In the early twentieth century, agricultural research played an important role in the Zionist movement's efforts to increase Palestine's productivity and to facilitate large-scale Jewish settlement. Recent historiography has started to recognize the importance of agronomists and botanists as central actors in the broader project of Jewish-Zionist knowledge production in and of Palestine. This article uses Haraway's concept of companion species to analyze two initiatives by Jewish plant researchers who, through different strategies, pursued a common goal: expanding botanical knowledge of Palestine, mobilizing plant life to advance political claims and alliances, and thereby contributing to the realization of a Jewish state. The case studies focus on the establishment of the first Jewish agricultural experiment station by agronomist Aaron Aaronsohn in 1910, and the creation of the botanical garden at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem by botanists Otto Warburg and Alexander Eig in 1931. Both projects exemplify how nature and culture were co-produced in the service of Zionist nation-building-using the Palestinian plant world to establish scientific authority, forge international alliances, and help delineate both epistemic and territorial boundaries.
This paper examines the collection, cultivation, and distribution of the "locust fungus" in late-nineteenth century South Africa, India, and Argentina. In 1896 an amateur microscopist, Andrew W. Cooper, brought the bodies of locusts infected by a parasitic fungus to the Cape of Good Hope Colonial Bacteriological Institute, hoping that fungi collected from these specimens could be used to destroy locust swarms. Scholars have shown how empires attempted to apply scientific fixes to the problem of colonial pest control in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Yet these fixes were not always successful. I argue that the locust fungus demonstrates the limitations of the global circulation of science. Laboratory tests and field trials of the fungus across the British Empire and beyond all ended in failure. These setbacks led entomologists and mycologists to question both the efficacy and identity of locust fungus, suggesting that the microorganism lost its virulence when cultivated or was only capable of infecting African locusts. The locust fungus eluded all attempts to deploy it as a biological control. Eventually, a growing consensus emerged that Cooper and staff at the Colonial Bacteriological Institute had accidentally cultivated the wrong species of fungus.
Since late 2021, serious allegations have been made against physicist Erwin Schrödinger, ranging from pedophilia to serial sexual abuse. These accusations have significantly tarnished the Nobel Prize winner's public reputation. The ongoing debate has repeatedly raised the question of whether, and to what extent, these grave allegations are justified. So far, the discussion has suffered from an unclear factual basis, partly because key sources remain largely inaccessible. This is due, in part, to the publication of a biography ( Schrödinger: Life and Thought by Walter Moore, 1989), which was already considered problematic at the time of its release. This paper presents a review and analysis of previously unexamined sources. Alongside Schrödinger's diaries, known as Ephemerides, and letters from affected women, numerous letters and research notebooks from Moore's documents were examined to gain insight into the biographer's methods. Our findings suggest that the widely circulated allegations in the media stem from a combination of unprofessional, suggestive biographical writing and poor journalism. They do not substantiate claims of pedophilic or sexually abusive behaviour by Schrödinger.
I present and discuss two drafts of remarks prepared by the mathematician Hermann Minkowski (1864-1909). They were composed in December 1907 while preparing his paper on the "Basic Equations of Electromagnetic Processes in Moving Bodies" for publication in the Proceedings of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences. I discuss the biographical and institutional context as well as the scientific background to highlight a document which illuminates the perception of an emerging academic discipline of mathematical physics.
The first volume of the biographical dictionary Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB) was published in 1953; after the end of the Second World War, the publication was considered a national biography and was seen as a contribution to the cultural foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany. The establishment of the NDB was also made possible by the participation of important personalities such as Federal President Theodor Heuss (1884-1963) and Nobel Prize winner in physics Max von Laue (1879-1960). Based on previously unexamined sources from Laue's estate and the Archive of the Historical Commission in Munich, it is shown that Laue not only contributed to the reputation of the NDB, but also used the opportunities available in the early years to help shape the emerging culture of remembrance. An analysis of editorial practices reveals that articles had different contexts of origin. In addition to articles written by the authors who signed them, there were also articles based on a collective authorship and articles in which the signed author and the original author were not identical.
