MPhil CAST Course Book Year 1 Period 2 (Rules of The Game) 1314

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences MPhil CAST
Year 1 Period 2 2013/2014 Course RCA5001
Course book
The Rules of the Game

CAST Research Methods
CAST Research Methods boardgame, based on Ganzenbord; designed by S. Kuipers en K. Bijsterveld.
MPhil CAST
The Rules of the Game Year 1 / Period 2
CONTENTS Introduction Aims of the course Theme and structure of the course Methods for CAST: enhancing ones passion for research Relation to The State of the Art Lectures Workshops Research Meetings & Research Groups Research Diaries Literature Assessment of research paper Eleum Coordinator/Contact Outline Agendas Meetings References Research Proposals Appendices Appendix A: Appendix B: 5 5 5 5 6 6 6 6 7 8 8 9 9 9 11 19 21
39 Nine questions on the relationship between theory, method and research data 39 Feedback Form for Conference Presentations 40
MPhil CAST
INTRODUCTION
Aims of the course This course teaches students: How to present a research paper at a scholarly conference; How to do the research leading to that paper; How to choose the research methods relevant to ones topic, problem definition and research questions from the rich variety of methods relevant to the field of CAST at large, and how to realize these methods Theme and structure of the course This course centers on the processes leading to the presentation of a research paper at a symposium, and focuses in particular on the choice and realization of the methods to be employed during the research. Since the choice of research methods is intricately related to the definition of ones topic and the phrasing of ones research questions, we will embed the introduction of research methods in a learning-bydoing research project. The course thus consists of two, closely related, parallel lines. The first encompasses the learning by doing research projects in which pairs of students do research, and discuss their progress weekly with the other students and the tutor. Each week will be dedicated to a distinct phase in the process of research. Moreover, students will learn to work with a detailed research diary, which will also help them to manage their time. The second line consists of (a) a series of lectures about methodological issues, and (b) skills training workshops in which students work with particular methods, and in which members of the CAST staff reflect on this work by linking the students activities to the staff members everyday research experiences. Methods for CAST: enhancing ones passion for research Methods are about the best ways to reach particular goals. Or, as the title of this course suggests, methods are the rules of the game1: the keys to the engaging round game we call research. Methods can thus enhance the students passion for research. This passion will, so we hope, be triggered in particular by becoming involved in one of research projects that make up the core business of CAST and its staff. CAST is about how science and technology influence culture and vice versa, and about science, technology and the arts as cultures. We study these cultures by analyzing science, technology and the arts as innovative practices that havein their rituals of and routes to renewalmuch in common, and by seeking to understand the dynamics of
This title has been inspired by: Dehue, T. (1990). De regels van het vak. Nederlandse psychologen en hun methodologie, 1900-1985. Amsterdam: Van Gennep; Dehue, T. (1995). Changing the Rules. Psychology in the Netherlands, 1900-1985. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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these innovative practices. What this means will become clear when reading the research proposals listed at the end of the course book. The topics range from studying the norms concerning the use of mobile phones, our power-point culture and the arty display of research data, to man-dog relations in science and literature, the culture of remembering technological disasters, the architecture of science, the significance of scientific toys, and the self-representation of scientists as detectives. The goals of questioning and understanding these cultures will lead students to the best way to reach these goals: methods. Relation to The State of the Art The focus of the first CAST course was on producing a discussion paper that reviews the use of a particular concept in the (inter)disciplinary fields relevant to CAST. Preparing for and writing such a discussion paper is a very helpful strategy for getting to know new fields of research in a relatively short period of time. Who is who, what are the research priorities of the field, and what could be interesting niches for a researcher who has just entered this field? This course, however, focuses on everything students need to know to produce their first CAST research paper. From now on, the students will not only be studying other peoples research, but will do-it-themselves. Lectures The lectures will encounter issues such as the theoretical assumptions behind the preference for one type of method or the other, the way in which methods enable and constrain particular research questions and the excitements and downsides of combining different research methods. Other lectures will focus on the differences (and similarities) between qualitative and quantitative research, the empirical and rhetorical turns in the fields covered by CAST, and the position of controversy studies in studying science, technology and the arts. Workshops The workshops will give the students a hands-on familiarity with ethnography and ethnomethodology, philosophical argumentation, analyzing historical sources, narrative, rhetorical and discourse analysis, and analysis of art works. Moreover, the last workshop will focus on presenting. Research Meetings & Research Groups Every research meeting has a distinct agenda that refers to the phase of research at hand. At the first meeting, for instance, students start with dreaming about ambitions by presenting a short analysis of the best research article they have ever read. What is it that makes it so good? And how does it inspire their personal
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ambitions concerning research? How would their dreamt-of paper look like? At one of the last group meetings the exemplary article returns on the desks of the students, yet now with a set of particular questions to be answered on how this paper relates theory and research data. This will help the students to experience how their skills to evaluate others workand thus critically appraise their own workhave increased. The other phases involved are: choosing an intriguing topic of research, formulating a clear problem definition and relevant research questions, hunting for empirical details, analyzing empirical material (including coding), choosing vocabulary and style, time management, problem solving in group work, last minute ethics, accepting critique, rewriting, and structuring ones argument. Research Diaries Keeping a research diary helps students to keep track of the progress of their research and to reflect continuously on the appropriateness of their problem definition, research questions, and work program. Doing research starts with dreaming about ambitions and creating a clear focus. Yet right after take-off, one needs to be as flexible as the situation asks for. The research diary enables the students to remember where they came from (and why) and what actions are necessary to produce a research paper that is interesting and relevant to the CAST community and beyond. We therefore ask the students to make five kinds of notes2: Notes on the topic, problem definition, research questions, assumptions and definitions of the key concepts employed. Notes on the research strategy: a what-to-do list with the names of the persons to be e-mailed, phoned and interviewed, on the books to be borrowed from the library, on the (primary) material to be studied. Notes on the actual research results: the typo-scripts of interviews, the summaries of literature, copies and samples of primary material, the classifications, encoding and charts related to the empirical material. Notes on anything problematic and enriching that comes to ones mind while doing the research: ideas that may be something to proceed with, difficulties and doubts encountered during research, tentative answers to (new) research questions, theories that may be helpful, clues mentioned by colleagues, irritating questions of lay people (which may end up to be very helpful), newspaper items that seem to be related to the topic and that position the topic in current affairs, and so on and so forth. In fact, anything that is disturbing or inspiring. This part of the research diary is the initially often confusing side-letter to the notes on ones problem definition and research question. The more honest these notes are, the better the feedback the students will get from other students and tutors. It will also help to manage ones time and to reformulate the set of notes on ones problem definition. Notes on sources: references, archives, addresses of the persons interviewed, web sites et cetera.
The structure of this research diary has been inspired by: Susan Hubbuch (1996). Writing Research Papers Across the Curriculum. Fortworth [etc.]: Harcourt Brace.
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Students are required to take three copies of their research diary (between 1-5 A4) to the research meetings: one copy for themselves, one for the tutor, and one for another pair of students. Also, the students prepare for a 5 minutes presentation of their research diary. In this presentation, they take the agenda of that particular meeting into account. In addition, each pair of students prepares a peer-review on the research of one other pair of students (well make appointments on who will review the work of whom, and explain what peer-review is about). Literature Well ask the students to read many chapters from Clive Seales Researching Society and Culture (2012, 3rd Edition) and from Howard S. Beckers Tricks of the Trade. How to Think about Your Research While Youre Doing it (1998). Students can find both titles in the Studielandschap Cultuurwetenschappen of the library. It may be very convenient, however, to buy these books. In addition, well refer to papers that are available electronically and to articles in journal volumes that are stored in the library. In the first five weeks, the amount of prescribed literature the students need to read will be relatively extensive. In the last three weeks, however, well reduce this so as to stimulate and enable the students to read as much as possible on their research topics. Many of the references will be discussed during the research meetings (as the agendas for these meetings will make clear). Some titles, however, help you to prepare for the workshops. Assessment of research paper We will assess the research papers on two moments. The first moment will be right after the power point presentations of the papers (25 minutes for the duopresentation & 5 minutes for questions from the audience) at the scholarly conference that marks the end of the course. In real life, such presentations are often very important for the enthusiasm one raises with other researchers. Well assess this on the basis of a feedback form (see appendix B) that will be discussed during the course. The second moment is after we have read the hard copy of the papers (50007000 words), which will be more elaborate than and different in style from your presentation. Students need to bring hard copies of their paper for the tutor(s), and send in their papers through safe assignment, on the day before the presentation day, prior to 4 pm. More detailed information about the requirements for the hard copy of the students papers will be provided during the course. The average of the marks for the presentation and the hard copy will be the final mark for each research paper.
