Nomadic concepts. Biological concepts and their careers beyond biology

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Nomadic concepts. Biological concepts and their careers beyond biology

Veranstalter
Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe – Institute of the Leibniz Association; Department of History, Central European University in Budapest; Second Annual Conference of the Leibniz Graduate School for Cultures of Knowledge in Central European Transnational Contexts
Veranstaltungsort
Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe, Conference hall, Gisonenweg 5-7
Ort
Marburg
Land
Deutschland
Vom - Bis
18.10.2012 - 19.10.2012
Website
http://www.herder-institut.de
Von
Peter Haslinger, Geschichte Ostmitteleuropas, Herder Institut / Universität Gießen, Historisches Institut

Renewed interest in the role of language in the history of natural sciences has, in the last years, brought fresh insight into the mechanisms of cultural and conceptual transfer both between science and non-scientific knowledge and across disciplines. While this research has predominantly concentrated on transgressions between literature and science, the textual and terminological side of these exchanges has been given less attention. Following the ideas of “nomadic” and “traveling” concepts we look more closely at the development of biological vocabulary and concepts and their implementation in different linguistic and conceptual environments. Our particular interest is to observe the sharpening and distinctions they experienced during the transition from one language to another, with respect to disciplinary, social and vernacular languages.

Organizers:
Peter Haslinger (Herder Institute, Marburg)
Katalin Straner (CEU Budapest)
Jan Surman (DAAD-Leibniz Research Fellow, Herder Institute, Marburg)

Contact:
Jan Surman
DAAD-Leibniz Research Fellow
Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe – Institute of the Leibniz Association
+49-6421-184-101
jan.surman@univie.ac.at

Ina Alber
Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe – Institute of the Leibniz Association
+49-6421-184-122
ina.alber@herder-institut.de

Programm

Thursday, October 18, 2012

9:00-9:10 Peter Haslinger: Welcoming words
9:10-9:30 Katalin Straner, Jan Surman: Conceptual preliminaries

9:30-11:00 Section 1
Alexandra Claudia Manta: A Genealogy of “Vitalism” from the 17th - 18th Century Life Sciences to Contemporary (Bio)philosophies: The Historical and Theoretical Lives of a Vital Question

Mikhail Konashev: Evolutionary theory and evolutionary humanism: what is the first, what is the second?
Discussion

11:00-11:30 Coffee break

11:30-13:00 Section 2
Gerhard Müller-Strahl: Explaining organismic phenomena. Metaphors, objectivity and mechanisms

Charles Wolfe: The organism as ontological go-between: hybridity, boundaries and limit cases in its conceptual history
Discussion

13:00-14:15 Lunch break

14:15-15:45 Section 3
Tatyana Skrebtsova: The concept of organism in linguistics: interpretations and implications

Julian Bauer: Organismen als Grenzobjekte. Zur Zirkulation von Wissen zwischen Biologie und Soziologie seit dem späten 19. Jahrhundert
Discussion

15:45-16:15 Coffee break

16:15-18:30 Section 4
Andrew Reynolds: Suicide and Altruism in the Society of Cells: an illustration of nomadic concepts and rhetorical devices

Andreas Musolff: From social to biological parasites and back: the conceptual career of a metaphor

Jörg Richter: Mutation between biology and the humanities
Discussion

Friday, October 19, 2012

9:30-11:00 Section 5
Björn Felder: "Who owns the soil should also saw!" Eugenics, Bio-Politics and the biologized nation in the Baltics 1926-1940

Pieter C. van Duin, Zuzana Poláčková: Ethno-national discourse and biological vocabulary in Slovakia, with special reference to the age of Leibniz
Discussion

11:00-11:30 Coffee break

11:30-13:00 Section 6

Christopher Donohue: From ‘Natural Selection’ to ‘Social Selection’: The Differentiation and Career of a Concept in Early Twentieth Century Social Thought.

Anna Piotrowska: Adaptation of biological vocabulary in musicological writings
Discussion

13:00-14:15 Lunch break

14:15-15:45 Section 7

Christina Wessely: Milieu. Surroundings of Life

Wolf Feuerhahn: A Spectre is haunting Germany - the French Spectre of Milieu
Discussion

15:45-16:15 Coffee break

16:15-17:45 Section 8

Michael Weingarten: Nanotechnologie - Die Entwicklung eines Projektes im Spannungsfeld von Theologie, Life Sciences und technologischer Phantasie

Stefan Halft: Der ‚Klon‘ als Wissensobjekt. Konzeptuelle Prozesse der Wissensgenese und Wissensgestaltung
Discussion

17:45-18:30
Katalin Straner, Jan Surman: Final comment
Final discussion

Kontakt

Ina Alber

Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe – Institute of the Leibniz Association

+49-6421-184-122

ina.alber@herder-institut.de

http://www.herder-institut.de