Article
ID: CBB829034696

What Oral Historians and Historians of Science Can Learn from Each Other (2019)

unapi
Scientists Autobiographies Biographies Historical method History as a discipline; chronology; study of the past History of science, as a discipline Oral history 20th century, late 21st century

This paper is concerned with the use of interviews with scientists by members of two disciplinary communities: oral historians and historians of science. It examines the disparity between the way in which historians of science approach autobiographies and biographies of scientists on the one hand, and the way in which they approach interviews with scientists on the other. It also examines the tension in the work of oral historians between a long-standing ambition to record forms of past experience and more recent concerns with narrative and personal ‘composure’. Drawing on extended life story interviews with scientists, recorded by National Life Stories at the British Library between 2011 and 2016, it points to two ways in which the communities might learn from each other. First, engagement with certain theoretical innovations in the discipline of oral history from the 1980s might encourage historians of science to extend their already well-developed critical analysis of written autobiography and biography to interviews with scientists. Second, the keen interest of historians of science in using interviews to reconstruct details of past events and experience might encourage oral historians to continue to value this use of oral history even after their theoretical turn.

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB829034696/

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Authors & Contributors
Dagg, Joachim
Dennis, David Brandon
Wehrheim, Lino
Pisano, Jessica M.
Lawson, R. A.
Buchner, Michael
Journals
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Chinese Journal for the History of Science and Technology
Bulletin for the History of Chemistry
Revue d'Histoire des Sciences
Studium: Tijdschrift voor Wetenschaps- en Universiteitgeschiedenis
Publishers
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Bloomsbury Academic
Concepts
History of science, as a discipline
Historical method
History as a discipline; chronology; study of the past
Interviews
Historiography
Chemistry
People
Tong, Te-Kong
Radick, Gregory
Kuhn, Thomas S.
Heilbron, John L.
Forman, Paul
Conant, James Bryant
Time Periods
21st century
20th century, late
20th century
Early modern
19th century
Places
China
Netherlands
Poland
Institutions
Science History Institute (SHI)
Annales school
History of Science Society
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