received from Dr. Michelle Pfeffer (Magdalen College, University of Oxford)
Dates: 11-12 July 2025
Location: Seminar Room, Radcliffe Humanities Building, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG
Overview – Conference Theme and Goals
Historians have studied extensively how sciences begin—but how do they end? This is a crucial question for understanding how the labour of knowledge-making evolves. Previous attention to the founding, disciplining, and professionalisation of individual sciences has provided robust frameworks for thinking through the birth and growth of knowledge-making communities. Far less attention has been directed toward how those same communities decay, dissipate, or evolve beyond the contemporary boundaries of science. This conference seeks to cultivate case studies of the ends of sciences, and thereby to motivate a new approach to thinking about the developmental trajectories of scientific disciplines, communities, institutions, and the ordering of expert knowledge. A further aim is to strengthen the community of scholars with a shared interest in studying the ends of sciences.
A small lunch will be provided on both days of the conference. If you have any dietary requirements, please email Michelle at michelle.pfeffer@history.ox.ac.uk.
We hope to arrange a conference dinner for Friday 11 July following the keynote lecture. Once arrangements are finalised we will be in contact with all registered participants to ask if you’d like to attend.
Past & Present is pleased to support this event and supports other events like it. Applications for event funding are welcomed from scholars working in the field of historical studies at all stages in their careers.