Roland Wittje

Peter Heering and Roland Wittje (eds). Objects of Understanding: Historical Perspectives on Material Artefacts and Practices in Science Education. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag 2025. ISBN 978-3-515-13788-1. 322 pp.

• Wittje, Roland (2026). Book review: Myles W. Jackson. Broadcasting Fidelity: German Radio and the Rise of Early Electronic Music. American Historical Review. ISSN 0002-8762. 131(3), p. 1289–1289. doi: 10.1093/ahr/rhag130. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2025). Review of Transforming Noise: A History of Its Science and Technology from Disturbing Sounds to Informational Errors, 1900–1955 by Chen-Pang Yeang. Technology and Culture. ISSN 0040-165X. 66(3), p. 900–902. doi: 10.1353/tech.2025.a965848. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2024). Cold Moves: Cryogenics in Indo-German Research Networks. Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte. ISSN 0170-6233. 47(4), p. 466–482. doi: 10.1002/bewi.202300028. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  By unravelling the complexities and dynamics of a collaboration between scientists in India and West Germany to establish a cryogenic network, this paper intends to contribute to our understanding of the transnational movement of research technologies during the Cold War. In 1971, a cryogenic laboratory including a helium and a nitrogen liquefier was set up at the physics department of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras as part of the Indo-German partnership at IIT Madras between 1959 and 1974. As a generic research technology with many applications, cryogenics became crucial for a solid state research agenda for semiconductor development. After initial difficulties, Ramaswami Srinivasan at IIT Madras and Gustav Klipping of the Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin built a successful collaboration based on mutual trust and on Indian and German scientists travelling and working in each other's laboratories. If the initial motivation of the Indo-German partnership was informed by the logic of Cold War development policy, Klipping and Srinivasan developed their collaboration into a vibrant cryogenic research network around different actors, instruments, and skills moving between India and the Federal Republic of Germany.