Eleum In Eleum, students will find the electronic version of this course book, as well as: Links to electronically available literature A clipboard for tips from colleague-researchers (on relevant literature et cetera) Power point presentations of lectures by staff members (after the actual lecture) Coordinator/Contact Anique Hommels (coordinator): Room E-1.06, T +31 43 3883483/3476, a.hommels@maastrichtuniversity.nl Karin Bijsterveld: Room C-2.07, T +31 43 3883346/3476, k.bijsterveld@maastrichtuniversity.nl Outline The chart below sketches the outline of the module. Please note that each lecture or workshop will take two hours. The research meetings will take 2 hours and the extended research meetings at the end of the course take 3 hours.
Week 1
Lecture Introduction (Hommels) Research Meeting Dreaming of Ambitions & Presenting your Research Diary
Lecture The Turns (Wiebe Bijker) Research Meeting Choosing a Topic & Creating Research Groups Lecture The Method of Controversy Studies in STS (Lachmund)
Week 2
Workshop Ethnography & Ethnomethodology (Khandekar) Research Meeting Defining a Problem and Formulating Research Questions
MPhil CAST
Week 3
Workshop Philosophical Argumentation (Swierstra) Research Meeting Imagery & Serendipity
Workshop Comparative Historical Research (Somsen) Research Meeting Hunting for Details (Sampling, Analyzing Journals and Visiting Archives) Workshop Discourse, Narrative & Rhetorical Analysis (Wesseling) Research Meeting Analyzing II: Sorting Out Texts
Week 4
Workshop Living Apart Together: Qualitative & Quantitative Research (Schmeets) Research Meeting Analyzing I: Classifying, Coding, Comparing & Combining
Week 5
Workshop Analyzing Art Works (Van de Vall) Research Meeting Relating Theory & Research Data
Research Meeting The Visual Display of Results
Week 6
Extended Research Meeting Time Management, Problem Solving in Group Work & Last Minute Ethics
Workshop Presenting (Bijker) Extended Research Meeting Vocabulary & Style Extended Research Meeting Structuring your Argument Symposium (full day)
Week 7
Extended Research Meeting Accepting Critique & Rewriting Consulting
Week 8
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AGENDAS MEETINGS
First week Lecture Anique Hommels Introduction Research Meeting Theme: Dreaming of Ambitions & Presenting your Research Diary Agenda: Please bring the best research article (no book) in English, German or Dutch you have ever read to the research meeting and prepare for a five minutes presentation in which you explain the qualities of the article and how it inspires your own ambitions as to the kind of research paper you would like to write. There is only one constraint: it needs to be an article from the humanities or the qualitative social sciences. How to keep your research diary and how to present it? (Group Discussion) Lecture Wiebe Bijker The Empirical, Rhetorical, Cultural & Political Turns in CAST Research Research Meeting Choosing a Topic & Creating Research Groups Agenda: What does methodology mean in the research fields relevant to CAST? (See literature) Presentation of research diaries with a focus on your choice of research topic and your first ideas about the methodologies that may be relevant Clustering the pairs of students in larger research groups Literature: Bowden, G. (1995). Coming of Age in STS: Some Methodological Musings, In S. Jasanoff [et al] (Eds.), Handbook of Science and Technology Studies (pp. 64-79). London [etc.]: Sage. (SW)3 Silverman, D. (2012). Research and Theory. In C. Seale (Ed). Researching Society and Culture (pp. 30-44). London: Sage. (SW) Epstein, M. (2012). Introduction to the philosophy of science. In C. Seale (Ed). Researching Society and Culture (pp. 9-28). London: Sage. (SW)
SW means that the literature can be found in the open arrangement of the university library.
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Second Week Workshop Aalok Khandekar Ethnography & Ethnomethodology Research Meeting Theme: Defining a Problem and Formulating Research Questions Agenda: How to transform a particular research interest into an interestingly defined problem definition and relevant research questions? (See literature) Presentation of research diaries with a focus on your problem definition and research questions Literature: Booth, W.C. [et al] (1995). The Craft of Research (pp. 35-63, chapters 3&4). Chicago/ London: Chicago University Press. (SW) Hubbuch, S. (1992). Where Do I Begin? In idem, Writing Research Papers Across the Curriculum (pp. 11-41). Fortworth [etc.]: Harcourt Brace. (SW) Walsh, D. (2004). Doing ethnography. In C. Seale (Ed), Researching Society and Culture (pp. 226-237). London: Sage. (SW) Emerson, R.M. [et al] (1995). Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes (pp. 17-65). Chicago: Chicago University Press. (SW)
Workshop Jens Lachmund The Method of Controversy Studies in STS Literature: Nelkin, D. (1995). Science Controversies: The Dynamics of Public Disputes in the United States. In S. Jasanoff [et al] (Ed.), Handbook of Science and Technology Studies (pp. 444-456). London [etc.]: Sage. (SW)
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Third week Lecture Tsjalling Swierstra Philosophical methods Research Meeting Theme: Imagery & Serendipity Agenda: What is the role of imagery in research? (See literature) What does serendipity mean and what are examples of this phenomenon in the sciences and the humanities? Is serendipity a matter of sheer luck or is it a skill? What is the role of the preparedness of the researcher, if any? How to remain capable of being puzzled? (See literature) Presentation of research diaries with a focus on unexpected findings Literature: Hommels, A. & Bijsterveld, K. (2005). Seeking serendipity: looking for one thing and finding another (To be distributed through Eleum). Becker, H. S. (1998). Imagery. In idem, Tricks of the Trade. How to Think about Your Research While Youre Doing it (pp. 10-66). Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press. (SW) Workshop Geert Somsen: Comparative Historical Research Research Meeting Theme: Hunting for Details (Sampling, Analyzing Journals and Visiting Archives) Agenda: What is the relation between journals and their cultural context? What does this mean to their relevance as source for CAST research? How to prepare for visiting archives? How to transform the boring business of studying archives into an exciting one? How to make a choice from the infinite wealth of telling details, or where to stop? (See literature) Presentation of research diaries with a focus on your hunt for details Literature: Becker, H.S. (1998). Sampling. In idem, Tricks of the Trade. How to Think about Your Research While Youre Doing it (pp. 67-108). Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press. (SW) Gidley, B. (2012). Doing historical and documentary research. In C. Seale (Ed), Researching Society and Culture (pp. 263-282). London: Sage. (SW) Livingstone, S. (2003). On the Challenges of Cross-National Comparative Media Research. European Journal of Communication, 18, 4, 477-500. (Library/ejournal)
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Fourth Week Workshop Hans Schmeets Living Apart Together: Qualitative & Quantitative Research Research Meeting Theme: Analyzing I (Classifying, Coding, Comparing & Combining) Agenda: Why are classifying, coding, comparing and combining such crucial phases in doing research? (See literature) Presentation of research diaries with a focus on coding your empirical data Literature: Becker, H. S. (1998). Logic. In idem, Tricks of the Trade. How to Think about Your Research While Youre Doing it (pp. 146-214). Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press. (SW) Rivas, C. (2012). Coding and analyzing qualitative data. In C. Seale (Ed), Researching Society and Culture (pp. 366-392). London: Sage. (SW) Spicer, N. (2012). Combining qualitative and quantitative methods. In C. Seale (Ed). Researching Society and Culture (pp. 479-493). London: Sage. (SW) Workshop Lies Wesseling: Discourse, Narrative & Rhetorical Analysis Research Meeting Theme: Analyzing II (Sorting Out Texts) Agenda: What are the differences and similarities between discourse, narrative and rhetorical analysis (See literature)? What makes these methodologies highly relevant for CAST research? (See literature) Presentation of research diaries with a focus on the analysis of your research data Literature: Bal, M. (2004). Narration and Focalization. Narrative Theory: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies. Volume I: Major Issues in Narrative Theory (pp. 263297). London: Routledge. (SW) (Or an alternative on request) Gross, A.G. (1990). Rhetorical Analysis. In idem, The Rhetoric of Science (pp. 320). Cambridge MA [etc.]: Harvard University Press. (SW) Keith, W. & Rehg, W. (2008). Argumentation in Science. In E.J. Hackett et al. (Eds.) The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, 3rd Edition (pp. 211-239). Cambridge, MA [etc.]: The MIT Press. (SW) Tonkiss, F. (2004). Analysing text and speech: content and discourse analysis. In C. Seale (Ed), Researching Society and Culture (pp. 368-382). London: Sage. (SW)
