Visiting Trento
Elvira Scheich
On June 4 I gave a talk at the FBK ? Fondazione Bruno Kessler in
Trento/Italy. The title was ?Energetic Thoughts ? Tracing Gender in
the History of Physics? and it was the third in a series of lectures
organized by GOSH, an interdisciplinary group of active young scholars
at the FBK (see: http://gosh.fbk.eu/en/home). The same group is
organizing the conference in December (see:
http://gender2010.fbk.eu/node/7).
Within the group various disciplines are represented ? obviously more
than on the groups?s homepage given above. At least two physicist came
to the talk and to the lunch afterwards. The others with whom I talked
came from the humanities. My impression from that relatively short
encounter was that the social science perspectives were not so
prominent and a distinct science studies was not at the center. The
atmosphere was overall welcoming, open and very interested in our work.
In order to intensify the contact, one could think of inviting one of
the GOSH group to the centre in Uppsala to give a talk at the centre?s
Thursday seminar in spring
Trento is a most beautiful city, where the FBK has two locations: the
humanities are downtown in the old city and the natural science are up
in the mountains, in a suburb called Povo. As a result, I was
experiencing a well-known problem. The talk was scheduled in Povo and
the grounds were not so familiar to the organizers who came from the
humanities. The room was a lecture hall that had lots of technological
equipment (including a booth with a technician) and at the same time I
had no reading light at the desk. I have never before seen such a
strange arrangement of the chairs, as a result I was extremely far
from the public and that with a group size of a good seminar. Thus,
fighting the discussion-unfriendly material circumstances did cost me
some of my attention. I was sorry for that. The lunch was great and
the machines, that I visited afterwards, were simply delightful (both
from an aesthetic as well as from a scientific point of view). I write
down the negative aspects for keeping in mind to ask in detail about
those things in advance.
I will write on the practicalities for the EASST conference in
September under a separate headline.
Enjoy the midsummer-Monday! Best, Elvira
Prof. Dr. Elvira Scheich
Germany:
Technische Universität Berlin
Institut für Gesellschaftswissenschaften
und historisch-politische Bildung
Sekr. FR 3-7
Franklinstr. 28/29
D-10587 Berlin
Phone: +49-30-314 73468
E-Mail: elvira....@tu-berlin.de
Sweden:
Visiting Professor
University of Uppsala
Centre for Gender Research
Box 634
Thunbergsvägen 3H
SE-751 26 Uppsala
Phone: +46-18-471 5793
E-Mail: elvira....@gender.uu.se