January 10th, 2023: Surfacing and spanning boundaries: Perspectives from history of science

Click HERE to view the January 10th, 2023 webinar presented by Evan Hepler-Smith, Assistant Professor in the Duke University Department of History. Dr. Hepler-Smith specializes in the history of chemical sciences and industries, the history of information sciences, and methodological studies of chemistry in the social sciences. Through this lens he presents here how the field of history of science takes the boundaries defining disciplines, expertise, and research specializations as its stock in trade. How have disciplines come into being? How do they change? What has knowledge-making looked like without them? Who did the work, and who got the credit? How have diverse specialists (experimenters, theorists, modelers, and instrument-makers, for instance) managed to find a common language sufficient for successful collaboration? How have scientists shaped and been shaped by the broader societies around them? How have they shaped and been shaped by social worlds within their institutions and disciplines? In this webinar, I introduce a few of my favorite insights about research collaboration from the work of fellow historians of science, with examples of how I have made use of these ideas in my own research and teaching.