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Fifth Week Research Meeting Theme: Relating Theory & Research Data Agenda: Presentation of your analysis of the relation between theory and research data in your favourite research article (see first research meeting) with help of Appendix A Presentation of research diaries with a focus on your plans for the relation between theory and empirical data in your own research Literature: Appendix A Gay, P. du [et al.] (1997). Regulating the Walkman. In idem, Doing Cultural Studies. The Story of the Sony Walkman (pp. 112-120). London [etc.]: Sage. (SW) Becker, H. S. (1998). Concepts. In idem, Tricks of the Trade. How to Think about Your Research While Youre Doing it (pp. 109-145). Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press. (SW)
Workshop Renee van de Vall: Analyzing Art Works Research Meeting Theme: The Visual Display of Results Agenda: How to analyze visual sources such as advertisements and television programs? (See literature) Presentation of research diaries with a focus on how you would like to use visuals in your display of results. Literature: Gay, P. du et al. (1997). Introduction/Making Sense of the Walkman. In idem, Doing Cultural Studies. The Story of the Sony Walkman (pp. 1-40). London [etc.] Sage. (SW) Suki, A. (2012). Visual analysis. In C. Seale (Ed), Researching Society and Culture (pp. 283-301). London: Sage. (SW) Burri, R. & Dumit, J. (2008). Social Studies of Scientific Imaging and Visualization. In E.J. Hackett et al. (Eds.) The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, 3rd Edition (pp. 297-317). Cambridge, MA [etc.]: The MIT Press. (SW)
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Sixth Week Extended Research Meeting Theme: Time Management, Problem Solving in Group Work, and Last Minute Ethics Agenda Make a list of everything you still have to do, and estimate the time it will take. Make a second list without a timetable and give this, during the meeting, to another student in your research group. This group member will produce the timetable he/she considers realistic. Discuss the differences. How to handle differences in style of work, time management and views between group members? What is the best way to comment on each others work and behaviour? Please note your answers from your experiences so far. What to do with findings that do not fit the argument you had in mind? Last minute ethics, and back to serendipity Presentation of research diaries with a focus on planning the upcoming two weeks of your research
Workshop Wiebe Bijker Presenting Research Meeting Theme: Vocabulary & Style Agenda: Remember the things you learned in The State of the Art (CAST course 1A) about differences in vocabulary and style within the fields relevant to CAST Which vocabulary and style would be most appropriate for your research paper and presentation, given your topic, theory and methodology? Presentation of research diaries with a focus on your choice of vocabulary and style Literature: Everything relevant from The State of the Art. Silverman, D. (1997). Towards an Aesthetics of Research. In idem, Qualitative Research. Theory, Method and Practice (pp. 239-253). London [etc.]: Sage. (SW)
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Seventh Week Extended Research Meeting Theme: Accepting Critique & Rewriting Agenda: How to accept critique right after the presentation of your paper? The secret of rewriting: accepting good ideas, while keeping yourself and the commentators on track Presentation of research diaries Literature: Luey, B. (2004). Revising Your Dissertation. Advice from leading editors (pp. 24-69). Berkeley, Cal.: The University of California Press. (SW) Appendix B
Extended Research Meeting Theme: Structuring your Argument Agenda How to enhance the (relevance of) your argument (See literature)? Present the outline of your argument Indicate which audiovisual apparatus you need during the symposium (apart from a computer and beamer for your power point-presentation) Announce the title of your presentation Schedule the consulting hour of next week Literature: Booth, W. C. [et al] (1995). The Craft of Research (pp. 88-110, Chapters 7&8). Chicago/London: Chicago University Press (SW). Edwards, P. N. (2005). How to Give an Academic Talk: Changing the Culture of Public Speaking in the Humanities. Available at: http://www.si.umich.edu/~pne/PDF/howtotalk.pdf Bijsterveld, K. & Hommels, A. (2005). Finding a framework for your argument. (Available through Eleum)
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Eighth Week Consulting hour Anyone needing any additional help may consult the tutors Symposium Presentations of all papers; handing in of hard copies of papers.
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REFERENCES
All titles are available at the Studielandschap Cultuurwetenschappen of the University Library, unless indicated differently. Bal, M. (2004). Narrative Theory: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies. Volume I: Major Issues in Narrative Theory. London: Routledge. Becker, H. S. (1998). Tricks of the Trade: How to Think about Your Research While Youre Doing it. Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press. Brake, L. (Ed.) (1990). Investigating Victorian Journalism. Houndmills [etc.]: Macmillan. Bijsterveld, K., & Hommels A. (2005). Finding a framework for your argument. (Available through Eleum) Booth, W. C. (Et al) (1995). The Craft of Research. Chicago/London: Chicago University Press. Edwards, P. N. (2005). How to Give an Academic Talk: Changing the Culture of Public Speaking in the Humanities. (Available at: http://www.si.umich.edu/~pne/PDF/howtotalk.pdf) Emerson, R. M. ( Et al.) (1995). Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Gay, P. du (Et. al.) (1997). Doing Cultural Studies. The Story of the Sony Walkman. London [etc.]: Sage. Gross, A. G. (1990). The Rhetoric of Science. Cambridge MA [etc.]: Harvard University Press. Hackett, E.J. (Et al.) (Eds.) (2008). The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, 3rd Edition (pp. 297317). Cambridge, MA [etc.]: The MIT Press. Hommels, A., & Bijsterveld, K. (2005). Seeking serendipity: looking for one thing and finding another. (Available through Eleum)
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Hubbuch, S. (1996). Writing Research Papers Across the Curriculum. Fortworth [etc.]: Harcourt Brace. Jasanoff, S. (Et al.) (Eds.) (1995). Handbook of Science and Technology Studies. London [etc.]: Sage. Knig, W. (2003). Der Kulturvergleich in der Technikgeschichte. Archiv fr Kulturgeschichte, 85(2), 413-436 (Available on Request). Livingstone, S. (2003). On the Challenges of Cross-National Comparative Media Research. European Journal of Communication, 18(4), 477-500 (To be retrieved from the journals in the open arrangement of the University Library, see also e-journals). Luey, B. (2004). Revising Your Dissertation. Advice of Leading Editors. Berkeley, Cal.: The University of California Press. Seale, C. (Ed) (2012, 3rd ed.) Researching Society and Culture. London: Sage. Silverman, D. (1997). Qualitative Research. Theory, Method and Practice. London [etc.]: Sage.
