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Paper short abstract

This paper analyses how notions of scientific authority are constructed in how-to manuals for giving presentations, by tracing how these manuals (1970s-today) in different scientific disciplines instruct scientists on how to use their voices, body language and audio-visual representations.

Paper long abstract

Existing studies of the role of bodily engagement in scientific practice primarily focus on tacit skills. Although scientists use their bodies and senses in myriad ways, they - partially due to a scientific rhetoric that builds upon the notion of disembodied knowledge - rarely receive explicit, written instructions for doing so.

In this paper, I want to analyse a genre of writing which does give guidance to scientists on how they should use their bodies: the how-to guide on giving presentations. Through these texts, (especially young) scientists are instructed in how to use their voices, body language and various audio-visual representations in order to create an impression of scientific authority. The specific form that these instructions take, however, are historically grown and can vary considerably: while some texts recommend lively bodily performances to draw in the audience, others instead suggest suppressing one's body language to a large extent in order to not distract from, and thus potentially discredit, the scientific content of the presentation. Based on an analysis of how-to manuals on giving presentations, spanning from the 1970s to today and encompassing a variety of scientific fields (extending towards medicine, the humanities and social sciences), I will trace how notions of scientific authority and expertise are constructed through these instructions.