The West German drug Duogynon was internationally marketed as a "hormone pregnancy test" (HPT) between the 1950s and 1980s. In the late 1960s it came under suspicion for inducing miscarriage, spina bifida, and a spectrum of birth defects similar to those caused by the sedative thalidomide. In contrast to thalidomide, medical consensus did not form around the teratogenicity of Duogynon and many people who identify as Duogynon-affected continue to campaign for recognition. The informal use of Duogynon as an abortion pill adds a further layer of shame, secrecy, and silence. In this article, we reflect on the value of oral history and the ethics of inclusion within a larger research project that investigates the rise and fall of HPTs, globally. We ask what collaborating with patient campaigners in a more participatory mode than is typical of archival research can contribute to the historical understanding of the Duogynon affair and other drug scandals.
This article is about the act and practice of doing interviews. In contrast to an ascendant enthusiasm for automation, computation, and digitization, it focuses on the process of interviewing as a relational mode of historical research and on uses of interviews that occur prior to their mobilization as evidence in historical accounts. The central argument is that, well before interviews can be used as historical sources, the practice of interviewing is useful for charting scientific networks, creating textual records, and generating archival questions. After setting the analytic stage, the article proceeds almost ethnographically through a series of conversations and interviews in order to illustrate some of the ways that interviewing-as a practice of knowing in and through relations-resists formalization and remains irresolvably human, social, and staged. In the conclusion, the article turns to epistemological questions raised when using interviews in historical writing. It argues that incorporating research interviews into the methodological repertoire of the history of science and medicine offers an occasion to practice reflexivity with respect to the narrative grounds of historical claims. It suggests that this might encourage a confrontation with the discipline's inherited epistemic valuation of naturalism.
This article examines how oral histories of twentieth-century human genetics in Brazil reveal the politics of memory of fieldwork. Through a comparative analysis of interviews with prominent geneticist Francisco M. Salzano and technician Girley V. Simões, who worked with him for most of his career, this study explores the narrative strategies each employed to establish their historical accounts. Attending reflexively to the oral history encounters, the analysis examines how each narrator negotiates professional identity and moral legitimacy in light of changing ethical norms surrounding research with Indigenous communities. Simões's vivid recollections foreground invisible forms of technical and logistical labor, offering him the opportunity to recast his position as one of active knowledge-making. Salzano's controlled and diplomatic accounts, by contrast, illustrate how the senior scientist curated memory to stabilize his professional legacy and defend disciplinary ethics in the wake of controversy. Contrasting Salzano and Simões's approaches to describing their shared experiences drives home the complex social and political realities of narrating fieldwork, as well as the political valences of remembering and documenting these histories in the present.
What is special about historical research interviews in the history of science, technology, and medicine, and how do they compare to the tools of oral historians and social scientists? This essay reflects on three interview projects I have undertaken, each taking a distinct shape. I address methodological and pragmatic aspects of these projects, especially concerns related to anonymity and recovering memories of practice, as well as institutional challenges for placing historical research interviews among the more familiar and structured projects in the social sciences, notably around questions of anonymity. I suggest that we have most to learn from oral historians in thinking about research ethics and empowering the interviewee to decide what they want to happen to the recording and transcript, and whether and how they want to claim credit. At the same time, we can make different choices when it comes to designing, interpreting, and publishing our interviews. I suggest it may be beneficial to think of our work as triangulation across sources, within broader practices of what we might call "historical fieldwork".
A key difference between collecting life stories and doing research interviews is the role of the interviewer. While training in oral history may focus on using standard scripts to take a life story, research interviews are motivated by specific questions that arise from particular historical projects and are often not primarily focused on the biography of the interviewee. Therefore, the research interview can be seen as being both less personal with regard to the personal life story of the interviewee and more personal with respect to the foregrounding of the specific interests of the interviewer. Soraya de Chadarevian has been one of the first historians of science to systematically reflect on this and other differences between life story interviews and research interviews. In this contribution, Lara Keuck, who has herself made use of interviews in her research, interrogates de Chadarevian on her approach to research interviews in her historical practice. They discuss how de Chadarevian's personal approach has developed and changed over the past three decades and reflect on the methodological implications that can be distilled from this experience.
This study examines the historical transformations and multifaceted applications of stalactite (shizhong ru) in premodern China (3rd c. BCE-17th c. CE). Initially regarded as an elixir for consumption, stalactite gained popularity due to its perceived medicinal benefits, especially as a safer alternative to the toxic Five-Stone Powder. However, its usage declined due to increasing medical concerns, quality inconsistencies, and regional climatic factors, particularly in southern China. As doubts over safety intensified, stalactite was gradually relegated from "non-toxic" dietary use to cautious prescription and eventually became the subject of debates on its toxic potential. At the same time, its restorative logic extended beyond the human body to agriculture. Over time, its application re-emerged in both medical and agricultural contexts, where it was applied to enhance fertility and vitality. By tracing these shifts through historical and medical texts as well as environmental factors, this study highlights the dynamic relationship between natural resources, medicine, and societal needs, offering new insights into the evolution of mineral-based therapeutics for land as well as humans in premodern China.
