History Faculty

History of Science, Medicine and Technology

The research cluster in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology is a large one. While it has its main centres of activity in the History Faculty and in the Museum of the History of Science and the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine (both of which are integral parts of the Faculty), it maintains strong links elsewhere in the University. Wider collaborations have involved joint ventures with, for example, the Maison Française, the Europaeum, and a number of colleagues and groups in theology (with its developing strength in the relations between science and religion) and in the sciences, medicine, and mathematics. A recent illustration of its interdisciplinarity is the Wellcome Unit's Strategic Award from the Wellcome Trust; this grant, for the study of the history of medicine in the non-western world and of disease in both western and non-western contexts, was secured through an application in which members of the Unit collaborated with colleagues elsewhere in the History Faculty and in African Studies. In the context of this and other leading areas of research, graduate students in HSMT (over fifty of them at the moment) have an extensive range of possible contacts and focuses for their work, and they are encouraged to range widely in fashioning their programmes of seminar and lecture attendance.

It has been important to balance this diversity with the promotion of a shared core of activity. To this end, students working for the MSc and MPhil in History of Science, Medicine, and Technology, for example, are required to attend courses in both the history of science and technology and the history of medicine, and they and other students in the cluster (doctoral candidates and those working for the MSc in History of Science: Instruments, Museums, Science, Technology) participate not only in a rich programme of formal graduate seminars but also in informal groups, in particular the weekly graduate reading group, that deliberately pursue interests across a broad range of themes and periods.

Research in the cluster reflects a number of long-term priorities. These include the study of instrumentation and material culture in the history of science, mainly pursued within the Museum of the History of Science, the history of tropical medicine and infectious diseases, which for some years has been a central, though by no means exclusive focus within the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, science and medicine in early modern Europe, and the cultural relations of science in European society since the eighteenth century. Interests, however, evolve constantly. It is anticipated, for instance, that the University's recent acquisition of the papers and artefacts of the Marconi Collection will open new opportunities for research on the history of innovation in the industrial age.

The need for effective communication within the cluster has always been recognized. Here, the bulletin-board for Oxford HSMT (Nuncius), the termly booklet of activities in HSMT, and the regularly updated websites (for HSMT as well as for the Museum of the History of Science and the Wellcome Unit) all play an important role.

Websites

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