What are the different ways in which humanities describe microbiology, this multifaceted and complex object that, for more than a century, has given rise to various investigations, whether in the context of national histories, institutional studies, or scientific controversies? This webinar proposes to make an inventory of contemporary research in humanities on microbiology and to understand how this research has been transformed by the various “turns” in human and social sciences over the last decades - global turn, imperial turn, material turn, animal turn, to name but few. Beyond simple academic labels, what are, in concrete terms, the new questions, new objects, new methods and approaches currently shaping our understanding of the emergence of the science of microbes, and of the technical and social changes it has spawned until the present day?

Webinar – 15 June 2021

This webinar is sponsored by the project The Global War Against the Rat and the Epistemic Emergence of Zoonosis, funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Argument

While a new virus halts activities at a global level and bacteria resistant to antibiotics raise concerns among international health authorities, academic studies on microbiology have multiplied in the last ten years and shed light on the meanings of these arising questions. What are the different ways in which humanities describe microbiology, this multifaceted and complex object that, for more than a century, has given rise to various investigations, whether in the context of national histories, institutional studies, or scientific controversies? This webinar proposes to make an inventory of contemporary research in humanities on microbiology and to understand how this research has been transformed by the various “turns” in human and social sciences over the last decades - global turn, imperial turn, material turn, animal turn, to name but few. Beyond simple academic labels, what are, in concrete terms, the new questions, new objects, new methods and approaches currently shaping our understanding of the emergence of the science of microbes, and of the technical and social changes it has spawned until the present day?

Main themes

We invite researchers to this webinar to offer possible answers to these questions and to discuss the most current works on microbiology as an object of the humanities. Our aim is to repopulate the history of the microbiology with beings, objects, images, relations that have shaped this science; to study material or visual sets to which it has been granted little importance; to bring into light connections and circulations so far little studied; to explore places and practices often considered secondary. The presentations may deal with one or more of the following themes. However, other approaches that are not explicitly proposed here are welcome.

1. Visual, material, or museum studies of microbiology
2. Circulatory approaches of microbiology
3. Microbiology and interspecies studies
4. Global histories of microbiology
5. Microbiology and empires
6. Microbiology and pandemic management
7. Microbiology and industries / Microbiology and “traditional” knowledge related to microbes
8. Alternative spaces for the production of microbiological knowledge

Submission guidelines

The expected presentations will last 15 minutes on average, in French or English. Proposals may come from several disciplines in the humanities (history, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, etc.). Joint presentations (2 speakers) are possible. Prospective participants are welcome to send an abstract of the presentation (approx. 200 words, in English or in French ) and a short biographical note to Matheus Alves Duarte da Silva (madds1@st-andrews.ac.uk) and Mathilde Gallay-Keller (mathilde.gallaykeller@ehess.fr)

by March 30, 2020.

You can contact us for any question.   

Organizing and scientif committee

• Matheus Alves Duarte da Silva, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of St Andrews
• Mathilde Gallay-Keller, PhD candidate in anthropology, École des Hautes Études en Science Sociales (Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Sociale & Laboratoire PALOC, CNRS)