Article ID: CBB174790988

Life Cycle of a Star: Carl Sagan and the Circulation of Reputation (2019)

unapi

It is a commonplace in the history of science that reputations of scientists play important roles in the stories of scientific knowledge. I argue that to fully understand these roles we should see reputations as produced by communicative acts, consider how reputations become known about, and study the factors influencing such processes. I reapply James Secord's ‘knowledge-in-transit’ approach; in addition to scientific knowledge, I also examine how ‘biographical knowledge’ of individuals is constructed through communications and shaped by communicative contexts. My case study is Carl Sagan, widely discussed – amongst scientists, media professionals and publics – for his skill as a charismatic popularizer, his perceived arrogance, his political activism, and his debated merit as a researcher. By examining how aspects of Sagan's reputation circulated alongside his scientific work – rather than existing as a static context for his scientific work – I show how different forms of knowledge (biographical and scientific) influence each other as they circulate.

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Authors & Contributors
Garofalo, Silvia
Peroni, Adalberto
Petrovay, Kristóf
Sears, Derek W. G.
Patricia Coorough Burke
Burnell, Jocelyn Bell
Concepts
Popularization
Science and society
Biographies
Astronomy
Stars; stellar astronomy
Science and culture
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
21st century
18th century
17th century
Places
United States
Italy
Germany
Milan (Italy)
Queensland (Australia)
England
Institutions
Harvard College Observatory
Astronomical Society of Australia
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Jesuits (Society of Jesus)
International Astronomical Union (IAU)
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