Drawing on previously unknown sources, this article documents the physicist Johannes Stark's unsuccessful attempt to publish a declaration by German Nobel laureates in support of the August 1934 referendum. Following the death of Reich President Paul von Hindenburg, this referendum aimed to legitimize the transfer of the two highest state offices-Reich President and Reich Chancellor-to one single person, thereby making Adolf Hitler the head of state and Führer of the German people. At the suggestion of the Propaganda Ministry, Stark sent a telegram to eleven "Aryan German Nobel laureates" in chemistry and physics, and urged them to sign a public appeal to participate in the referendum and support "the great national commitment of the entire German people" to Adolf Hitler as "Führer of the German people." Responses to Stark's telegram ranged from wholehearted support to rejection. The majority of the laureates declined to lend their signature, and the initiative ultimately failed. The episode reveals that Stark-although at the height of his influence as president of the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt (Imperial Institute of Physics and Technology) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation)-was largely isolated within the scientific community of the so-called Third Reich.
The article is based on the hitherto unknown correspondence between the Polish scholar and founder of the Slavic-Philological Seminary in Breslau, Władysław Nehring (1830-1909), and the secret Prussian Minister of Culture Friedrich Althoff (1839-1908). The archival material sheds new light on the establishment and early years of the institution and the background to Prussian science policy. Nehring's self-portrayal and the incorrect dating of the founding of the institute, which has so far not been scrutinized by researchers, only provide a very inadequate picture of the circumstances of its origins. Finally, the widespread idea of Althoff as despiser of professors also needs to be reconsidered in this context.
Edmond Locard's L'enquête criminelle et les méthodes scientifiques marks a pivotal moment in criminology's transformation from a largely unmethodical practice to a scientific discipline. While Locard is best known for advancing laboratory methods of forensic analysis, this article argues that at the heart of his conception of forensics lies the assertion that it is not rationality, but vivid imagination that makes or breaks the criminal investigation. Following Locard's claim that one of the most crucial challenges in teaching forensics is to introduce fellow criminologists to the art of using intuition and creativity for problem-solving, this article examines the concrete ways in which L'enquête criminelle attempts to actively engage the reader's imaginative faculty by presenting problems that can only be solved through "lateral thinking" and "abductive reasoning." To introduce his speculative methods, I argue, Locard borrows from detective fiction in two ways: Firstly, he counterfactually presents literary case studies by Poe as real-world cases, endorsing Dupin's detective technique as a viable criminological practice. By planting hidden clues and red herrings in semiotic puzzles to be deciphered by the reader, secondly, Locard appropriates narrative techniques to sharpen his reader's hermeneutics instincts.
Wie kann man einen historischen Blick auf das eigene Fach werfen? Diese Frage ist nicht einfach zu beantworten - will man einerseits nicht in einer Nabelschau und Hagiographie enden, andererseits aber auch keinen umfassenden Entwurf einer zukünftigen Historiographie vorlegen. Die hier in loser Folge publizierten Interviews mit bekannten Protagonist:innen der Berliner Wissenschaftsgeschichte von ca. 1970-1990 in West und Ost rücken die Geschichte des Faches deshalb in einem bestimmten Milieu in den Fokus und versuchen, die Historiographie jenseits einer Institutionen- oder Theoriegeschichte voranzutreiben. Welche Motivationen oder Probleme bewegten einzelne Wissenschaftler:innen, sich der Geschichte ihres Faches zu widmen oder sich etwa aus der Soziologie oder Philosophie in die Wissenschaftsgeschichte zu bewegen? Welche Ausbildungspraktiken existierten in diesem heterogenen, zwischen den Disziplinen angesiedelten Feld, welche Anregungen bezog man aus welchen Kontexten? Wie war Lehre strukturiert und welche Netzwerke bildeten sich mit der Zeit? Kurz: Mit welchem Interesse kam man zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte und was wurde daraus? Die Auswahl der Interviewees erfolgt ohne Anspruch auf Vollständigkeit oder Proporz; der Fragenkatalog der Interviews richtet sich individuell nach den Biographien und dem Werk und entfaltet sich oft spontan im Gespräch. Die Interviews wurden digital aufgezeichnet, transkribiert, der Schriftsprache angepasst, gegebenenfalls gekürzt, annotiert und von den Interviewees authentifiziert. Wir