• Wittje, Roland (2023). Book review: Fanny Gribenski. Tuning the World: The Rise of 440 Hertz in Music, Science, and Politics, 1859–1955. Isis. ISSN 0021-1753. 114(4), p. 882–883. doi: 10.1086/727236. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2023). Relocating Education in the History of Science and Technology. History of Education. ISSN 0046-760X. 52(2-3), p. 462–478. doi: 10.1080/0046760X.2022.2141350. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2021). Book review: Dietmar Rothermund, The Industrialization of India. Technikgeschichte. ISSN 0040-117X. 88(2), p. 232–233. doi: 10.5771/0040-117X-2021-2-229. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2020). Absorption, Transmission, Reflection: Testing Materials in the Laboratory. In Tkaczyk, Viktoria; Mills, Mara & Hui, Alexandra (Ed.), Testing Hearing: The Making of Modern Aurality. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780197511121. p. 243–269. doi: 10.1093/oso/9780197511121.001.0001. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2020). Wagner, Karl Willy. In Kraus, Hans-Christof (Eds.), Neue Deutsche Biographie, vol. 27. Duncker & Humblot. ISSN 9783428112081. p. 253–254. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2020). The Establishment of IIT Madras: German Cold War Development Assistance and Engineering Education in India. Technikgeschichte. ISSN 0040-117X. 87(4), p. 335–357. doi: 10.5771/0040-117X-2020-4-335. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2020). Noise: From Nuisance to Research Subject. Physics Today. ISSN 0031-9228. 73(2), p. 42–48. doi: 10.1063/PT.3.4409. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2020). Engineering Education in Cold War Diplomacy: India, Germany, and the Establishment of IIT Madras. Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte. ISSN 0170-6233. 43(4), p. 560–580. doi: 10.1002/bewi.202000014. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2019). Indo-German Entanglements in Science and Technology: The Indian Institute of Technology Madras. MIDA Archival Reflexicon. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2018). Physikalische Akustik. In Morat, Daniel & Ziemer, Hansjakob (Ed.), Handbuch Sound. Springer. ISSN 9783476054210. p. 151–154. doi: 10.1007/978-3-476-05421-0_27. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland & Hagmann, Johannes-Geert (2017). Interview with Roland Wittje. In Boyle, Alison & Hagmann, Johannes-Geert (Ed.), Challenging Collections – Approaches to Recent Scientific and Technological Heritage. Smithsonian Institution Press. ISSN 9781944466107. p. 223–227. doi: 10.1093/oso/9780197511121.001.0001. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2016). Paired book review: Silke Fengler and Carola Sachse (eds). Kernforschung in Österreich. Wandlungen eines interdisziplinären Forschungsfeldes 1900–1978, and Silke Fengler. Kerne, Kooperation und Konkurrenz. Kernforschung in Österreich im internationalen Kontext (1900–1950). Isis. ISSN 0021-1753. 107(3), p. 666–668. doi: 10.1086/688379. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2016). Selection Criteria for Recent Material Heritage of Science at Universities. In Wolfschmidt, Gudrun (Eds.), Enhancing University Heritage-Based Research. Proceedings of the XV Universeum Network Meeting, Hamburg, 12-14 June 2014. Nuncius Hamburgensis / ‎ Tredition. ISSN 9783734527517. p. 273–276. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2016). Ferdinand Trendelenburg, Neue Deutsche Biographie Bd. 26. Duncker & Humblot. ISSN 9783428112951. p. 399–400. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2016). Kriterien für das Sammeln aus der Zeitgeschichte – Die Auswahlkriterien der Universeum Working Group on Recent Heritage of Science. In Zaun, Jörg & Vincenz, Kirsten (Ed.), Zwischen Kellerdepot und Forschungsolymp: Dokumentation der Diskussionspanels der 7. Sammlungstagung vom 17. bis 19. September 2015 an der TU Bergakademie Freiberg und der TU Dresden. TU Dresden/Kustodie. p. 14–16. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2016). Concepts and Significance of Noise in Acoustics: Before and after the Great War. Perspectives on Science. ISSN 1063-6145. 24(1), p. 7–28. doi: 10.1162/POSC_a_00189. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2014). Book review: Chen-Pang Yeang. Probing the Sky with Radio Waves: From Wireless Technology to the Development of Atmospheric Science. Isis. ISSN 0021-1753. 105(3), p. 665–666. doi: 10.1086/679169. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2013). Book review: David Pantalony. Altered Sensations: Rudolph Koenig's Acoustical Workshop in Nineteenth Century Paris. Annals of Science. ISSN 0003-3790. 70(1), p. 131–133. doi: 10.1080/00033790.2010.510933. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2013). The Electrical Imagination: Sound Analogies, Equivalent Circuits, and the Rise of Electroacoustics, 1863 – 1939. Osiris. ISSN 0369-7827. 28, p. 40–63. doi: 10.1086/671362. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2013). The Garching Nuclear Egg: Teaching Contemporary History Beyond the Linguistic Turn. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. ISSN 0039-3681. 44(4), p. 683–689. doi: 10.1016/j.shpsa.2013.07.016. Full text in Research Archive
• Eggen, Per-Odd; Kvittingen, Lise; Lykknes, Annette & Wittje, Roland (2012). Reconstructing Iconic Experiments in Electrochemistry: Experiences from a History of Science Course. Science & Education. ISSN 0926-7220. 21(2), p. 179–189. doi: 10.1007/s11191-010-9316-1. Full text in Research Archive
• Heering, Peter & Wittje, Roland (2012). An Historical Perspective on Instruments and Experiments in Science Education. Science & Education. ISSN 0926-7220. 21, p. 151–155. doi: 10.1007/s11191-010-9334-z. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2011). Simplex sigillum veri: Robert Pohl and Demonstration Experiments in Physics after the Great War, Learning by Doing: Experiments and Instruments in the History of Science Teaching. Franz Steiner Verlag. ISSN 9783515098427. p. 317–348. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2010). Book review: Klaus Hentschel (Editor). Unsichtbare Hände: Zur Rolle von Laborassistenten, Mechanikern Zeichnern und Amanuenses in der physikalischen Forschungs- und Entwicklungsarbeit. Isis. ISSN 0021-1753. 101(1), p. 196–197. doi: 10.1086/653857. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2010). Reading Artifacts: Historische Sammlungen und innovative Konzepte in der Lehre. In Weber, Cornelia & Mauersberger, Klaus (Ed.), Universitätsmuseen und -sammlungen im Hochschulalltag: Aufgaben – Konzepte – Perspektiven. Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik. ISSN 9783860042526. p. 79–86. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2010). XXth Century Scientific Heritage at Universities: Experiences and Perspectives. In Ballé, Catherine; Cuenca, Catherine & Thoulouze, Daniel (Ed.), Patrimoine scientifique et technique: Un projet contemporain. La Documentation française. ISSN 9782110074805. p. 253–258. Full text in Research Archive
• Soubiran, Sébastien; Lourenço, Marta; Wittje, Roland; Talas, Sofia & Bremer, Thomas (2009). Initiatives européennes et patrimoine universitaire. La Lettre de l’OCIM . ISSN 2108-646X. 123, p. 5–14. doi: 10.4000/ocim.229. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland & Engels, Wolfgang (2008). What went on in the Laboratory? Replicating the Early Hertz Experiments. In Wolfschmidt, Gudrun (Eds.), Heinrich Hertz (1857 – 1894) and the Development of Communication. Nuncius Hamburgensis / ‎Books on Demand. ISSN 9783837031416. p. 196–197. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2008). Book review: Myles W. Jackson. Harmonious Triads: Physicists, Musicians and Instrument Makers in Nineteenth-century Germany. Nuncius: Journal of the Material and Visual History of Science. ISSN 0394-7394. 23(1), p. 177–178. doi: 10.1163/182539108X00454. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2007). Teknisk akustisk forskning i mellomkrigstida. In Børset, Bodil; Johansen, Jon-Arild & Wittje, Roland (Ed.), Etterklang - vitenskap, musikk og massemedia i elektroakustikkens tidsalder - Utstillingskatalog. Tapir Uttrykk. ISSN 9788271267582. p. 22–31. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Dette er utstillingskatalogen til utstillingen 'Etterklang - vitenskap, musikk og massemedia i elektroakustikkens tidsalder' som vises ved Vitenskapsmuseet i Trondheim 16. mars - 31. juli 2007

