UCLA Presents: "Roundtable Past and Futures: Current Challenges in the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine"

This week, I chose to attend the event entitled “Roundtable Past and Futures: Current Challenges in the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine” hosted by UCLA on Monday. Last week was an unusual week for me in terms of my schedule, so in addition to the event being one of the few that I could attend, the title of the event which listed such a broad range of topics piqued my interest as I wondered how the speakers would tackle all the subject matters listed (history of science, technology, and medicine) within the short period. Upon scrolling down and reading the description of the event, I realized that the specific subject matters that the speakers were going to cover fell into my realm of interest. Ultimately, I chose this event out of a familiarity with the general subject matters that were going to be covered, but also out of a curiosity as to how the two speakers would approach them. The legacy of racism in science is something that I find incredibly important to unmask and disassemble, so when I saw that Dr. Terrence Keel planned to cover that, I was excited to hear what he had to say. Additionally, climate change is a subject that I am familiar with, but the intersection of the climate crisis and professional equity in the history of science that Dr. Cathy Gere was going to talk about was not an intersection that I had heard covered before. As a result, it was specifically the novelty that appealed to my sense of curiosity.  

The event began with a history of the roundtable events that UCLA had hosted. Shortly after, we dived into the planned content of the event beginning with Dr. Terrence Keel. Dr. Keel began by framing his portion of the event as a “provocation.”  This provocation centered on the relationship between the field of history of science and racism and anti-racist efforts also covered a little bit of colonialism, affirmative action, and Isis, the oldest English-language history of science journal. However, the part that stood out to me the most about his provocation took place during his Q&A segment. Dr. Keel had stated that he believes the field of history of science has the potential to be a wonderful example of an antiracist discipline, and one of the attendees asked if pursuing an antiracist history of science field was “asking too much” of it and implied that pursuing an antiracist history of science field may compromise the field. When I heard that question, I was taken aback for many reasons, but in regards specifically to the attendee's implication. At the time (and presently) I disagreed because I believe antiracist practices give way to truth and allow us to uncover silenced and/or hidden histories: an antiracist field would be the only way to truly uncover the history of science. However, Dr. Keel answered this question calmly and thoroughly by rebutting that we don’t ask enough of the field and that we should begin asking people to get uncomfortable which I couldn’t agree with more.

The next speaker, Dr. Gere, presented the opinion that more academic conferences should be done online to reduce air pollution. This was specifically in regards to conferences where many attendees must fly because airplane travel does not have an eco-friendly energy alternative and therefore adds lots of pollution to the atmosphere. However, she covered both the reasons why moving more conferences online would be beneficial and inconvenient, and I think that her presentation was thought-provoking. One point she mentioned was how travel is a reason many people became academics and that taking that away may influence the field in terms of engagement and connection. I believe it was important that she brought that up because during this time where many interactions take place online, the urge for face-to-face conversation has skyrocketed amongst many people, and I wonder exactly how willing people will be to communicate online when there is a safe in-person option. Overall, I think that her presentation brought up many good points about our impact on the climate and how our little changes can have a bigger impact than we may initially think, and I will keep it in mind as we anticipate a world where we can one day travel without fear of COVID-19.

Overall, I feel like the event was well-organized and informational. I left with a view of the field that I did not have before, and I believe that the knowledge I gained in this event will help me pursue my own scholarship down the line. Moreover, after both segments of the event, I was left wondering what conversations are taking place in other history of science departments around the nation and how they were evolving with the times. Specifically, however, the question asked about the fairness of expecting history of science to be an antiracist field stuck with me, and I think it’ll stick with me for a while. The field has some unfinished business regarding how it wants to be perceived and what it wants to represent if the implementation of antiracist practices is still being debated, but I have faith that with time the field will progress as an antiracist discipline.