of strange facts in early modern science Lorraine
Daston;
3. Shaping information: mathematics, computing and typography Robin
Rider;
4. The technology of mathematical persuasion Brian Rotman;
5. On the
take-off of operators Friedrich Kittler;
6. Switchboards and sex: the nut(t)
case Bernhard Siegert;
7. Politics on the topographer's table: the helvetic
triangulation of cartography, politics, and representation David Gugerli;
8.
Writing Darwin's islands: England and the insular condition Gillian Beer;
9.
Illustrations as strategy in Charles Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions
in Man and Animals Phillip Prodger;
10. The Leviathan of Parsontown: literary
technology and scientific representation Simon Schaffer;
11. Technology,
aesthetics and the development of astrophotography at the Lick Observatory
Alex Pang;
12. Standards and semiotics Robert Brain;
123. Experimental
systems, graphematic spaces; Hans-Jong Rheinberger;
14. Emergent power:
vitality and theology in artificial life Richard M. Doyle;
15. Science and
writing: two national narratives of failure Lisa Bloom;
16. Perception versus
experience: moving pictures and their resistance to interpretation Hans
Ulrich Gumbrecht; Notes; Index.
Timothy Lenoir is Professor of the History of Science at Stanford University. He is the author, most recently, of Instituting Science: The Cultural Production of Scientific Disciplines (Stanford, 1997).