• Wittje, Roland (2007). Nuclear Physics in Norway, 1933 – 1955. Physics in Perspective. ISSN 1422-6944. 9(4), p. 406–433. doi: 10.1007/s00016-006-0317-z. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2006). The foundation of N.T.H. in 1910 in international context. In Siegmund-Schultze, Reinhard & Sørensen, Henrik Kragh (Ed.), Perspectives on Scandinavian Science in the Early Twentieth Century. Novus Forlag. ISSN 9788270994427. p. 111–132. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2004). A proton accelerator in Trondheim in the 1930s. Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences. ISSN 0890-9997. 35(1), p. 115–152. doi: 10.1525/hsps.2004.35.1.115. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2004). The use of centrifuges and ultracentrifuges in medical, chemical and microbiologic laboratories - A short history. Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society. ISSN 0956-8271. 81, p. 20–25. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2003). Centrifuge and ultracentrifuge. In etternavn], [Mangler fornavn] [Mangler (Eds.), The Oxford Companion to the History of Modern Science, edited by John L. Heilbron. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780195112290. p. 135–136. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2002). Local factors of the Van de Graaff generator project at the Norwegian Institute of Technology in the mid 1930s. In etternavn], [Mangler fornavn] [Mangler (Eds.), XVIII International Scientific Instrument Symposium. Moscow-St. Petersburg, Russia, 20-25 September 1999. Proceedings. Scientific publishing center *Engineer*. ISSN 9785820800313. p. 131–145. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Published article of a paper presented at the XVIII International Scientific Instrument Symposium, Moscow - St. Petersburg, Russia 20-25 September 1999

