Objects of Understanding is a book that Roland Wittje recently published together with Peter Heering from the Europa-Universität Flensburg. The fifteenth contributions deal with various aspects of the history of scientific instruments, collections, and other artefacts from science education from the 18th to the 21st century, and the practices associated with them.
The history of science teaching and professional training in schools, technical colleges and universities remains a marginal topic within the history of science, despite its importance for the creation, dissemination, circulation and transformation of scientific knowledge and practices.
Experimentation, observation and demonstration in science education have left us with large collections of historical instruments, models, specimens and other types of objects, which we need to mobilize in the history of science teaching and learning and its material cultures.
Beyond presenting the book, Wittje will discuss how we should study our teaching collections at the University of Oslo within their different contexts. Where did these objects come from? How were they used in teaching within lecture halls and laboratories? What did the students actually learn, and where did they take this knowledge? How and why did these objects and material practices change over time? The history of academic teaching at the University of Oslo needs to be studied within a larger geographical frame, following the dissemination and circulation of objects, ideas and practices.
More about the book
About the lecturer
Roland Wittje is Associate Professor in History of Science at the Museum of Cultural History of the University of Oslo, and President of the Scientific Instrument Commission of the DHST/IUHPST.
He has previously taught History of Science and Technology at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras in Chennai, India, and the University of Regensburg, Germany.
Publications include The Age of Electroacoustics: Transforming Science and Sound (MIT Press 2016) and Relocating Education in the History of Science and Technology (History of Technology, 2023).