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RESEARCH PROPOSALS
The aims behind the research proposals listed below are twofold. First, the list seeks to help students to start up their research project. Second, it gives students an impression of the research interests of the CAST staff, which may be helpful in later phases of the research master. The references mentioned below the proposals are often not available in the University Library, but are to be ordered through IBL. Please note that the staff members who formulated the research proposals will not supervise the learning-by-doing-research projects. The coordinator and tutor(s) of this module will supervise the research projects during the research meetings. Yet students may inform staff members about their interest in particular proposals, and well invite the staff members whose proposals have been chosen at the concluding conference. Mapping the Sound of European Cities (Karin Bijsterveld) In 2000, on the brink of the new millennium, the European Commission decided to harmonize all European indices for traffic, aircraft and other noise into one index, the Lden. On the basis of this index, European cities had to draw maps of their environment that would indicate the levels of noise within the city boundaries. The intention behind the harmonization and the subsequent maps was that this would enable European citizens to see and compare the levels of noise they have to live with, and that this knowledge would stimulate national governments to speed up their noise abatement policies and to tackle noise pollution. Drawing such maps and visualize sound happened to be far from self-evident, however. How do the European member-states create their city noise maps? What are the technologies (such as virtual microphones), data (such as detailed information about the built environment) and suppositions about the relations between sound, vision and the art of maps below the choices made by the teams creating the maps? What do the answers to these questions mean in terms of the aims of the European Union? And how can the historiopgraphy of maps as tools for knowledge development and policy intervention help to make this ongoing process of choices and effects understandable? Butler, D. (2004). Sound and vision. Nature, 427 (February 5), 480-481. See: http://www.nature.com/nature http://www.paris.fr/FR/Environment/bruit http://europe.eu.int/comm/environment/noise/home.htm#2 http://www.harmonoise.nl Monmonier, M. (1996). How to lie with maps. Chicago: Chicago University Press. (See also other works of Monmonier).
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Eavesdropping on Europe: Wire Tapping and Speaker Identification in the Cold War Era (Karin Bijsterveld) The introduction of the magnetic tape recorder in the 1940s raised public concern on the practices of eavesdropping, the right to use tape recordings in criminal law suits and the possibilities for identifying voices on audio recordings of telephone wire taps. In the cold war era these debates and practices began to diverge immensely between the Western and the Eastern European Countries. In some of the Eastern European countries private ownership of a tape recorder was initially forbidden. On both sides of the iron curtain, secret services and police officers used wire tapping for surveillance of political and criminal activities. Yet the status of these taps in court differed. Moreover, scientists in the East and West fundamentally disagreed on whether speaker identification on the basis of audio spectrograms of tapes was possible in any valid way, or not. Students are welcome to study these practices on the basis of both secondary literature and primary sources for different European countries. Students with knowledge of German and/or Russian are especially invited to contribute to this strand of research. Broeders, A.P.A. (2002). Het herkennen van stemmen. In P.J. van Koppen et al. (Eds.), Het recht van binnen: psychologie van het recht (pp.573-596). Deventer: Kluwer. Grossblting, Th. et al. (1995). Anatomie der Staatssicherheit: Geschichte,Struktur und Methoden. Berlin: Ministerium fr Staatssicherheit. Solan, L.M. & Tiersma, P.M. (2003). Hearing Voices: Speaker Identification in Court, Hastings Law Journal, 54, 373-435. In case of breakdown: cultural collaboration in emergency communication (Anique Hommels) Communication networks for emergency services (police, ambulance, fire brigade) are among societies most critical infrastructures. This project focuses on international collaboration in emergency communication. After the Schengen Agreements were signed in the late 1980s, several attempts were made to establish a closer European collaboration in the field of public safety. Crucial in these attempts was the development of a common European standard for emergency communication called Tetra. This project focuses on the difficulties involved in cross-border collaboration between emergency services. How did transnational connections between the emergency services of different European countries come into existence? How did differences in (organizational) culture, risk perceptions, technologies, and emergency procedures influence (or hamper) international collaboration in emergency situations? Did the introduction of the Tetra standard improve the quality of the collaboration between countries? What are the implications for the vulnerability or resilience of our technological culture? One way to analyze these questions would be to study some examples of border disasters and accidents in Europe to scrutinize how international communication in emergency
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situations actually took place. Another possibility would be to observe a practical field-test (held a couple of times a year in the Euregion around Maastricht) among emergency workers of different countries. A final suggestion is to make a comparative analysis of cross-border collaboration before and after the implementation of the Tetra standard. Conceptually, this thesis may draw on recent STS debates on the vulnerability of technological culture, research in the history of technology on (critical) transnational infrastructures, and standardization research. Bijker, W. E. (2006). The Vulnerability of Technological Culture. In H. Nowotny(Ed.), Cultures of Technology and the Quest for Innovation (pp. 52-69). London: Berghahn Vleuten, E., v.d., & Kaijser, A. (Eds.). (2006). Networking Europe. Transnational Infrastructures and the Shaping of Europe, 1850-2000. Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History Publications. Schueler, J., Fickers, A., & Hommels, A. (Eds.). (2008). Bargaining Norms Arguing Standards. Negotiating Technical Standards. The Hague: STT Netherlands Study Centre for Technology Trends. Breaching the norms of mobile phone behavior (Anique Hommels) Since the mid 1990s mobile phones have become omni-present in the public spaces around us. People use their mobile phone in trains, buses, libraries, tutorial groups and on the street. The increasing use of the mobile phones in public also leads to irritation and embarrassment. Over the past decade, informal norms and official rules have been developed to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable mobile behavior. But what exactly counts as acceptable mobile behavior and for whom? How do people set norms for mobile behavior? How do they react to people who violate these norms? How do people employ the technical possibilities (sound level, ringtones) of their phone to adjust themselves to certain norms? What is the role of body language? Is it possible to distinguish between different norms in different consumer or age groups? Are there any cultural differences between what counts as accepted mobile behavior? How place-specific are the norms for mobile behavior? This project may involve a combination of observations in specific locations, interviews, discourse analysis, and breaching experiments. Breaching experiments are intended to make existing norms visible by breaching them (see Garfinkel, 1967). Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. Katz, J., & Aakhus, M. (Eds.) (2002). Perpetual Contact. Mobile Communication, Private talk, Public Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ling, R. (2004). The Mobile Connection: The Cell Phones Impact on Society. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers. Oudshoorn, N., & Pinch, T. (Eds.) (2003). How users matter. The co-construction of users and technology. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Turkle, S. (2011). Alone Together. Why we expect more from technology and less from each other. London: Basic Books.
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Man meets dog (Wiel Kusters) Among the domesticated animal species, dogs of all breed and varieties occupy a major place. Darwin claimed that they are co-heirs of our culture. Later biologists, as the ethologist Konrad Lorenz, speak in terms of an ancient pact between man and dog, grounded on common interests and having grown into friendship. No wonder, that man has reflected a lot on this relationship, in natural history, psychology, ethology, and in literary writing (plays, poems, short stories, novels). How did these reflections take shape in so different kinds of texts? How is the relationship between man and dog being conceptualized, represented, constructed? And what can we say about the way in which human reflection is at the same time shaping an image of itself? These are questions with a historical dimension that must be discussed in the context of social and political ideologies and of religion. An interesting starting point for research into this theme, when concentrating on the 20th century, could be found in a comparison of the story Herr und Hund (A man and his dog) (1919) by Thomas Mann; F.J.J. Buytendijk, De psychologie van den hond (The mind of the dog) (1933); and So kam der Mensch auf den Hund (Man meets dog) (1950) by Konrad Lorenz. No doubt, many publications on this theme, both literary, philosophical, and scientific, can be found in many languages. A recent example is: The companion species manifesto.Dogs, people, and significant otherness (2003) by Donna Haraway. An interesting complication with this research theme is, that part of the secondary literature can be identified itself as an object of research insofar these writings are not itself explicitly dealing with questions of representation. Crist, E. (1999). Images of animals. Anthropomorphism and the animal mind. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Darwin, C. ([1871, 1874] 1998). The descent of man. With an introduction by H. James Birx. Amherst: Prometheus Books. Garber, M. (1996). Dog love. New York: Simon & Schuster. Noske, B. (1989). Humans and other animals. London: Pluto. Serpell, J. (1986). In the company of animals. A study of human-animal relationships. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. The Powerpoint-Culture (Jens Lachmund) In recent years, the culture of academic conference discourse has taken a remarkable visual turn. Notably, the technology of the power-point presentation has become a new way of presenting research topics, activities and results on academic conferences and workshops. Whereas previous academic presentations largely followed a narrative and argumentative format, with the use of power point images became the main carriers of messages. Linguistic forms of narrative and argumentation are now increasingly build around a sequence of focal images. This project probes the
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implications of this new visual technology for the creation and negotiation of scientific knowledge claims. A first part of the project is a historical-sociological study of this rise of power point in academia. What were the moving forces behind this transformation? Through which processes did a former communication technique of business consultants enter the very center of academic culture? How does the use of powerpoint differ within disciplines with a strong visual tradition (e.g. medicine, history of arts) and those with a largely discursive culture of presentation (e.g. sociology, history). A second part of the project will be an ethnographic analysis of power-point practices in different disciplines. How is powerpoint evidence enacted in the situated activities of academic conferences? How do participants acquire, select, and order power point pictures? What makes a power point presentation convincing or catchy and what does not? How do participants deal with the complexity of the hardware of the technology, including the typical breakdowns of computerprograms and beamers? Evans, J., & Hall, S. (Eds.) (1999). The Visual Culture Reader. Milton Keynes: The Open Univerity. Fyfe, G., & Law, J. (Eds.) (1988). Picturing Power. Visual Depiction and Social Relations. London: Routledge. Hall, S. [et al] (1997). Doing Cultural Studies. The Story of the Sony Walkman. London: Sage. Law, J., & Woolgar, S. (Eds.) (1990). Representation in Scientific Practice. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Shapin, S. (1994). A Social History of Truth. London: University of Chicago Press. Remembering Disaster: Chernobyl in Collective Imagination (Jens Lachmund) The breakdown of a nuclear reactor in Chernobyl in 1986 is one of the most outstanding examples of a new type of large-scale technological disasters that have shaken contemporary technological culture. It did not only attract the attention of an almost global audience; it has also entered social imagination and collective memory throughout Europe and other parts of the world. How do modern cultures remember the technical disasters they have produced? What do they remember and what do they forget? What are the symbolic and cultural forms (narratives, images, public rituals etc.) in which these events are framed and sustained within an ongoing communicative tradition? What are the inherent conflicts and ambivalences of such memorizing practices? Does the way in which previous disasters are memorized shape or even challenge the future use and legitimacy of a technology? Although in the recent decade, many historians and sociologist have worked on the social construction of memory, they have rarely touched on technological disasters.