View all works in NVA

• Heering, Peter & Wittje, Roland (2025). Objects of Understanding: Historical Perspectives on Material Artefacts and Practices in Science. Franz Steiner Verlag. ISBN 9783515137881. Full text in Research Archive
• Mouliou, Marlen; Soubiran, Sébastien; Wittje, Roland & Talas, Sofia (2018). Turning inside out European University Heritage: Collections, Audiences, Stakeholders. National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Press. ISBN 9789604661862. 368 p. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2016). The Age of Electroacoustics: Transforming Science and Sound. MIT Press. ISBN 9780262035262. 297 p. Full text in Research Archive
• Maison, Laetitia; Talas, Sofia & Wittje, Roland (2013). Shaping European University Heritage: Past and Possible Futures. Akademika Publishing. ISBN 9788232103058. 167 p. Full text in Research Archive
• Heering, Peter & Wittje, Roland (2011). Learning by Doing: Experiments and Instruments in the History of Science Teaching. Franz Steiner Verlag. ISBN 9783515098427. 362 p. Full text in Research Archive
• Børset, Bodil; Johansen, Jon-Arild & Wittje, Roland (2007). Etterklang - vitenskap, musikk og massemedia i elektroakustikkens tidsalder - Utstillingskatalog. Tapir Uttrykk. ISBN 9788271267582. 56 p. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Dette er utstillingskatalogen til utstillingen 'Etterklang - vitenskap, musikk og massemedia i elektroakustikkens tidsalder' som vises ved Vitenskapsmuseet i Trondheim 16. mars - 31. juli 2007

• Wittje, Roland & Nordal, Ola (2005). Universitetshistoriske samlinger ved NTNU - Rapport over kartleggingen av vitenskaps- og teknologihistoriske gjenstander og samlinger ved NTNU: perspektivet for bevaring og tilgjengeliggjøring for forskning, undervisning og formidling. Tapir Akademisk Forlag. ISBN 9788251920926. 163 p. Full text in Research Archive

View all works in NVA

• Wittje, Roland (2026). Hydrodynamic Fields of Force: Bjerknes' Experimental Program on the Mechanical Nature of Electromagnetism. doi: https:/hssonline.org/page/Edinburgh26. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In my talk, I want to discuss the epistemic function of physical models and experiments in the study of the mechanical nature of electromagnetism at the end of the 19th century. Carl Anton Bjerknes, professor of mathematics at the Royal Frederik University of Christiania (now Oslo) developed a set of models that showed hydromechanical analogies of electricity and magnetism, specifically the attraction and repulsion of pulsating and vibrating bodies, and the field lines they created in the water. Bjerknes' demonstrations received much acclamation at the 1881 Paris International Electric Exhibition. While Carl Anton had worked in relative isolation, his son Vilhelm Bjerknes worked with Heinrich Hertz in Bonn, which secured him international recognition. Vilhelm continued and extended his father's mathematical and experimental program into the first decade of the 20th century, citing specifically its relation to Hertz's Principles of Mechanics of 1894. Hendrik Anton Lorentz referred to Bjerknes' experiments in his Nobel lecture in 1902 but mechanical theories and models of electromagnetic phenomena quickly lost traction in the physics community. Vilhelm Bjerknes, however, went on to adapt his hydromechanical studies to the atmospheric sciences. Vilhelm Bjerknes is today celebrated as a founding figure of physical meteorology. While his work in electromagnetism is today rarely mentioned, Bjerknes himself continued to point towards the close connection between the two. What were the attractions and limitations developing physical models exploring the analogies, and why have they disappeared from our historiographies?

