Paper short abstract:

The talk focuses on a. recent origins of approaching the past with an ethnological sensibility in British Marxist historiography, b. Lorraine Daston’s reconceptualisation of Thompsonian ideas within the history of science and c. reconstructing quotidian scientific practices from archival sources.

Paper long abstract:

My talk is divided into three parts. The first and introductory bit is devoted to the recent origins of approaching the past with an ethnological sensibility in British Marxist historiography, i. e. the work of E. P. Thompson during the 1960s and 1970s. The second part deals with Lorraine Daston's reconceptualisation of key Thompsonian ideas within the history of science since the early 1990s while the third and largest section focuses on reconstructing quotidian scientific practices from archival sources - without falling prey to a highly simplified, "flat" description like most of Bruno Latour's historiographical writings - and raises some enduring questions about writing and teaching the history of science in an anthropological manner.