Darwin

Day 16 November 20 2011

After a two-day conference in Berlin on narratives in science/science as narrative I am heading back to Upper Austria. The conference staged by the German Society for the History of Science and the Society for the Study of Science and Technology was rather lively and diverse.

Sometimes it appeared to me that I knew nothing at all. At least some names seemed familiar, like Foucault and Kuhn. Finally people talked about Charles Darwin and gave me ideas that I should have had before my diploma thesis.

Some of the presentations at the conference were purely philosophical, like the one about Blumenberg and the one about aesthetics in science. The more empirical ones were more likely to be criticized, questioning the applicability of narration analysis for the diverse fields of research, from sociology to geography, from history to science and technology studies (STS – not to be confused with Steinbecker- Timischl- Schiffkowitz).

The highlights for me, apart from some of the talks, were conversations with V. about narratives in nanotechnology and with H. about science communication and the relation between science and humanities in interdisciplinary projects. I hope that they are not angry with me because I mention their names in such a blog, just a few lines away from the Bauernbergpark man.

Now I return to lots of work, to a meeting of minds with my PhD supervisor and to my familiar environment.

Berlin, by the way is worth a trip. Therefore I will return here.