NCGS Workshop and Seminar Series #4 (Virtual)

Nineteenth Century Science Goes Global

Speaker: Lorraine Daston (Director Emerita, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin and Professor, Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago)

During the latter half of the 19th century, international scientific collaborations of unprecedented scale, expense, and degree of organization were initiated in both the human and natural sciences. This is also the moment when the first international scientific congresses were organized and European colonial powers extended their transportation and communication networks as well as their political and economic domination to large parts of the globe, both essential preconditions for the international scientific co-operations. Despite two devastating World Wars and innumerable regional conflicts, the model of international governance of science has largely survived and indeed expanded. The contrast with the failure of other projects of international governance is striking, especially since science and scholarship remain fiercely competitive and are largely financed at the national level. How did scientific international governance emerge and remain relatively durable, despite the shocks of war, national rivalries, and scientific polemics?

Moderation: Karen Hagemann (UNC-Chapel Hill, Department of History)

Co-Coveners: Duke University, Department of History and Department of German Studies; and UNC-Chapel Hill, Department of History