Thread by @BruceAlexB

@linda_a_burnett's workshop done, presentations attended, scholars met, and conversations had. What have I learned? Surprising things. Here's a partial reflection histories of scientific instructions, lists & colonial travel. @UU_University, @BookScribbler, @eayers0, @dominikhhh

First off, not all lists are alike. Much can be learned by the order of items, especially when it comes to ethnographic observation. The order of observation tells us about the intellectual context from which the instruction arises. #listing #History #Science #KNOWLEDGE

But study of intellectual context takes us into other domains - of national experiences, of inter-imperial exchanges, of cross-cultural encounters and yes, so often, of violence and indifference to sufferings. #History #Empire #colonized #Violence #KnowledgeManagement

The history of scientific instructions is enormously varied. Above all, 'science', however we define that, was not always the most important objective of scientific instruction. #HistoryOfScience #ScientificResearch #humanity #Enlightenment #Instructions

Just as important were questions of authority and status, patronage and power. Also important were gaps and confusions, and the cacophonous confounding of knowledges revealed in translations, difficult passages, and persistent doubts. #History #power #patronage #translation

There's an unwritten history, probably several, in the sensory dimensions of scientific instructions. By this, I don't just mean how they aided sight and vision, but where sound was amplified, what was heard, when touch or taste guided knowledge. #History #senses #NOISY

Those senses can readily be traced in the written documents, in circulated lists or published instructions, but writing was only part of it. The documents produced knowledge that traversed the boundaries between science, art, and artefact. #History #artwork #empires #Science

In all these diverse manifestations of knowledge, of hand written documents, published texts, luminous images, and delicate objects, intellectual history resonates still in half expressed concepts, or querulous interpretations. #History #Concept #Ideas #Questions

And there's an end too, of scientifically instructed travel. This I learned, of the institutionalisation of knowledge in museums and universities, that a tradition of some 300 years came to an end. #History #Ends
@CarolineCornis1, @Economicbotany

What I've learned from the unlikely subject of lists is that there's no single history, of science, ideas, or empires able to grasp them entirely. Between each lies a sea of questions to be navigated by many historians of colonisation, culture, gender, & art. #Calling #Historians

There is so much more to learn from this curious subject of curiosity mobilised in circulated instructions. Conversations rich and rewarding are to be had and a start has been made to some of them here. So much more will follow... #History #conversation #Science #Instructions