scientific imagination
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2021 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Samiparna Samanta

This tale of animals and Empire in colonial Calcutta rests at the intersection of three scholarships: history of science/medicine, environmental history and urban history. The introduction situates this study in the larger historiographical narrative and describes the contribution of the project to South Asian scholarship and beyond. Much of the extant literature on environmental history has gone toward arguing for the role of nature as a historical actor. But it has been relatively less emphatic toward the study of non-human subjects, particularly domestic animals in empire building. The novelty and richness of the book lies in its invocation of complex networks of human and nonhuman actors in an empire to inform the metropolitan scientific imagination. It also foregrounds the theoretical underpinnings and methodology of this book by highlighting what is new about this work.


2021 ◽  
pp. 379-409
Author(s):  
Domenico Fiormonte ◽  
Paolo Sordi

RESUMEN: Raul Mordenti fue protagonista en Italia de una red científica, intelectual y política que ha atravesado, en conciencia y en acción, tres transformaciones epistémicas a caballo entre los siglos XX y XXI: la política, la de la universidad y de la investigación literaria y aquella que, en pocas palabras, podríamos definir como digital. Este texto resume la actualidad y la vitalidad de su reflexión intelectual y de su “imaginación científica” cuyo núcleo es la teoría de la práctica revolucionaria. En particular, la contribución descansa en un asunto de la revolución epistemológica de las ciencias humanas, cuyo centro gravita alrededor de las Humanidades Digitales que Mordenti contribuyó a fundar a finales de los años 80: el sentido del texto en un mundo colonizado por la digitalización. La sociedad algorítmica de las plataformas ha vuelto más manifiestas las interconexiones entre filología y crítica textual, tecnologías e intereses geopolíticos globales. Aplicaciones, medios sociales y algoritmos son hoy los editores de nuestra vida, promotores y patrones de un texto que asocia y une hechos, historias, palabras, personas: configuran una obra totalitaria frente a la cual se vuelve necesario llevar adelante una descolonización epistémica como punto de partida de una nueva revolución política, social y antropológica. ABSTRACT: Raul Mordenti is a prominent scientific, intellectual and political Italian figure who has lived and contributed to shape three epistemic transformations across the XX and XXI centuries: one political, one in education and literary research, and the last that we may define, for brevity, as digital. This paper summarizes the vitality of his intellectual reflections and his “scientific imagination” – the heart of which was the practical and theoretical idea of revolution. His contribution focuses in particular on the epistemological revolution in humanities, which gravitates around the field of digital humanities that Mordenti himself helped to found, trying to find the meaning of the text in a world colonized by digitalization. Algorithmic and platform societies have made the connections between philology and textual criticism, technologies and global geopolitical interests more evident: applications, media and algorithms have become the editors of our lives, promoters and masters of texts that group and connect facts, stories, words and people: a totalitarian body that requires a cognitive decolonization to catalyze a new political, social and anthropological revolution.


Author(s):  
Eugenio Bertozzi

Abstract In 1911 the Wilson cloud chamber opened new possibilities for physics pedagogy. The instrument, which visualized particles’ tracks as trails of condensed vapour, was adopted by physicists to pursue frontier research on the Compton effect, the positron and the transmutation of atomic nuclei. But as the present paper will show, Wilson's instrument did not just open up new research opportunities, but the possibility of developing a different kind of teaching. Equipped with a powerful visualization tool, some physicists–teachers employed Wilson's instrument to introduce their students to a wide range of phenomena and concepts, ranging from the behaviour of clouds to Einstein's photon, the wave–particle duality and the understanding of the nucleus. This paper uses the notes, books and prototypes of these pioneering physicists–teachers to compose a pedagogical history of the Wilson cloud chamber, documenting an episode of immense ingenuity, creativity and scientific imagination.


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