Event date:12 -13 May 2011
Royal Society
Carlton House Terrace
London SW1
Science Voices: Scientists speak about science and themselves
a joint conference of
Centre for Arts and Humanities Research at the Natural History Museum
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Kingston University
Centre for History of Science at the Royal Society
(part-funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council)
The aim of this conference is to explore the creation and use of a number of projects which bring science and scientists to historians and the public through scientists’ own vibrant personal voices and testimony.
PROGRAMME
DAY ONE: 12 May 2011
Introductions and Welcome by Felicity Henderson (RS), Dr Peter Collins (RS), Julie Harvey (NHM) and Martha Fleming (Kingston).
An historian’s perspective: doing and using interviews
Professor Soraya de Chadarevian (Department of History and Center for Society and Genetics, University of California at Los Angeles)
(AUDIO HERE)
SCIENCE INSTITUTIONS AND INDIVIDUAL SCIENTISTS
Writing the recent history of the Royal Society
Dr Peter Collins (Director, Royal Society Centre for History of Science)
(AUDIO HERE)
Whose story is it anyway? The challenges of doing institutional oral history
Dr Sue Hawkins (Centre for the Historical Record, Department of Politics and History, Kingston University)
(AUDIO HERE)
Audience questions.
Keynote Address (open to the public)
Subjects, objects and expectations in Museum Lives: an oral history of the Natural History Museum
Professor Brian Cathcart (School of Humanities, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Kingston University and Principal Investigator, Museum Lives: an oral history of the Natural History Museum, AHRC Knowledge Transfer Fellowship)
(AUDIO HERE)
DAY TWO: 13 May 2011
Let’s talk about science
Elizabeth Haines (PhD Candidate, Royal Holloway University of London: Collaborative Doctoral Award with the Science Museum)
(AUDIO HERE)
A SENSE OF ONESELF IN SCIENCE
Oral history and the scientific self
Dr Paul Merchant (Oral History Interviewer, ‘A Changing Planet’, An Oral History of British Science, National Life Stories, The British Library)
(AUDIO HERE)
Society life: from presidents to ‘Personal Information Files’
Keith Moore (Librarian, Royal Society)
(AUDIO HERE)
UNHEARD VOICES IN SCIENCE
Scientists with a safebox: perspectives on the oral history of science and secrecy
Dr Simone Turchetti (Research Fellow, Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Manchester)
(AUDIO HERE)
Hidden voices: an oral history of medical laboratory technicians
Professor Tilli Tansey (School of History, Queen Mary University of London)
(AUDIO HERE)
SPEAKING FOR THOSE WHO WILL SPEAK NO MORE
Much concerned with death
Professor Tom Meade FRS (Editor in Chief, Royal Society Biographical Memoirs and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)
(AUDIO HERE) NOT AVAILABLE AT PRESENT
The challenges of writing Royal Society Biographical Memoirs
Professor Malcolm Longair CBE FRS FRSE (Emeritus Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy, Director of Development of the Cavendish Laboratory and Professorial Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge)
(AUDIO HERE)
Audience questions.
On being interviewed for Museum Lives: An Oral History of the Natural History Museum
Professor Paul Henderson CBE FGS (Hon Prof of Mineralogy, University College London; Trustee, Horniman Museum; ex-Director of Science, Natural History Museum)
(AUDIO HERE)
Plenary and Closing Remarks
Dr Peter Collins (Royal Society); Julie Harvey (Natural History Museum); Martha Fleming (Kingston University).
