HAPSAT Graduate Workshops - First Winter Session
When and Where
Speakers
Description
HAPSAT GRADUATE WORKSHOPS
Towards Postdramatic Histories of Science & Technology: A Provocation
In person event - Wednesday, February 26, 1:00 p.m. to. 2:30 p.m.
VC 303
The canonical texts of HPS are involved in various kinds of deconstruction: of objectivity, of the notion of the authoritative account, of facticity, of singular causes, of Scientific Revolution itself. There has been a clear trend over the past several decades towards a history of science that emphasizes the situatedness of knowledge, the incompleteness of the archive, the world of many worlds. Yet while there obtains a consensus that “objectivity” is incoherent, that authority is socially and historically constructed, that all facts are contingent, and that there are no singular causes (to say nothing of Scientific Revolutions), this talk argues that the literature produced by our field rhetorically reproduces exactly these categories. It will be argued that the genre of scholarly historical works abide a dialectic structure commensurate with that of drama, borrowing from theories of theatrical performance; there will be certain gestures towards postdramatic solutions, some of them nonverbal.
Graduate Workshop Organizer: Alexandra Calzavara