• Wittje, Roland (2026). Artificial intelligence and academic integrity at the museum. doi: https:/www.uc.pt/ogauc/universeum/. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Artificial intelligence has become part of our day-to-day professional life. What are the specific challenges of this development for university collections and museums? While many would like to ignore these changes, opting out is not an option since the digital tools that we use often have AI components built into their systems. As STS scholars and historians of technology, we should be critical towards both, utopic and dystopic visions of AI, understand its current form and hype as a moving target, and remember that new technologies frequently have unforeseen social, human and environmental consequences. University collections and museums are keepers, producers and disseminators of academic knowledge. The rapid advance of AI tools concerns all our activities, from collecting and collection management to research and exhibitions, and other forms of public outreach. How can we secure the integrity of the empirical source material that we administer? How can we ensure the reliability of research methods? How can we maintain academic rigor in exhibitions and other forms of public engagement? In my presentation, I will address these questions by drawing on discussions at a recent seminar on artificial intelligence at the Museum of Cultural History of the University of Oslo.

• Wittje, Roland & Klingvall, Ida Margrethe (2025). The Atom in the Universe: Heritage and History at the Physics Department of the University of Oslo. doi: https:/nchs10.w.uib.no/. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  How can we mobilize historical collections at the university in a dialogue about science and its history, involving a variety of local audiences? We will discuss three interconnected projects concerned with preserving the heritage and history of physics at the University of Oslo in-situ, and engaging staff and students as their main publics and co-curators. The projects cover the entire history of the physics department from its beginnings in the early 1800s, when the Physical Cabinet was built up as a teaching collection for lecture demonstrations, to contemporary times. The first project is the Study Magazine, where we exhibit parts of the Physical Cabinet of the University in their original 1935 cupboards behind the lecture theatre. In the second project, we discuss Per Krohg's monumental mural painting The Atom in the Universe (1935-1938) in the entrance hall of Physics Building. This artwork is closely related to the instrument collection as well as the local scientific environment of the time and the transition from what became known as classical into modern physics. In a third project, we present the history of the Department's 35 MeV variable energy cyclotron, commissioned in 1979, which is still running and facilitates the study of the structure of heavy atomic nuclei. We will discuss our experiences in collaborating with students and staff in the ongoing making of exhibitions in their open spaces.

• Wittje, Roland (2025). The Lecture Theatre and the Performance of Scientific Instruments. doi: https:/www.ichst2025.org/. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In my presentation, I will explore the physics lecture theatre of the late 19th and 20th century as an important space for the performance of scientific instruments. While historians of science have identified the laboratory and the field as the primary arenas that defined the development and the use of scientific instruments, lecture halls other than anatomical theatres have largely been overlooked. Between the 1860s and 1914, physics lecture theatres in Germany became highly sophisticated architectural spaces with a complex infrastructure to satisfy elaborate teaching experiments and demonstrations. The 19th century physics lecture theatre was transformed in interwar Germany through the adaptation of new instruments and practices of lecture demonstrations. I will conclude with the struggle of West German faculty at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in the 1960s to establish German instruments and methods of teaching physics in India along with a specific architecture of teaching spaces. The ultimate failure of a linear transfer of German teaching instruments, spaces and methods to South India underscores the social and cultural embeddedness of scientific and technical education and its epistemic practices. Moving from Wilhelmine Germany to the interwar period and the Cold War, and from the postwar Federal Republic of Germany to post-independence India will allow me to show how the transformation of the lecture theatre as a knowledge space has been an integral part of a larger narrative of political, social, technological, and epistemological continuities, changes, and boundaries.

• Wittje, Roland (2025). “No Archive, No History!” On the Importance of the IIT Madras Archive. doi: https:/articlenineteeniitm.com/2025/02/04/enchanting-the-archives-a-symposium/. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  What is the relationship between the archive and history writing? Narrating from the archive has long been the benchmark for academic history writing. Irrespective of the insistence on Quellenkritik (being critical of your sources), historians happily and for the most part uncritically accept the existence of archives and gaze on the rich pastures of their records. Throughout my career as a historian of science, I have argued for the importance for historians to get out of the reading room and engage with sources other than written records, such as studying scientific instruments and other artefacts, and to explore ethnographic and performative methods. In my presentation, I will discuss why I have, nevertheless, taken the initiative to set up the historical archive of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras as a rather traditional institutional archive, as part of my engagement with the Indo-German history of IIT Madras. While we should take "No Archive, No History" as a provocation, the practice of history writing and the resulting narratives are undeniably impacted by the availability (or unavailability) of archival sources.