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The project uses the example of Chernobyl to address these questions both historically and comparatively. Its main part is a discourse analysis of the media coverage of the yearly anniversary of the Chernobyl event in two European countries. It aims at tracing the various metaphors and stories through which this event has been framed over time and space. It will not only ask, how these framings changed over time but also how they were linked the Chernobyl event to other concerns about the safety technology and related political constituencies. Fentress, J., & Wickham, C. H. (1992). Social Memory. Oxford: Blackwell. Hinchman, L. P., & Hinschman, S. K. (1997). Memory, identity, community. Albany: SUNY. Jasanoff, S. (1994). Learning from disaster. Risk management after Bhopal, University of Pennsylvania Press. Liberatore, A. (1999). The Management of Uncertainty. Learning from Chernobyl. Amsterdam: Gordon & Breach. Olick, J. K. (1998). Memory and the Nation. Durham: Duke Univerity Press. Computers in the arts & humanities (Sally Wyatt) Art historians and museum curators have used computational techniques to help them decide whether a painting really is by a particular artist. Literary scholars are trying to develop computational techniques to help them decide whether a novel is good or bad. At a time, when funding is becoming ever more scarce for traditional humanities, there are many initiatives in the Netherlands and elsewhere to support digital humanities, or computational humanities. Is this an innovative effort to bring together humanities and computers to generate new knowledge and insights? Can computers make aesthetic judgements? Are we witnessing the emergence of a new interdisciplinary area of enquiry? Or is this simply a way for humanities scholars to obtain research funding, by jumping on the digital bandwagon? There are different ways to address such questions case studies of particular projects, developments in funding programmes by research councils, publication of new literature, or some combination. Collins, H.M. (1992). Artificial Experts. Social Knowledge and Intelligent Machines. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Gold, M. (Ed.). (2012). Debates in the Digital Humanities. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. Whitley, R. (2000). The Intellectual and Social Organization of the Sciences, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wouters, P. et al (Eds). (2013). Virtual Knowledge. Experimenting in the Humanities and the Social Sciences. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Websites: - Riddle of Literary Quality project: http://literaryquality.huygens.knaw.nl/ - New painting by van Gogh: http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/vgm/index.jsp?page=330726&lang=en
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Cycling and bicycle policies from the perspective of cultural history and international comparison (Harry Oosterhuis) After the Second World War, the bicycle rapidly lost ground to the car as a mass mode of individual transportation throughout the Western world. Since the 1970s bicycle traffic has increased again in some countries, and especially since the last two decades, many governments have introduced policies to promote the use of the bicycle in daily transport. In order to underpin these policies, social-scientific and traffic-engineering studies have addressed the development and facilitation of bicycle use. Among Western countries, however, there seems to be no correlation between the policies implemented and the actual share of cycling in traffic. Similar policy measures have in fact produced widely different outcomes. To explain this divergence, this article questions basic presuppositions of current bicycle policies and research. The main problem is that the influence of historical and cultural factors on levels and practices of bicycle use has basically been ignored. My analysis suggests that the diverging effects of cycling policies can largely be attributed to differences in national bicycle cultures that are rooted in history. These cultures are characterized by the collective meanings attributed to cycling and by interrelated attitudes, experiences and habits. To a large extent such cultural factors have taken shape in long-term historical trajectories and as such they are largely immune to rational considerations and can hardly be influenced through traffic engineering and social planning. This is elaborated by comparing the history of bicycling in various countries.The methods used include comparison of quantative data with respect to bicycle-levels, discourse analysis of the contents of policy documents and bicycle research reports, and historical research. Krizek, K., A. Forsyth & L. Baum (2009). Walking and Cycling International Literature Review. Final Report. Melbourne: Department of Transport, State of Victoria. Stoffers, Manuel & Harry Oosterhuis (2009). Ons populairste vervoermiddel. De Nederlandse fietshistoriografie in internationaal perspectief. Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden/The Low Countries Historical Review, 124:3, 390-418. Parkin, John (Ed.) (2012). Cycling and Sustainability. Bingley, UK: Emerald. . Pucher, John & Ralph Buehler (Eds.) (2012). City Cycling. Cambridge (MA), Londen: The MIT Press. Oosterhuis, Harry (2014). Bicycle Research between Bicycle Policies and Bicycle Culture. Mobility in History 5, 20-36.
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Comparing national cultures of psychiatry (Harry Oosterhuis) The history of psychiatry and mental health care offers numerous examples of crossnational inquiries by doctors and others who wished to learn about psychiatry in other parts of the Western world, and perhaps seek models to adopt in their home country. International study trips were and still are - a favourite way to collect information firsthand. Correspondence with foreign colleagues and international conferences on psychiatry and mental health and hygiene provided other opportunities to be informed. After the Second World War, the World Health Organization (WHO) played an active part in generating information about the state of mental health care in various countries, largely in order to set international standards for mental health care. The European Community also functioned as a framework for reporting on mental health policies in the member states. The reports and publications resulting from these various, internationally orientated fact-finding and policy-oriented reports, however different in scope, depth, and method, all bear witness of attempts to learn about and from each other for practical purposes. While mental health professionals and policymakers have time and again reported on different countries, historians of psychiatry have only hesitantly followed suit, focused as most of them were on their home-countries. In recent years some attempts have been made at comparative history of psychiatry and mental health care in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Comparing national psychiatric cultures or aspects of these cultures has proved to be rewarding but also difficult, for at least two different reasons. Firstly, scholars are faced with the problem of the availability of historical research with a sufficiently similar focus, especially when relating to fairly recently developed research interests such as the patients view, the role of the family, the different options for care and treatment, the way patients were admitted to and dismissed from mental institutions, psychiatric nursing, psychopharmacology, social psychiatry, outpatient mental health care, and the financial aspects of mental health care. Secondly, historians are confronted with methodological problems relating to the availability of sources, and the translation and comparability of terminology and data from different countries and periods. The term mental health care in itself, for example, does not have the same meaning in various national cultures. In some it refers to a wide sphere of activity, including the care for the mentally handicapped and demented elderly as well as several outpatient facilities and counseling centres for psychological and social problems. In others it mainly concerns psychiatry in a more narrow sense: the care and treatment of the mentally ill. The way the boundaries of the mental health domain were and are drawn and its relation to adjacent fields, such as poor relief, general health care, social work, pastoral care, education, and justice, varies from nation to nation. Concepts like 'social psychiatry', 'psychotherapy', and 'de-institutionalisation' may give rise to confusion. In some countries, psychotherapy and counseling were part and parcel of psychiatry and (public) mental health care, but in others they developed in the context of private practices, psychosomatic medicine or social work. In general, comparative research seems to be most rewarding when it is problem-oriented and focuses on a particular subject.
