This volume represents a collection of studies in cultural history and theory of science from the early modern era to the present. The essays are linked by the conviction that one of the most significant developments in recent scientific historiography consists in its insistence that the relations between science, culture and history be understood and examined reciprocally. Not only does scientific practice take place under conditions shaped by social and cultural forces; it also generates and necessitates its own specific patterns of cultural, social and political activity. Sciences which have evolved into significant social systems produce their own cultures and politics. Through discussion of the common origin of scientific knowledge and the cultures and politics of research, this volume hopes to make a contribution toward a better understanding of the roles of scientific research from its inception in the 17th century up to the dramatic upheavals in the 20th century. With articles by Lorraine Daston, Sven Dierig, Moritz Epple, Evelyn Fox Keller, Mary Jo Nye , Dominique Pestre, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Simon Schaffer, Friedrich Steinle, Catherine Wilson, Norton M. Wise and Claus Zittel. Der Band in englischer Sprache versammelt Studien zur Kulturgeschichte und Theorie der Wissenschaften von der Frühen Neuzeit bis zur Gegenwart. Vereinigt sind die Beiträge durch die Überzeugung, dass eine der folgenreichsten Interventionen der jüngeren Wissenschaftsgeschichte darin liegt, dass die Beziehungen zwischen Wissenschaft, Kultur und Gesellschaft auf reziproke Weise verstanden und untersucht werden müssen. Wissenschaftliche Praxis findet nicht nur stets unter sozial und kulturell geprägten Bedingungen statt, sie erzeugt und erfordert auch eigene, spezifische Muster kulturellen, sozialen und politischen Handelns. Die Wissenschaften, die zu sozialen Systemen bedeutender Größe angewachsen sind, schaffen ihre eigenen Kulturen und Politiken. Durch die Diskussion der gemeinsamen Entstehung wissenschaftlichen Wissens und der Kulturen und Politiken der Forschung leistet der Band einen Beitrag zu einem besseren Verständnis der Rollen wissenschaftlicher Forschung von ihrer Formierung im 17. Jahrhundert bis zu den dramatischen Umbrüchen des 20. Jahrhunderts. Mit Beiträgen von Lorraine Daston, Sven Dierig, Moritz Epple, Evelyn Fox Keller, Mary Jo Nye , Dominique Pestre, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Simon Schaffer, Friedrich Steinle, Catherine Wilson, Norton M. Wise und Claus Zittel.

Science as Practice and Culture explores one of the newest and most controversial developments within the rapidly changing field of science studies: the move toward studying scientific practice—the work of doing science—and the associated move toward studying scientific culture, understood as the field of resources that practice operates in and on. Andrew Pickering has invited leading historians, philosophers, sociologists, and anthropologists of science to prepare original essays for this volume. The essays range over the physical and biological sciences and mathematics, and are divided into two parts. In part I, the contributors map out a coherent set of perspectives on scientific practice and culture, and relate their analyses to central topics in the philosophy of science such as realism, relativism, and incommensurability. The essays in part II seek to delineate the study of science as practice in arguments across its borders with the sociology of scientific knowledge, social epistemology, and reflexive ethnography.

A research-driven approach to investigating and effecting social change from a contextual-psychological point of view, this book argues for a conceptualization of basic human problems in public health terms.

This book provides a genealogical perspective on various forms of mind reading in different settings. We understand mind reading in a broad sense as the twentieth-century attempt to generate knowledge of what people held in their minds – with a focus on scientifically-based governmental practices. This volume considers the techniques of mind reading within a wider perspective of discussions about technological innovation within neuroscience, the juridical system, “occult” practices and discourses within the wider field of parapsychology and magical beliefs. The authors address the practice of, and discourses on, mind reading as they form part of the consolidation of modern governmental techniques. The collected contributions explore the question of how these techniques have been epistemically formed, institutionalized, practiced, discussed, and how they have been used to shape forms of subjectivities – collectively through human consciousness or individually through the criminal, deviant, or spiritual subject. The first part of this book focuses on the technologies and media of mind reading, while the second part addresses practices of mind reading as they have been used within the juridical sphere. The volume is of interest to a broad scholarly readership dealing with topics in interdisciplinary fields such as the history of science, history of knowledge, cultural studies, and techniques of subjectivization.

The State as Cultural Practice offers an original theory of the state. In place of the institutional state, Bevir and Rhodes argue for 'the stateless state', or for a focus on the contingent beliefs and practices of individuals. In short, they put the people back into the study of the state.

This book is about the doing and experiencing of diagnosis in everyday life. Diagnoses are revealed as interactive negotiations rather than as the assigning of diagnostic labels. The authors demonstrate, through detailed discourse analyses, how the diagnostic process depends on power and accountability as expressed through the talk of those engaged in the diagnostic process. The authors also show that diagnostic decisions are not only made by professional experts trained in the art and science of diagnosis, but they can also be made by anyone trying to figure out the nature of everyday problems. Finally, diagnostic reasoning is found to extend beyond typical diagnostic situations, occurring in unexpected places such as written letters of recommendation and talk about the nature of communication. Together, the chapters in this book demonstrate how diagnosis is a communication practice deeply rooted in our culture. The book is interdisciplinary and unusually broad in its focus. The authors come from different experiential scholarly backgrounds. Each of them takes a different look at the impact and nature of the diagnostic process. The diagnoses discussed include autism, Alzheimer’s disease, speech and language disorders, and menopause. The focus is not only on the here and now of the diagnostic interaction, but also on how diagnoses and diagnostic processes change over time. The book can serve as an undergraduate or graduate text for courses offered in various disciplines, including communication, sociology, anthropology, communication disorders, audiology, linguistics, medicine, and disability studies.

A new collection explores the complex role of visual representation in science.