• Wittje, Roland (2025). Understanding Electromagnetism: Carl Anton and Vilhelm Bjerknes’ Hydromechanical Analogies. doi: https:/www.deutsches-museum.de/forschung/forschungsinstitut/vortragsreihen/montagskolloquium. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Carl Anton Bjerknes, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oslo, developed a set of instruments from the late 1860 onwards, that demonstrated hydromechanical analogies of electricity and magnetism. The demonstrations attracted international attention among physicists during the Electrical Exhibition of Paris in 1881 and were driven further by Carl Anton’s son Vilhelm in the 1890s. While the analogies ultimately did not prove the mechanical nature of electromagnetism, they became an important starting point for Vilhelm Bjerknes’ program for physical meteorology. The Bjerknes analogies are an example of a whole range of materialized mechanical, hydrodynamical, and hydrostatic models and analogies of electricity and magnetism of the late 19th and early 20th century. The Bjerknes instruments were marketed internationally and discussed in publications such as ‘Dr. Frick’s Physikalische Technik’ of 1905. While many of the mechanical models of electricity and magnetism had purely didactic value, Carl Anton and Vilhelm Bjerknes’ hydromechanical analogies constituted a crucial research program to understand the (mechanical) nature of electromagnetism. As William Thompson famously proclaimed in 1884, he could not “get electromagnetic theory” since he could not “make a mechanical model all the way through”. At the same time as the Bjerknes apparatus were promoted as teaching demonstrations, they remained problematic as didactic devices, as they often failed to impress the audience. They required a considerable amount of skill from the demonstrator, which I learned from my own attempts to re-work an original apparatus.

• Wittje, Roland (2025). Postcolonial Reflections: Practicing History of Science and Technology at IIT Madras. doi: https:/khk.rwth-aachen.de/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Program-International-Conference.pdf. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2025). Contemporary University Heritage as a Moving Target: Rethinking Collecting from the 21st Century. doi: https:/www.patstec.fr/uploads/Programme%20s%C3%A9minaire%20d%C3%A9taill%C3%A9.pdf. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  When we initiated the Working Group on Recent Scientific Heritage at UNIVERSEUM in 2012, our mind was still on the late 20th century. In the meantime, the 21st century matured in a way that nobody anticipated. As the End of History obviously never materialized, we are in fact moving rapidly into a rather uncertain future with scientific norms, institutions and practices not as a neutral bystander but as a part of the playing field. What does this mean for collecting 21st century heritage at universities? Have our aims, audiences and practices changed in recent years, and if so, how? Especially the current discourse on artificial intelligence, I argue, is poorly reflected and lacking historical perspective. At the same time, we should be careful to not overemphasize our arguably short-lived presentist concerns in our collection strategies.

• Wittje, Roland (2023). The Lecture Theatre as a Space for Knowledge Making. doi: https:/www.muv.uio.no/forskning/the-norwegian-conference-on-the-history-of-sci/9th-norwegian-conference-on-the-history-of-science.html. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Spaces of teaching science such as classrooms, lecture theatres and teaching laboratories have often been understood as places of passive knowledge dissemination in terms of reproducing established knowledge paradigms in which the students become socialized. In my paper I will instead explore the lecture theatre as a space where scientific knowledge is negotiated as well as new knowledge is created. I will draw on examples of the 19th century lecture theatre, the adaptation of a new way of physics lecture demonstrations and architecture of lecture theaters in interwar Germany, and the struggle of West German faculty at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in the 1960s to establish German methods of teaching science and engineering in India along with a specific architecture of teaching spaces. The ultimate failure of a linear transfer of German teaching spaces and methods to South India underlines the social and cultural embeddedness of scientific and technical education and its epistemic practices. Moving from the Wilhelmine to the interwar period and the Cold War, and from the postwar Federal Republic of Germany to post-independence India will allow me to show how the transformation of the lecture theatre as a knowledge space has been integral part of a larger narrative of political, social, technological, and epistemological continuities, changes, and boundaries.

