National Conference On "Science, Technology and Medicine in the History of Modern India: Exploring Recent Trends, Interdisciplinary Approaches and New Sources"
23-24 March, 2020 at Amity University (Main Campus), Noida.
Email the abstract to madhumitasaha30@gmail.com by 20th February 2020.
The proposed conference on histories of science, technology and medicine in India will build on existing historiography and seek new ways of writing the discipline's histories. The conference aims to recover the specificities of the Indian experiences of science, technology and medicine by exploring a gamut of case studies on related topics. It will critically engage with both intellectual histories as well as practices of techno-scientific and medical researches. While the presenters will delve on a range of topics on techno-scientific and medicinal researches, including histories of institutions, individuals, and instruments, it will also bring to focus other lesser studied topics, such as histories of material cultures, private corporations, and research funding patterns, history of philanthropy, and diplomatic history. The temporal focus of the conference will be on modern India, covering the colonial and post-colonial period. But the conference does not intend to frame histories of science, technology and medicine in terms of binaries of colonialism and nationalism as recent researches bring out limited nature of the control exercised by any form of governments in the use of science, technology and medicine as a 'tool' to fulfill all its ambitions. Rather, the goal is to find out what roles the process of state formation, modernization, Cold War politics and the associated social, political, economic and cultural contexts played in influencing the trajectory of techno-scientific and medical researches. Exploring the twin themes of 'agency' and 'denial' is an important goal of the conference. The papers will seek out the interaction between science, technology and its users not simply in terms of acceptance or resistance but how the new artifacts or knowledge gave agency to people of different strata of society. At the same time, it will also look into how technologies, medical and scientific knowledge came to be denied to members of society in name religion, caste, feminine virtue etc. The conference wants to explore the histories of science and technology with that of medicine not because we believe that they are of similar nature. Rather, the case studies from the respective fields will show how there are thematic overlaps, convergences and diversities when we look at questions of colonialism, modernity, state building, power politics, and agency through the lens of history of science, technology and medicine.
Featured Panel
Science and other Indian knowledge systems: The panel discussion will explore the relationship between science and other knowledge systems. In doing so, the discussants will interrogate the categories, reflect on their nature and recount the experience of its practitioners. But most importantly, the discussants will try to give us a roadmap as to what could be the variety of sources for writing the History of Science, Technology & Medicine.
Confluence: History of Science, Technology & Medicine: As History of Science, Technology & Medicine of South Asia is increasingly enjoying a very high standing in the academic world, it is imperative that we find new ways of making the discipline innovative and exciting. Also, it is very important that we start exploring new methodological approaches, which would take us beyond the constraints of the archives, to write these histories through engaging with other historical sources. The resource person attending the conference will look into how histories of science, technology and medicine can be more incisively written by including a more multidisciplinary approach, for instance, sociology of science, STS, anthropology, gender studies and post-colonial studies to name a few.
BROAD THEMES
- Through the Lens: Science, Technology & Medicine in Construction of History
- Technology, Power and Development
- Public Health, Disease and Medicine
- Techno-Scientific Knowledge Production
- State, Science and Native Response
- Confluence: History of Science, Technology & Medicine
- Technology and Environment
- Technology and Democracy
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