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Forsythe, B., &. Melling, J. (Eds) (1999). Insanity, Institutions and Society, 18001914. A Social History of Madness in Comparative Perspective. London/New York: Routledge. Gijswijt-Hofstra, M., & Porter, R. (Eds.) (1998). Cultures of Psychiatry and Mental Health Care in Postwar Britain and the Netherlands. Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi. Gijswijt-Hofstra, M. [et al.] (Eds.) (2005). Psychiatric Cultures Compared. Psychiatry and Mental Health Care in the Twentieth Century: Comparisons and Approaches. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Micale, M. S., & Porter, R. (Eds.) (1994). Discovering the History of Psychiatry. New York etc.: Oxford University Press. Neve, M., & Oosterhuis, H. (Eds.). (2004). Social Psychiatry and Psychotherapy in the Twentieth Century: Anglo-Dutch-German Perspectives. Special Issue of Medical History, 47(4). An insult to the ear: the unnaturalness of atonal music? (Jan de Roder) It is often said that music lovers simply didnt understand the free atonal music of Arnold Schnberg. In his new grandiose history of western music Richard Taruskin (2005) claims that music lovers understood it all too well but simply didnt like it. To most people this music was an insult to the ear. In Taruskins view the twentieth century in music starts with Stravinskys neoclassicism while the music of Schnberg turned from atonal to the twelve-tone technique. The atonal period (sometimes called late-late romanticism) thus marked the end of the long nineteenth century, not the beginning of the twentieth century in music (a view most historians of music, and Schnberg himself, adhere to). Taruskin associates free tonal music with striving for a maximum of expression; neoclassicism and twelve-tone music he associates with objectivity, discipline, and order (comparable by the way to T.S. Eliots literary aspirations). Taruskin elaborates on Schnbergs ideas on atonal compositions largely from a nonmusicological perspective (more or less accusing Schnberg of a the customer is always wrong attitude). Of course it is difficult to explain the distaste for atonal music now and then. But imagine we take the expression an insult to the ear more seriously. What does it mean that for most people atonal music sounds unnatural? Considering music as language might shed some light on this issue. Lerdahl and Jackendoff (1996) showed that the system of tonal hierarchies characterizing the sound of classical European music (for instance the music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven) answers to the same principles underlying natural language. Thus from a Chomskyan biological perspective human beings seem to have an innate musical faculty as well as an innate language faculty. Perhaps Leonard Bernstein was right after all when he tried to work out a musical syntax drewing parallels with the syntax of natural language in his Harvard Lectures (Bernstein 1976). Since language is a universal feature of human nature, all humans have clear intuitions about how to group words into word groups and word groups into sentences when listening to speech. The question is whether we have musical intuitions too, perhaps even universal intuitions. And if so, does atonal music counter our musical intuition? And in what way does atonal music differ from twelve-tone music in this perspective? Is
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Taruskin right in making a radical distinction between the two (modern the last, romantic the first)? Bernstein, L. (1976). The unanswered question. Six talks at Harvard. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Jackendoff, R. (2002). Foundations of language. Brain, meaning, grammar, evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lerdahl, F. & Jackendoff, R. (1996). A generative theory of tonal music. London: MIT Press. Schnberg, Arnold (1975). Style and idea. Selected writings. Ed. Leonard Stein. London: Faber and Faber. Taruskin, R. (2005). The Oxford history of Western Music. (6 Vols.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fraud and Pseudo-Science (Geert Somsen) In recent years a number of serious scandals have upset the scientific world. In 2006 a renowned Korean life scientist turned out to have fabricated long series of experiments. In 2011 and 2013 ministers of the German federal administration appeared to have plagiarized their PhD theses. And in 2011 the Dutch starpsychologist Diederik Stapel admitted to have made-up most of his research data. Many of these cases have given rise to intensive studies of what went wrong as well as series of recommendations and measures to prevent future cases of fraud. These responses are important in their own right. But they also form very interesting study material for researchers of scientific culture. After all, the new measures to ensure proper scientific practice can be analyzed as new instances of boundary work, that is: attempts to define what is real science and what is not. The committees that author such stipulations usually claim to be only restating existing definitions. But the cases at hand almost inevitably have led them to adapt those definitions to new circumstances. This project can draw its theory methods from Thomas Gieryns famous work on boundary work. And it can take its material from the various academic reports and proposals written in response to the scandals. How do they draw the boundary? How do they propose that borders can be patrolled? What exactly counts as proper conduct now and how does this differ from previous rules and regulations? What explains the change? Popper, K. (1963). Conjectures and Refutations. London: Routledge. (chapter 11: The Demarcation between Science and Metaphysics) Gieryn, Thomas F. (1995). Boundaries of Science in: S. Jasanoff et al. (Eds.). Handbook of Science and Technology Studies. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Sources: - European Code of Conduct for Scientific Integrity - Note on Scientific Integrity and Complaint Procedure (KNAW)
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Report joint investigation committee on fraudulent psychologist Diederik Stapel
Science and Technology in Images of the West (Geert Somsen) In recent years, intensive soul-searching has started in many western countries on the question of what defines our culture. What is the West? Who are we? What does our way of life stand for? Since September 11th 2001, answers to these questions tend to be increasingly given in opposition to Islam, as the definitive other culture that is supposed to represent all the reverse characteristics. A steady stream of books, articles, and debates discuss issues like the clash of civilizations, fundamentally different value-systems, diverging lines of historical development, etcetera. Sometimes, these characterizations are very idealistic, stereotypical, or even simplistic. Nevertheless, they are always important as cultural constructions of our collective identity and self-image. The central question of this research topic is to what extent science and technology are used in the recent constructions of western identity. There is a long tradition of seeing scientific and technological advancement as the markers of what makes us modern, and as distinguishing features of the West. Are they still being used in this way today? And is Islamic culture presented as nonscientific or a-technological? Analyzing recent books, articles or discussions about Islam and the West can throw light upon these (sometimes explicit, sometimes hidden) assumptions of our self-image. Armour, R. (2002). Islam, Christianity, and the West: a troubled history. Maryknoll, NY: Osbis books. Bernard, L. (2002). What went wrong? The clash between Islam and modernity in the Middle East. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Lorraine Daston (2006). History of Science as European Self-Portraiture, European Review 14, 523-536. Huntington, S. P. (2002 [1996]). The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order. London: Free Press. Said, E. W. (1997). Covering Islam: How the media and the experts determine how we see the rest of the world. New York: Vintage books. Steven Shapin (2007). Science and the Modern World, in: Edward Hackett, Olga Amsterdamska, Michael Lynch, and Judy Wajcman (eds.), The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, 3rd ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 433-448. The Architecture of Science (Geert Somsen) University buildings (also the ones that you regularly spend time in) represent and demarcate science. They represent it, because they are almost literally the universitys face to the outside world, and therefore university governors usually want them to have an appropriate and attractive learned image. In the past, this was done by the use of classical columns, academic building styles, the placement of names or sculptures of famous scientists on the faade, etcetera. Today, the university buildings are more modern, but the wish to make them representative has not
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become weaker. Only the means by which this is done have changed. Even when a university department uses a previously existing building, representation is still important. Apart from representing, buildings also divide. On passing the gate of a university building, one enters the world of science. But also within university buildings, demarcations are made. Which spaces are for teaching, which are for research? Who has access and at what times? How is access being controlled? What room is for what department, person, or profession? Questions like these are subject to careful planning and intense negotiation, especially when a building is being designed or occupied for the first time. Look at the ways in which the relation between science and architecture have been studied in the literature, and try to make a similar analysis of one of the university buildings in Maastricht. Use the files per street address in the Maastricht city archives or interview people who have been involved in the recent design or occupation of the building. Forgan, S. (1986). Context, Image and Function: a Preliminary Enquiry into the Architecture of Scientific Societies. British Journal for the History of Science, 19, 89-113. Galison, P., & Thompson, E. (Eds.) (1999). The Architecture of Science. Cambridge, Mass./London: MIT Press. Gieryn, T. F. (1998). Biotechnologys Private Parts (and Some Public Ones). In A. Thackray (Ed.), Private Science. Biotechnology and the Rise of the Molecular Sciences (pp. 219-254). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Knowles, S. G., & Leslie, S.W. (2001). Industrial Versailles: Eero Saarinens Corporate Campuses for GM, IBM, and AT&T. Isis, 92, 1-33. Eureka! The Rhetoric of Discovery Stories (Geert Somsen)