• Wittje, Roland (2023). Scientific Instruments and the Neglect of Teaching in the History of Physics. doi: https:/indico.ict.inaf.it/event/2338/. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  While historians of science are mainly interested in the history of research, many if not most of the instruments in physical cabinets and other historical scientific collections emerged from a teaching context. I argue that we need to relocate education from the periphery of the history of science to its centre. I claim that it is essential to study science education in its entirety and complexity if we want to understand the generation, reproduction, circulation and transformation of scientific and technological knowledge, practices, practitioners and objects inside and outside of scientific institutions and communities. Deborah Warner has suggested that the most common use of philosophical apparatus in the eighteenth century was in pedagogy. Since then, the relationship between research and teaching, and research and teaching instruments have changed considerably. For the last decades, the historical study of scientific instruments and collections has received a boost in Europe through the efforts of many of those involved to preserve the material heritage of universities, which had become endangered by institutional restructuring. Changes in research and teaching practices made these objects obsolete for current scientific activities and transformed them into historical objects. The material cultures and teaching practices related to these instruments, and their relation to research and other scientific practices, need to be studied. Drawing on examples, I will elaborate on this in my presentation.

• Wittje, Roland (2018). The Turns Technology Takes. [Internet]. SynTalk Podcast. Full text in Research Archive
• Børset, Bodil; Brandt, Thomas; Wittje, Roland & Johansen, Jon-Arild (2007). Tidsbilde fra pionértiden. [Journal]. Adresseavisen. Full text in Research Archive
• Johansen, Jon-Arild & Wittje, Roland (2007). Lyd som forhekset massene. [Journal]. Byavisa. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Intervju i forbindelse med utstillingen Etterklang v/ Kunnskapsparken Faros, NTNU.

• Børset, Bodil; Brandt, Thomas; Wittje, Roland; Johansen, Jon-Arild; Stoltz, Kenneth & Håve, Kjell Ingar (2007). Ørens lyd å få. [Internet]. Universitetsavisa. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland & Asphjell, Arne (2007). Gløshaugens museumsvokter flytter til Tyskland. [Journal]. Universitetsavisa. Full text in Research Archive
• Myhr, Odd Ragnar; Wittje, Roland & Johansen, Jon-Arild (2007). Lyd som forhekset massene. [Journal]. Byavisa. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland; Brandt, Thomas; Børset, Bodil; Johansen, Jon-Arild; Lundstrøm, Bruno & Lundstrøm, Sivert Mo [Show all 7 contributors for this article] (2007). "Etterklang - vitenskap, musikk og massemedia i elektroakustikkens tidsalder". Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Etterklang er en utstilling om elektroakustikkens rolle innenfor vitenskap, musikk og massemedia på 1930-tallet. I denne perioden spilte elektrisk generert, manipulert og forsterket lyd en stadig større rolle i folks liv. I utstillingen viser vi samspillet mellom teknologiene som formidlet lydene, og kulturen og konteksten dette skjedde innenfor.