beabsichtigen mit dieser Serie von Interviews zunächst die Dokumentation rezenter Geschichte durch eine Oral History, die subjektive Wahrnehmungen und persönliche Erlebnisse einschließt. Auf diese Weise werden Segmente einer größtenteils ungeschriebenen Geschichte anhand von Biographien erfahrbar und damit auch einer weiteren kritischen Bearbeitung und Integration in ein Gesamtbild zugänglich. Da uns im Zuge der jeweiligen Vorbereitung und Durchführung, Transkription und Abstimmung der Interviews daran gelegen war, aus Sicht der Akteur:innen wichtige Sammelbände und Aufsätze, Monographien oder auch "graue Literatur" zu erfassen, wird nebenbei eine kommentierte Bibliographie zur Geschichte der Wissenschaftsgeschichte entstehen. Unsere Hoffnung besteht darin, mittels dieser Sammlung mit Berlin einen fruchtbaren Raum und mit den siebziger und achtziger Jahren eine produktive Zeit des Faches jenseits von Reminiszenz oder Nostalgie zu erkunden - nicht zuletzt auch, um den Blick für gegenwärtige Herausforderungen des Faches zu schärfen.
How is historical evidence conveyed? How could an eighteenth-century scholar vouch for the information stored on paper, drafted with the quill, and publicized in copperplate engravings or letterpress? In this article, I employ material and medial perspectives to reconstruct the multiple production stages of Johann Christoph Gatterer's Historia genealogica dominorum Holzschuherorum (1755) and, thereby, reveal how historical knowledge was shaped by the media that presented it. By focusing not only on the text but mainly on the engraved plates inserted within the pages of this work, I will reveal how, in the eighteenth century, historical knowledge was collectively achieved through complex scholarly, artistic, and editorial negotiations that encompassed issues of authorship and intellectual authority as well as disputes that occurred both in the making of visual evidence and the trading of authoritative editions. After exploring many drawn, handwritten, typeset, and engraved sources related to this editorial project, I argue that Gatterer's work relied on an information system based on the interplay between verbal and visual information and their relationship to the material evidence of the past. Moreover, I show how this system itself was shaped by the different media that it, in turn, used to reproduce historical evidence.
Ever since Erwin Schrödinger learned about Indian thought through Arthur Schopenhauer, it occupied a visible role in both his published writings and personal books. Schrödinger called for a "blood transfusion" of Indian thought into the West and, in one notebook, construed the Upaniṣadic slogan "Brahman = Atman" as the "closest thing to the truth." However, the historical and philosophical literature on his engagement with Indian ideas remains limited and often confused. Two questions should be addressed for a more comprehensive account of Schrödinger's philosophical views: which Indian insights did he embrace, and what was their role in his thought? I argue that examining what he termed the Indian "doctrine of identity" illuminates answers to these questions and can correct some historical misinterpretations. First, situating Schrödinger's reading of Indian works in his time and analyzing his personal notebooks reveals the dominance of Śaṅkara's Advaita Vedānta reading of the Upaniṣads. Second, by analyzing Schrödinger's published writings and personal notebooks, I argue that this doctrine of identity offered Schrödinger religious consolation, but, furthermore, that Schrödinger took these Indian ideas seriously in his philosophy as well. I highlight how Schrödinger adopted this doctrine of identity into his metaphysical ruminations about the nature of reality and show how it resonates with some of his reflections in the philosophy of science.
The term "epistemic object" has been recently used by some scholars in the history and philosophy of science to refer to the peculiar history of objects of inquiry such as RNA, genes, electrons, or phlogiston. Despite the relative success of this neologism as an analytical tool, a comprehensive analysis of its many versions is still lacking. In this article, an attempt has been made to sketch such an analysis first by comparing three main versions of this idea: epistemic things, epistemic objects, and representations of theoretical entities. Second, these conceptions are compared with the notion of scientific concept, arguing that, although similar, they are not the same thing. However, a proposal suggested from the history of concepts program, Klaus Hentschel's semantic layered methodology, could be usefully adapted for epistemic things. Third, accomplishing such adaptation by drawing from the tradition of evolutionary epistemology is recommended, analyzing the potential fit between historical epistemology and the Evolutionary Epistemology of Theories programme.
