Representation in Scientific Practice Revisited (Inside Technology)

A fresh approach to visualization practices in the sciences that considers novel forms of imaging technology and draws on recent theoretical perspectives on representation.

Representation in Scientific Practice, published by the MIT Press in 1990, helped coalesce a long-standing interest in scientific visualization among historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science and remains a touchstone for current investigations in science and technology studies. This volume revisits the topic, taking into account both the changing conceptual landscape of STS and the emergence of new imaging technologies in scientific practice. It offers cutting-edge research on a broad array of fields that study information as well as short reflections on the evolution of the field by leading scholars, including some of the contributors to the 1990 volume.

The essays consider the ways in which viewing experiences are crafted in the digital era; the embodied nature of work with digital technologies; the constitutive role of materials and technologies—from chalkboards to brain scans—in the production of new scientific knowledge; the metaphors and images mobilized by communities of practice; and the status and significance of scientific imagery in professional and popular culture.

Contributors
Morana Alač, Michael Barany, Anne Beaulieu, Annamaria Carusi, Catelijne Coopmans, Lorraine Daston, Sarah de Rijcke, Joseph Dumit, Emma Frow, Yann Giraud, Aud Sissel Hoel, Martin Kemp, Bruno Latour, John Law, Michael Lynch, Donald MacKenzie, Cyrus Mody, Natasha Myers, Rachel Prentice, Arie Rip, Martin Ruivenkamp, Lucy Suchman, Janet Vertesi, Steve Woolgar

Catelijne Coopmans is a Fellow and Director of Studies at Tembusu College and a Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore.

Janet Vertesi is Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department at Princeton University.

Michael Lynch is Professor in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University.

Steve Woolgar is Chair of Marketing and Head of Science and Technology Studies at the University of Oxford.

Michael Lynch is Professor in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University.

Steve Woolgar is Chair of Marketing and Head of Science and Technology Studies at the University of Oxford.

Catelijne Coopmans is a Fellow and Director of Studies at Tembusu College and a Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore.

Janet Vertesi is Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department at Princeton University.

Michael Lynch is Professor in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University.

Steve Woolgar is Chair of Marketing and Head of Science and Technology Studies at the University of Oxford.

Janet Vertesi is Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department at Princeton University.

Catelijne Coopmans is a Fellow and Director of Studies at Tembusu College and a Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore.

Morana Alac is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Program in Science Studies at the University of California, San Diego.

Donald MacKenzie is Professor of Sociology (Personal Chair) at the University of Edinburgh. His books include Inventing Accuracy (1990), Knowing Machines (1996), and Mechanizing Proof (2001), all published by the MIT Press. Portions of An Engine, not a Camera won the Viviana A. Zelizer Prize in economic sociology from the American Sociological Association.

Anne Beaulieu is Project Manager of the Groningen Energy and Sustainability Programme.

Arie Rip is Professor of Philosophy of Science and Technology in the School of Management and Governance of the University of Twente.

Cyrus C. M. Mody is Professor and Chair in the History of Science, Technology, and Innovation at Maastricht University. He is the author of Instrumental Community: Probe Microscopy and the Path to Nanotechnology (MIT Press).

Michael Lynch is Professor in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University.

Steve Woolgar is Chair of Marketing and Head of Science and Technology Studies at the University of Oxford.

Lorraine Daston is Director at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and Visiting Professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. She is the coauthor (with Katharine Park) of Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150–1750 and (with Peter Galison) Objectivity and the editor of Things that Talk: Object Lessons from Art and Science, all three published by Zone Books.

Michael Lynch is Professor in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University.

Steve Woolgar is Chair of Marketing and Head of Science and Technology Studies at the University of Oxford.

John Law is Professor in Sociology at the University of Keele, Staffordshire, England.

Bruno Latour, a philosopher and anthropologist, is the author of We Have Never Been Modern, An Inquiry into Modes of Existence, Facing Gaia, Down to Earth, and many other books. He coedited (with Peter Weibel) the previous ZKM volumes Making Things Public, ICONOCLASH, and Reset Modernity! (all published by the MIT Press).