Organisation: Sarah Ehlers (München)
Public history and science communication are currently receiving increased attention. When it comes to research
funding, hardly any application can do without a paragraph on the dissemination of research results to a broader
public. Public history is also intriguing as a form of translation: How can history be made accessible beyond
academic settings and relevant to contemporary societies? And how can epistemic authority be shared between
professional historians and the public?
The roundtable will address these questions with a specific focus on the history of science, technology, and
medicine. The discussion will focus on topics that go beyond narratives of progress and discovery that have long
dominated historiography. Indeed, science and medicine during colonialism and Nazism and the experiences of
their victims or the stories of socially discriminated and marginalized groups were often only brought into the
academic discussion through interventions by victims, activists, or other civil society actors.
Discussion questions:
The participants draw on expertise from a wide range of public history projects, among others on science and medicine during National Socialism, on the colonial history of natural history collections, and on the dealing with human remains. They developed strategies for diversity-oriented, gender-informed collecting, exhibiting, communicating, and researching in technology and science museums and for engaging with diverse audiences.
Partizipation: Manuela Bauche, Leonie Braam, Henrik Eßler, Sophie Gerber, Monique Ligtenberg