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[ecrea] CFP Scientific illustrations

Thu Jan 13 12:24:54 GMT 2011



Scientific illustrations ? call for participants and papers

The Centre de Recherches Texte/Image/Langage at the University of Burgundy (Language and Communication) is planning a three-to-four-year programme of seminars on illustrations in science. The programme, scheduled from 2012 to 2015, will focus on exploring as exhaustively as possible the relations between scientific texts and their illustrations. Our aim is to reflect on the theories underlying these relations, in order to clearly define both the criteria of scientific illustrations and the part played by illustrations in scientific progress. By its very nature, the subject inevitably presupposes a post-fifteenth century Western bias, but the programme is not exclusive and is open to alternative approaches.

The programme involves the study of scientific development, alongside the development of illustrative techniques. Studies focusing on specific disciplines (illustrations in medicine, physics, biology, etc) are as welcome as those with a chronological approach (illustrations during the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, etc), often involving the crossing of boundaries into other genres of images.

The seminars will be organised in group sessions devoted to the following themes (the list is provisional and may be extended):

* the objectives of scientific illustrations. To what extent does the illustration?s educational function in the dissemination and popularisation of science conflict with, or alternatively, complement, its epistemic role and its value in furthering scientific knowledge?

* scientists, illustrators, and scientist-illustrators. Some scientists illustrate their work themselves; others use professional illustrators with no scientific training. Is the distinction significant? Papers focusing on the latest developments in the techniques of scientific illustration will be particularly welcome, as will contributions from illustrators themselves.

* evaluating scientific illustration. Do some sciences defy illustration? How do you illustrate an experiment? What does the reader of a scientific text expect from the illustrations? Can the illustration be more informative than the text it illustrates?

Among the many questions raised by this subject, some jump to mind with a particular immediacy: what happens when the microscope and telescope replace the naked eye? How have anatomical plates and terrestrial cartography evolved as science has advanced? To what extent do so-called ?scientifically objective? images reflect the ideology, prejudices and cultural fixations of a particular age?

The exchanges between historians of science and specialists of the image on all these topics should, we hope, be productive and profitable. Most of the seminars will take place on the University Campus in Dijon, France (exceptionally special locations may be involved). A publication incorporating the contributions is planned. The first seminar is scheduled provisionally for the end of 2011 or the beginning of 2012. The working languages will be English and French.

For further information and proposals for papers, contact project coordinator Marie-Odile Bernez at <mailto:(marie-odile.bernez /at/ u-bourgogne.fr)>(marie-odile.bernez /at/ u-bourgogne.fr).


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