On 26 and 27 May 2025, the Interdisciplinary Center for Science and Technology Studies (IZWT) will hold a workshop on materials for research and learning at the University of Wuppertal. The interdisciplinary workshop is explicitly aimed at early career researchers and is intended to provide a place for exchange and discussion about their own research projects.

Materials of research and learning - instruments, models and things of knowledge from a historical and sociological perspective

The material turn has also led to increased attention being paid to the material side of knowledge and knowledge production in historical and sociological science studies. This will be explored in greater depth in the workshop in an interdisciplinary context with a focus on so-called things of knowledge. By this we mean materials, instruments and objects that can be analysed as knowledge carriers and tools for knowledge transfer. The aim is to look at research projects with different materials for research and learning side by side in order to gain new insights and research approaches to a wide variety of materials.

Object-related contributions from various fields of knowledge and science are therefore welcome. These include, for example, materials that are used to collect data in practical experiments, such as measuring devices for determining temperature, salt content or flow conditions; materials that are used to contextualise and process data in the research process, such as measuring tapes and compasses as well as written records; or materials that are used to impart knowledge, such as models or dolls in medicine.

The workshop is explicitly aimed at doctoral students or other early career researchersin order to create an open space for exchange. The aim is to explicitly bring different fields of science studies, science and technology studies or related fields that are dedicated to the aforementioned sociological or historical materials into dialogue in order to gain links and insights into the materials of research and learning that would otherwise remain isolated in subdisciplines.

You can find the programme here.

Contact

materialienworkshop@uni-wuppertal.de