Call for Papers for a session at the ESHS conference (Lisbon, 4-6 September 2014)

“Science and satire:  Satirical representations in the circulation of scientific knowledge in the public sphere”

Organisers: Markian Prokopovych (University of Vienna) and Katalin Straner (Central European University, Budapest)

The study of the circulation and communication of scientific knowledge in the public sphere, especially in the urban space, has received increasing attention by historians of science in recent years. The “urban turn”, that is, the study of the increasingly complex relationship of the scientific community and urban society, provides a useful spatial and cultural framework for the study of the public dissemination of scientific ideas. Public
image has increasingly become a central concept in situating science in its contemporary cultures and as boundaries between the scientific community
and the public have become increasingly blurred, new visual, textual and discursive representations of scientific ideas have emerged. Satire and caricature became popular forms of cultural and social commentary by the 19th century, and as such, not only did they often “present the voice of the public”

[Browne 2003: 183], indicating a level of familiarity with scientific developments in the public sphere, but they also served as (often visual) aids for science dissemination and popularization.

The papers in this session will engage with the new, satirical constructions of the scientific world view in the urban public sphere of the 19th century. Expressions of popular humour – such as satirical literature, articles in the urban press, caricatures, or cartoons – reflected different perceptions
about the role of science in society: the urban press and its audience created new cultures of science where they used satire to participate in and
reflect on a world otherwise limited to them, at the same time often expressing uncertainty with the rapidly growing body of new, potentially controversial knowledge about scientific development and its social and cultural consequences (e.g. the popularity of evolutionary theory as a source of humour). The session will thus be concerned with the satirical constructions of the scientific world view communicated towards, but also created by the public: papers in the session will address, on one hand, the role of satire in the production and dissemination of scientific knowledge (at least according to the agendas of writers, journalists, caricaturists, or their editors and publishers), and on the other, the formative effect of the
urban press and its readers on the circulation of science in the public sphere.

Please send your proposed title and abstract
by 6 January 2014 to Katalin Straner ([email protected])