Holy shit! I hissed and let off the accelerator. The car coasted into a downhill turn. I pulled off. A giant buckeye stuck out from the hill. It rubbed against the window where Jennifer, my girlfriend and co-worker, was asleep, and she stirred. I found an envelope and a pencil in the glove compartment. Jennifer wanted to get moving. I told her something incredible had just occurred to me. She yawned and leaned back against the window to go back to sleep. We were at mile marker 46.58 on Highway 128, and we were at the very edge of the dawn of the age of PCR. I could feel it. () I would be famous. I would get the Nobel Prize. (Nobel laureate Kary Mullis on his discovery of the DNA multiplication technique PCR)
Famous discoveries often come with famous discovery stories. Newton was hit by an apple and found the universal law of gravitation. Archimedes was taking a bath and discovered the law of Archimedes (shouting eureka!). And Kekul was having a dream when the secrets of molecular structure occurred to his mind. The truth of these stories is often highly questionable. But true or not, they are also important and
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interesting as myths. As myths they help to attribute a discovery to a particular person and moment, even (or especially) when that person or moment are dubious or in fact being doubted. Discovery stories, that is, also serve a rhetorical function. Discovery stories often draw upon very similar patterns. They almost exclusively portray the discoverer in solitude, or at least not in the company of anybody related to his or her scientific pursuit. They also often involve flashes of insight: sudden moments when everything becomes clear at once. And they tend to take place in non-scientific settings, at moments when the discoverer was actually not at work. What are these patterns in discovery stories? Where do they come from? What function do they serve in attributing the discovery to a particular person and moment? What is at stake in this attribution, who is the competition? Investigate these questions for one of the following dossiers of discovery stories. 1. A collection of discovery stories, unanalyzed and pretty much taken at face value: Roberts, R. M. (1989). Serendipity. Accidental discoveries in science. New York [etc.]: John Wiley. 2. One very famous discovery story: Watson, James (1968). The Double Helix. A personal account of the discovery of the structure of DNA. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson. The following book contains Watsons The Double Helix as well as a series of critical commentaries by Watsons co-discoverer Francis Crick and others involved. These can be used for a more critical look at Watsons own account, and hence for a better understanding of his rhetoric. Stent, Gunther S. (Ed.) (1980). James D. Watson, The Double Helix. A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA. Text. Commentary. reviews. Original papers. New York, London: Norton. 3. Kekuls discovery dreams: Wotiz, John H. (Ed.) (1993). The Kekul riddle. A challenge for chemists and psychologists. Clearwater, Fl. Cache River Press. Schiemenz, Gnther P. (1993). A heretical look at the Benzolfest. British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 195-205. Somsen, Geert (1994). Kekul droomde een prachtig verhaal. Chemisch Magazine, 359-360. Brannigan, A. (1981). The social basis of scientific discoveries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shapin, S. (1998). The Philosopher and the Chicken: On the Dietetics of Disembodied Knowledge. In C. Lawrence & S. Shapin (Eds.), Science Incarnate. Historical Embodiments of Natural Knowledge (pp. 21-50). Chicago etc.: The University of Chicago Press. Shapin, S. (1990). The Mind is its own Place: Science and solitude in 17thcentury England. Science in Context, 4, 191-218.
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Scientific Toys (Jo Wachelder) An interesting, but neglected topic among historians, sociologists and philosophers of science is the interplay between play and experiment, and the relationships between toys and instruments. Luckily there are some stimulating scouts in the field. In 1987, Gerald E Turner devoted his presidential address to the British Society for the History of Science to scientific toys. Jackie Britton has investigated the prospects of toys for historians of technology. She argues, convincingly, that, for the twentieth century, the history of toys provides us with an alternative history of technology, more socially centred with the emphasis placed on the diffusion than on the innovation stage of a technologys life cycle. For the nineteenth century, Brian Gees Amusement Chests and Portable Laboratories functions as a path breaking study, dealing with the relationship between scientific research and toys. The focus of Brian Gees paper is not the diffusion of knowledge but how scientific toys stimulated youngsters in their scientific career. In the twentieth century the relationship between scientific experiment and playing has changed a lot. Experimental scientists use more, more complex and more standardized equipment. Nonetheless, in the last century certain scientific toys were on the market. Think e.g. at electro chests, chemist chests or radio construction manuals. Most of those toys, however, disappeared within a few decades from the toys shops. Analyse the rise and fall of one scientific toy out of the twentieth century, and draw a comparison with the nineteenth century and our contemporary digital era. Britton, J. (s.d.) Technology in Toyland: A Study of Miniature Technology, 1920 to 1970. Science Museum Papers in the History of Technology, No 2. London: s.n. Gee, B. (1989). Amusement Chests and Portable Laboratories: Practical Alternatives to the Regular Laboratory. In F. A. J. L. James (Ed.), The Development of the Laboratory: Essays on the Place of Experiment in Industrial Civilization. Houndsmills [etc.]: Macmillan. Turner, G.L.E. (1987). Scientific Toys. British Journal for the History of Science, 20, 377-398. Horowitz, R., & Stanton, Ph. B. (1999). Boys and their Toys. Thousands Oaks: Sage. Oldenziel, R. (1999). Making Technology Masculine: Women, Men, and the Machine in America, 1880-1945. Amsterdam/Ann Arbor: Amsterdam University Press/Chicago University Press.
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Standardization of Colour (Jo Wachelder) Although colour saturates culture, one rarely considers how colour is controlled. Colour standardization the attempt to hem in hue is central to the functioning of our material culture. Signature colours like John Deere green, IBM blue, and Barbie pink rely on consistency and conformity to establish brand identity, which is precisely why the Starbucks green logo looks the same whether youre sipping lattes in Vancouver, Manhattan, or Beijing, and why Pepsis blue only lightened up after extensive market research. Yet several questions pertaining to colour standardization arise. If colour is central to the functioning of our material culture, then who determines and regulates the hues? Is this a legitimate case of colour codification and if so, how is it accomplished? Further, what does the industry approach to standardizing colour reveal about the wider socio-cultural environment in which it operates? With the above lines Charlene Elliott (2002) introduced the fascinating topic of the standardization of colour. Elliott focuses in her paper on the United States of America. But the standardization of colour has a long history in Europe too. Already in 1913 the Commission Internationale de leclairage (CIE) started, which is still active (http://www.cie.co.at/index.html). The CIE is acknowledged by ISO (http://www.iso.org/iso/en/ISOOnline.frontpage) as an international standardizetion body. In 1990 A.M. Marsden compiled a short history of the CIE. In 1993 the International Color Consortium was established by eight industry vendors for the purpose of creating, promoting and encouraging the standardization and evolution of an open, vendor-neutral, cross-platform color management system architecture and components (http://www.color.org/). Study the history and practice of the standardization of colour in Europe, and draw a comparison with Elliott conclusions. Elliott, Charlene (2002). Crayoned Culture: The Colour Elite and the Commercial Nature of Colour Standardization. Canadian Review of American Studies, 32, 3, online http://www.utpjournals.com/product/cras/331/elliott. html Marsden, A. M. (1990). CIE History 1913-1988. Publication CIE 82-1990. Space for Development (Wiebe Bijker) From 2013, the European Space Agency will launch several satellites, called Sentinels, with instruments (payloads) for remote sensing. The data generated (from 2015) by the Sentinels will be freely available for everyone, including developing countries. To use these free data for local applications, developing countries can acquire data that are processed and analysed elsewhere. Although useful, this will hardly contribute to the strengthening of their own space-based technology infrastructure and thus keep developing countries dependent on western space technology.
