Call for Papers: 10th Gewina Woudschoten Conference 2024

Image source: Stadsarchief Rotterdam

Ecology & Economy: History of Knowledge during the Unequal Anthropocene

Zeist, 21-22 June 2024

Deadline for proposals: January 15, 2024

On 21-22 Juni 2024 Gewina, the Belgian-Dutch Society for the History of Science and Universities, will hold its double-jubilee biannual meeting in the Woudschoten Hotel & Conference Centre (Zeist). Gewina itself celebrates its 111th year, and its meeting in Woudschoten will be the 10th. The conference brings together historians of science, humanities, medicine, universities and technology; and all those from other fields with an interest in the history of knowledge. The theme of this year’s jubilee edition is Ecology & Economy: History of Knowledge during the Unequal Anthropocene.

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9th Gewina Meeting of Historians of Science in the Low Countries: Register now!

Contested Expertise: Trust in Science and Technology

Woudschoten Conference Center, Zeist, 17-18 June 2022

Welcome to the conference! We want to thank you for your enthusiastic response to the call for papers and look forward to your presentations. If you have any questions about registration, the programme, or other organisational issues, please mail us at contestedexpertise@gmail.com

Programme

Please click here to download the latest Programme of the Conference (updated on 13 June 2022).

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CALL FOR PAPERS: 9th Gewina Woudschoten Conference

Karikatuur op de koepokken inenting

Contested Expertise: Trust in Science and Technology

Zeist, 17–18 June 2022
Deadline for proposals: 18 March 2022

On 17-18 June 2022 Gewina, the Belgian-Dutch Society for the History of Science and Universities, will hold its 9th biannual meeting in the Woudschoten Hotel & Conference Centre (Zeist). This two-day conference brings together historians of science, humanities, medicine, universities and technology; and all those from other fields with an interest in the history of knowledge. The theme of this year’s conference is Contested Expertise: Trust in Science and Technology.

Thematic scope of the Woudschoten conference

If there is anything that the Covid-19 pandemic shows, it is that social trust in science and technology is not self-evident. Expert claims about the severity of the disease and the dynamics of infection are met with skepticism and sometimes outright dismissal. This distrust is a sign of a broader development since the late twentieth century, in which expert knowledge seems to be losing ground in society. Knowledge institutions, such as universities, expert agencies and other professional mediators are under pressure as part of a more general sentiment to question foundations of ‘modern’ Western science and technology. At the same time, the humanities and social sciences face crises of trust in the form of the decolonization debate and the replication crisis. An overall crisis of trust in scientific knowledge (broadly conceived!) looms large. However, trust in these institutions and their knowledge practices has never been natural. Modern knowledge institutions rose to prominence in the early modern period and did so at the expense of other institutions such as guilds, churches, and the republic of letters. Scientific knowledge acquired social and cultural status at the expense of artisanal knowledge; disciplinary experts marginalized the polymath scholar. Trust had to be gained, and it has had to be continually maintained. The current crisis puts new pressure on the status of science and technology and the question what the response will be.

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