Overview

5.00pm IAHS plenary: Has our Present Past a Future? Challenges Abound, Opportunities Remain Chair: TBC Speakers: Roy MacLeod in conversation with Gary Werskey

Since its beginnings in 1927, the IAHS has witnessed nearly a century of what we’ve come to call modern science, against a background of war and civil strife, population growth, and profound economic and social change. At the same time, we have seen modernity challenged by the rapid growth of knowledge and by the complex applications of technology it has been asked to celebrate. Over the last century, from a handful of independent, mostly European scholars and thinkers has risen a thriving profession. Yet, wearing the colours of many countries, the field has had a vertiginous journey. Many have asked where we are going, what are we trying to do. How does the profession see itself in the academic calendar? What media and methods of analysis are essential to our task? How may we best serve our students, while engaging with a wider, often critical audience? To these questions, there are no easy answers. Over 50 years ago, Arnold Thackray brought this continuing debate into a contemporary focus by asking, ‘Has Science’s Present Past a Future?’ Since his paper of 1970, Thackray’s question has been answered in many ways. But arguably every generation should ask it of itself. This session will again take the question to heart. We have chosen to frame it in the form of a conversation between us, in which we retrace milestones in our professional histories, and recount the influence of people, places and challenges we’ve met in our travels across the USA, Europe, and Australia.

Lead presenting author(s)