• Wittje, Roland; Brandt, Thomas; Johansen, Jon-Arild; Lundstrøm, Sivert Mo; Lundstrøm, Bruno & Nordal, Ola [Show all 8 contributors for this article] (2007). Etterklang - vitenskap, musikk og massemedia i elektroakustikkens tidsalder. Full text in Research Archive
• Jemterud, Torkild & Wittje, Roland (2007). Energi i fortid, nåtid og framtid. Verdt å vite spesial. [Radio]. NRK P2. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland; Nordal, Ola & Asphjell, Arne (2006). Datahistorie i Realfagbiblioteket. [Journal]. Universitetsavia Trondheim. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2006). Nuclear physics instrumentation in Norway: 1933-1955. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2006). Nuclear physics instrumentation in Norway: 1933-1955. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2006). Kjernefysikk i Norge: 1933-1955. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2006). The rise of electroacoustics in Germany during the interwar years. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2006). The rise of electroacoustics in Germany during the interwar years. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2006). "How should scientific instruments teach us about 20th century science?" A collection policy for 20th century scientific instrumentation. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2006). Hva kan gjenstandene lære oss om vitenskapen i det 20. århundre. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland & Stoltz, Kenneth (2005). Kunnskapshistoriske snurrepiperier. [Journal]. Universitetsavisa, NTNU. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2005). Physics and the rise of electroacoustics in Germany during the interwar years. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2005). Das 'System Pohl'. Physikalische Demonstrationsexperimente und Instrumente in der Weimarer Republik. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2005). The foundation of N.T.H. in 1910 in international context. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2005). Physics and the rise of electroacoustics in Germany during the interwar years. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2005). Chemical Heritage at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2005). Radio and the Rise of Electroacoustics in Germany during the Interwar Years. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2005). Changing landscapes of nuclear physics instrumentation in Norway: 1933-1955. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2005). Radio and the Rise of Electroacoustics in Germany during the Interwar Years. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2004). Playing on scientific instruments: Acoustics and the preservation and use of scientific instruments in research and public presentation. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2004). Launching from the physics department towards industry building: The transition of practices between amateur radio, research and commercial radio manufacturing in Norway during the interwar period. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2004). Instruments of Science and Music from the 18th to the 20th Century. Full text in Research Archive
• Jacobsen, Elisabeth Egholm; Wittje, Roland; Ljones, Kjersti; Kvittingen, Lise & Kjøsen, Helge (2004). Reddet gamle kjemiskatter. [Journal]. Universitetsavia Trondheim. Full text in Research Archive
• Lykknes, Annette & Wittje, Roland (2004). Innsamling av historiske gjenstander fra tidligere organisk kjemi, NTH. [Radio]. NRK P2 - WOK. Full text in Research Archive
• Jacobsen, Elisabeth Egholm; Lykknes, Annette & Wittje, Roland (2004). Innsamling av historiske gjenstander ved tidligere organisk kjemi, NTH. [TV]. TV Norge - Bymagasinet. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2003). History of Physics, Scientific Instruments and Physics Teaching. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2003). Acoustics, atom smashing and amateur radio-Physics and instrumentation at the Norwegian Institute of Technology in the interwar period. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2003). Robert W. Pohl and the reformation of lecture demonstrations during the interwar period. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2002). Scientific instrument collections and writing histories of 20th century physics: Experiences and perspectives. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2002). Vom Akademischen Radioklub zum Teilchenbeschleuniger: Elektroakustik und wissenschaftlicher Instrumentenbau an der Norwegischen Technischen Hochschule während der Zwischenkriegszeit. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2002). From the Academic Radio Club to the particle accelerator: Electroacoustics and scientific instrument making at the Norwegian Institute of Technology during the inter-war period. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2002). Elektroakustikkens tidsalder: Akustikk, Akademisk Radioklubb og vitenskapelig instrumentering ved NTH i mellomkrigstiden. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2001). The adoption of German schools of physics teaching in Norway - Lecture demonstrations and demonstration instruments in physics in the first decades of the 20th century. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2001). The System Pohl - Lecture demonstrations and demonstration instruments in physics during the interwar period. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2001). Early accelerators in Norway. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2001). Bjerknes' hydrodynamic analogies of magnetism - a 20th century lecture demonstration. Full text in Research Archive
• Wittje, Roland (2003). Acoustics, atom smashing and amateur radio : physics and instrumentation at the Norwegian Institute ofTechnology in the interwar period. Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet. ISSN 9788247155721. Full text in Research Archive

View all works in NVA