CfP: Nomadic concepts: Biological concepts and their careers beyond biology
Call for Papers
Nomadic concepts: Biological concepts and their careers
beyond biology
Second Annual Conference of the Leibniz Graduate School
for Cultures of Knowledge in Central European Transnational Contexts in
cooperation with the Department of History, Central European University in
Budapest
Dates: 18-19. October 2012
Venue: Herder Institute for the History of East-Central
Europe
Organizers:
Peter Haslinger (Herder Institute, Marburg)
Katalin Straner (CEU Budapest)
Jan Surman (Warsaw)
Renewed interest in the role of language in the history
of natural sciences has, in the last years, brought fresh insight into the
mechanisms of cultural and conceptual transfer both between science and
non-scientific knowledge and across disciplines. While this research has
predominantly concentrated on transgressions between literature and science,
the textual and terminological side of these exchanges has been given less
attention. Following the ideas of “nomadic” and “traveling” concepts (Isabelle
Stengers, Mieke Bal) our aim is to follow concepts in the divergent
(disciplinary, “national,” knowledge) cultures, observing and engaging with
interactions between term, content and the linguistic environment. Using
examples of biological terms/concepts, we seek to inquire how the exchanges
with various, at first sight disconnected, fields and disciplines like
religion, vernacular language, arts and literature have affected the form and
content of these formations, and led to their modification, renaming, or
differentiation from the original idea.
Studies in the language of science have demonstrated how
the professionalization and solidification of scientific reasoning in the
nineteenth century resulted in what is often viewed as a disciplinary closure:
the formation of disciplinary-specific vocabularies as well as the
“objectivising” metaphors concerned with the changes of philosophical
presuppositions (Daston/Galison 2008). The increasingly universalist view of
scientific thought, and the particularist notions often embodied in the
processes of the creation of national and/or disciplinary sets of
terminologies and vocabularies have together created new narratives heavily
imbued with various interdisciplinary references. In the biological sciences
Charles Darwin or Jacques Monod, in chemistry Lavoisier, in physics Heinrich
Kayser and Werner Heisenberg engaged in an intensive dialogue with
non-scientific fields in order to literalize their scientific findings.
Notwithstanding the trends to present “objective” knowledge through specialized
and aloof language, scientists use concepts from literature or religion to
support and substantiate their claims, and often also to visualize them and
make them fit in the theoretical frameworks they work in. (Dörries 2002, Latour
2002, Gross 2002, 2006, Steinle 2006, Eggers/Rothe 2009).
At the same time, however, conceptual instruments of
biology have entered the public discourse, arts and neighboring disciplines.
Darwin's language, for instance, influenced through Spencer, the political
imagination of the late nineteenth-early twentieth centuries; the concepts of
organism or tissue were employed in fields like sociology or architecture.
Through their linguistic restrains, some concepts have been retained in some languages
but not in others: the concept of milieu, for instance, is widely employed in
French and German, but the use of this term remains limited in other languages
– having different terms denoting the same concept alters its connotations and
thus the concept itself. The conceptual and terminological trajectories of the
language of bacteriology and the language of politics were diametrically
different between, for example, German and French, despite parallel scientific
backgrounds – while the first was militant, the second remained pacifistic. The
borrowings of biological concepts and vocabulary thus remain largely
language-based, developing distinct, partially divergent trajectories.
In our conference we plan to look more closely at the
development of biological vocabulary and concepts and their implementation in
different linguistic environments. Our particular interest is to observe the
sharpening and distinctions they experienced during the transition from one
language to another, with respect to disciplinary, social and vernacular
languages.
Research questions:
* What trajectories did the terms oscillating
between biology and non-biological fields of knowledge follow? Was this a
one-way movement, or did it remain reciprocal, with terms/
concepts remaining interdependent in different languages?
* How did the process of translation change
the original terms/concepts, e.g. by making their shortcomings, constraints or
one-language-dependence visible?
* In which ways did the authors and translators
justify their choices when retaining or altering the terms? How conscious was
the process of terminological alteration or retention by conceptual borrowing?
How was its role and possible consequences perceived?
* To what extent did the vernacular language
influence the textuality of biology? Were vernacular and popularizing
concepts filtered out or were they retained in the course of disciplinary
development? How did this process change with the ongoing process of the
internalization of sciences?
* To what extent did the textual/conceptual
borrowings and consequently changed meanings and redefinitions play a role as
auxiliary tools in re/conceptualizing scientific discoveries and theories?
The organizers are particularly interested in comparative
and trans-lingual approaches.
Postgraduates are particularly encouraged to submit
proposals for twenty-minute papers. The languages of the conference are English
and German. Travel and accommodation costs will be covered by the organizers.
The organizers plan to publish a selection of papers from this conference.
Please e-mail a short abstracts or proposals with a brief
CV to:
Jan Surman (jan.surman@univie.ac.at)
by 30. June 2012.
Successful applicants will be notified by 15. July.