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Dutch enterprises are frontrunners in developing payloads (instruments) and ICT applications for data processing, analysing and modelling. They work closely together with universities and other publicly funded knowledge institutions. This expertise can assist developing countries in strengthening local expertise in developing space technology and in data processing, analysing and modelling that is custom-made to their needs. Reciprocally, developing countries that show a strong political commitment for space science and that have a growing economy provide an interesting, growing market for Dutch space expertise. How could such activities play a role in development collaboration between Europe and Africa? The concept of development is changing, being more about addressing global challenges for mutual benefits than about helping underdeveloped countries. Space science and technology seems to offer a double-edged sword: it lifts the development concept to a more equitable level and offers opportunities to develop local solutions for global challenges such as climate change.
Background
Space sciences can roughly be divided in upstream science and technology and downstream applications of technology. Upstream, space science not only addresses some of the more fundamental questions on (astro-)physics but also generates knowledge leading to major technology spin-offs thereby boosting the economy. Downstream, space science & technology have been applied practically in communication and navigation. In addition, data obtained by space infrastructure can be used in providing solutions for societal and environmental problems. For example, earth observation satellites can provide information on migration flows, agricultural yields, the presence of minerals, land use, air quality and the spread of diseases. These applications heavily rely on data collected by satellites and applying ICT technology. Satellites are electro-mechanical devices that deliver services while orbiting in space as semi-independent robots. Each satellite is custom designed to perform a unique service, but most satellites acquire and transfer information. Most earth-orbiting missions can be classified into four major categories: studying space itself, remote sensing, communication and navigation. A satellite has two basic sections. One section is known as the payload. The payload is the part of the satellite that provides services to an end user (for example a camera or other sensor). The other main section is called the bus. This section takes up the majority of the size and weight of the satellite. The bus includes all systems that support the payload by providing a physical infrastructure, controlling the temperature, communicating with the operating teams on earth, and pointing the satellite in the appropriate direction. Development of payloads for specific purposes requires technical expertise and research (as is the case with developing the bus). Data acquired must be processed, stored, analysed and converted into useful information using ICT techniques.
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Space science programmes have enormous economic potential by generating new industries and spin-off applications. The UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) argues that substantial investment in space research provides significant economic returns. Furthermore, technology that is enabled by satellites (Satellite Based Technology, SBT), and more specifically, satellite-based remote sensing, communication and navigation, can provide valuable services for the developing world in a number of areas from disaster management to education and business. The potential of space science has already been recognized by the African Ministerial Council on Science & Technology (AMCOST) in 2007. In its Consolidated Plan of Action (CPoA)4, AMCOST identified the establishment of ICT and space science and technology as one (programme cluster four) of their main priorities. For ICT, the CPoA focusses on the development, maintenance and support of free and open source software since these (amongst others) lower the barriers to entry and to innovation and promotes collaboration and optimal use of resources. For Space, the CPoA states that space science provides a unique vantage-point from which to study the natural environment and from which to deliver communications. The CPoA further stresses the regional perspective of space science eliminating the needs for any single country to shoulder the full burden of developing capability for space science & technology. SET-DEV-project (2011). Knowledge Swaraj: An Indian Manifesto on Science and Technology. Hyderabad: University of Hyderabad & Knowledge in Civil Society Forum. (download from http://www.kicsforum.net/ ) SET-DEV-project (2011). African Manifesto on Science, Technology and Innovation. Nairobi: ATPS (download from http://www.atpsnet.org/ ) The self-fashioning of the scientist and the persona of the detective (Lies Wesseling) In early modern experimental science, the reliability of scientific truth-telling was premised upon the moral qualities of the scientist. The scientific truth-seeker was stylized as a man of outstanding moral virtue, who had transcended the desire for wordly goods and the pleasures of the flesh. Scientists fashioned themselves as reliable sources of truth through the trope of disembodiment, as Steven Shapin called it. With the onset of professional science in the course of the nineteenth century, the warrant for the reliability of scientific knowledge shifted from the moral qualities of the scientist to the methods and protocols of the scientific system. This project investigates how the trope of disembodiment affects the representation of the truth-seeker (the detective) in the early detective novel, focusing on the work of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), the father of the genre, and of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), one of Poes most successful detractors. Does an analysis of the persona of the detective substantiate the assertion that the detective was modeled upon the disembodied experimental scientist and that this repertoire for scientific self-fashioning subsequently lived on in the detective novel, while the professionalizing scientific system became increasingly impersonal and anonymous?
4
http://www.nepadst.org/doclibrary/pdfs/ast_cpa_2007.pdf
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Daston, L., & Sibum, H. O. (2003). Introduction: Scientific Personae and Their Histories. Science in Context, 16(1-2), 1-8. Fisch, H. (1953). The Scientist as Priest: A Note on Robert Boyles Natural Theology. Isis, 44, 252-265. Kendrick, Stephen (1999). Holy Clues: Investigating Lifes Mysteries with Sherlock Holmes. New York: Pantheon. Lawrence, C., & Shapin, S. (Eds.) (1998). Science Incarnate: Historical Embodiments of Natural Knowledge. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press. Shapin, S. (1994). A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Schaffer, S. (1987). Godly Men and Mechanical Philosophers: Souls and Spirits in Restoration Natural Philosophy. Science in Context, 1(1), 55-85.
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APPENDICES
Appendix A: Nine questions on the relationship between theory, method and research data Use the following questions to check how theory and research data are linked up with each other in your favorite5 research article: 1. Does the author position his or her key question in an ongoing debate or historiography? Or does s/he formulate a new problem? What is the context for this new problem (common sense, actuality, inconsistencies in observations)? 2. What is the role of theory in the ongoing or new discussion the author refers to? Does the author explicitly seek to underpin or challenge one specific theory? Or does the author rely on theory as a heuristic tool, as an analytical framework, or, more loosely or eclectically, as a way to shed light on a problem? 3. How much prior knowledge (theoretical or object-related) is assumed in this article? How does the author refer to previous (theoretical, object-related) contributions about the same subject? 4. How much attention is paid to the explanation of method or the specific nature of the research materials, and how does this relate to the debate or theory this article seeks to make a contribution to? 5. Is the (theoretical) debate the author wants to participate in made explicit at the beginning of the article or is it revealed only gradually? Do new (theoretical) goals come up along the way? 6. Which existing theoretical concepts or analytical categories are used? Does the author introduce new theoretical concepts? 7. Does the author make use of specific classifications6? Which ones and what for? How do they relate to the theory? 8. Are theory and research data dealt with in separate sections? Or does the author introduce various theoretical issues gradually, in combination with the analysis of the research data? 9. Does the author provide examples or illustrations? How many and how extensive are they? Does the author present research data in a detailed manner?
The best article you know from your BA or MA (the same article as you presented at the first research meeting). 6 Distinctions or divisions such as distinctions between concepts (high and low culture), genres (novel and poem), types of technology (artifacts and systems) et cetera.
5
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Appendix B: Feedback Form for Conference Presentations
NAME:
EXAMINATOR:
Attractiveness of title and opening Clarity and significance of problem definition, research questions and aims (refinement of, addition to, clarification or rejection of an existing thesis) Use of theory and/or historiography (concepts/interpretations et cetera) Embedding in the fields relevant to CAST Clarity of structure Presentation of the method(s) employed Validity and reliability of the method(s) employed Accessibility of the research data to the audience Use of (intriguing and relevant) details and examples Clarity of argument Relation to the character and level of expertise of audience Use of power point and other audio-visual resources Contact with audience and audibility of speech Clarity and significance of conclusions Response to questions and comments Time management
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The Rules of the Game

CAST Research Methods boardgame, based on Ganzenbord; designed by S. Kuipers en K. Bijsterveld.

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Report joint investigation committee on fraudulent psychologist Diederik Stapel

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Appendix B: Feedback Form for Conference Presentations

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