Roundtable Past and Futures: Current Challenges in the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine.

The event I attended this week was called Roundtable Past and Futures: Current Challenges in the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine. The two speakers participating in the event were Terrence Keel and Cathy Gere. Terrence Keel is an associate professor at UCLA and teaches in the Institute for Society and Genetics, and in the department of African American Studies. Keel studies and writes about biomedical science, religion, law, and modern thought. Cathy Gere is a professor at UCSD and teaches classes in the history of medicine, biology, neuroscience and medical ethics. I chose the event because it seemed relevant, broad, and informal. I was intrigued by the roundtable format and the discussion regarding the future of the discipline and scholarship of the history of science, something that seemed to differ more from a typical Harvard seminar, and something that felt important to be engaged with as a History of Science concentrator. 

The event was split up into two sections. First Terrence Keel presented what he referred to as a provocation on how the discipline of the history of science can become anti-racist and approach anti-racist work. As we think about the future of the discipline, the goal that Keel proposed, and that I agree with, is to achieve to be a discipline that is fully anti-racist. While this sounds like a great goal, it can feel daunting and intangible—where do we even begin? How do we account for cultural practices of American science? Keel explained that there were two different approaches to an anti-racist discipline of the history of science. One that was produced by local colleges, laboratories, social arrangements in the sciences etc. He called this “cultures of scientific practices”. The second was that produced beyond the lab and the field. This, he called, “culture that produces science”. To Keel, it was essential that we bridge both approaches and adopt both strategies. One of Keel’s suggestion for how institutions can approach this work is by rewarding and funding anti-racist work. Our institutions have so much power in what work gets funded, published, seen. How do we, then, hold our institutions to abolish frameworks that produces racism, and instead support anti-racist research, scholars, and papers? This conversation was particularly interesting as we began to think about its social political context of the Black Lives Matter movement. Keel mentions how for many Americans, the George Floyd murder, felt like and aberration. But actually, what happened with George Floyd is actually very much what American history is and what America was built on. Nearing the end of his time, Keel pleaded institutions to begin moving away commenting on these events saying “that’s wrong,” and move towards saying “what can I do in my teaching and scholarship to ensure that this does not happen.” I thought this transition that he highlighted was extremely important, not just for our institutions, but also for us as individuals. It’s easy for many to condemn such acts of violence, but how many of us are actually thinking about the ways in which we can ensure that these acts aren’t committed in the future?

Next, Cathy Gere presented her argument that to help combat climate change, the history of science in academia can enforce less flying amongst its faculty and scholars through the continuation of virtual conferences, even after the pandemic. Gere presented data showing that one third of carbon emissions come from air travel, with one transatlantic return flight emitting a ton of CO2 per passenger in coach. She believed that academia had a role to play in reducing people’s flying, with the #flyingless movement, and implementing no aviation colloquiums. On one of Gere’s slides, she presented a quote “Air travel is, environmentally, academia’s biggest dirty little secret.” I thought this was interesting as we reflect upon the ways in which institutions can improve and reform, air travel has never crossed my mind on this list. Gere proposed that virtual conferencing, as we have been doing, would be one facet of the solution. Not only would this help reduce flying, virtual conferencing, Gere argued, would also promote professional equity as virtual conferencing could achieve more participation from low income students and faculty, more global participation, and become more accessible for parents with small children and people with mobility or health issues. As Gere was advocating for the use of virtual conferencing, I couldn’t help but think about an incident that happened early that day. I initially chose to attend David Mindell’s The Work of the Future; Building Better Jobs in an Age of Intelligent Machines. Unfortunately, around 10 minutes into the event, the zoom got interrupted by someone sharing their screen and playing pornographic videos amongst a virtual room full of professors, scholars, and students from the field. This stunt was obviously extremely disruptive and disrespectful to the speaker and those who had worked hard to put on this event and present their work. The zoom, and the event, ended. I bring this up, because although technology gives us incredible access to connect from all across the world as Gere advocates for, this same increased accessibility and lack of physical barriers also create for easier abilities to cause disruptions and other unforeseen problems.  

I thought this event was great in helping me think beyond history of science as just my concentration. It asked me to think about further implications of the discipline as a whole, around the country, in other parts of the world, as well as beyond just the present.