Workshop: Biography in Science, Technology, and Medicine

Harvard University, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

This award supports a 4-day workshop that will addresses the historical experiences of groups under-represented in U.S. scientific, technological, engineering and mathematical (or, STEM) disciplines in June 2016. During the workshop the invitees will reflect on the question of how enhanced historical coverage of biographies in STEM may or may not alter patterns of minority participation in those fields. This biography-focused workshop will support the emergence of new historical projects on persons of minority background among researchers. In addition the workshop activities will include an oral history project with high school students and undergraduates. This workshop will gather post-doctoral scholars, junior faculty and more senior scholars in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine (HSTM) to re-frame the historical study of people historically marginalized in STEM disciplines and in the historical records of those fields. The workshop will provide an opportunity to inquire into the nature of perceptions of individual capacity, epistemic commitment, and institutional aims historically circulating throughout both STEM and HSTM disciplines. The goal of the workshop is to recast the possible function of biography as social critique by considering the perpetually low representation of persons of minority background in organizations such as the History of Science Society, the Society for the History of Technology, and the American Association for the History of Medicine. By probing the relational character of history/history-writing the workshop will identify exclusionary patterns, the routine marginalization of STEM aspirants, historical subjects and HSTM scholars of minority identity in order to increase participation and awareness of under-represented groups in the production of histories of science, technology and medicine. The results will contribute to an enhanced critical pedagogy and the testing of the critical potential of biography in confronting inequitable social relations that will be disseminated at professional societies serving the STS community.