天问：变动中的环境认知

 
地点：中国人民大学
时间：2017年5月25-27日

主办单位：中国人民大学生态史研究中心
         德国慕尼黑大学蕾切尔·卡森环境与社会中心
         德国马克斯·普朗克科学史研究所（协办）

会议召集人：
   
    唐纳德·沃斯特（Donald Worster美国堪萨斯大学荣退教授）

    赫尔穆特·崔施勒（Helmuth Trischler 德国德意志博物馆研究部主任、慕尼黑  大学蕾切尔·卡森环境与社会中心联合主任）
    夏明方（Mingfang Xia中国人民大学生态史研究中心主任）

    谁最了解自然？过去一万年间，各种相互竞争的知识共同体不断演化，每一共同体各自都有形式化的准则与过程。其间农夫同手工业者互争长短，宗教领袖与城市专家一比高低。在以科学和技术为根基的现代社会中，虽然科学知识仍在与其他各种知识群体相较量，但是对知识的各种诉求愈发偏离旧有的知识共同体。而那些获取定义知识权力的人总是可以为自然世界带来深远的影响。

    我们的会议就以下议题征求文章：那些被我们视为可测量或者仅可揣度的，安全的或者不安全的事物对环境知识的生产具有怎样的影响；尺度（包括景观的尺度，研究课题的尺度等）在此类知识生产的过程中扮演何样的角色；关于自然与环境的新知识领域是如何崛起的，它们又如何寻求其学科与制度的稳固性。我们的会议力求超越简单的二分法  现代性vs.传统，科学vs.宗教，民间智慧vs.城市无知，鼓励跨国界的比较，并期望将那些在地球上与历史中为人们所忽略的部分带入我们的视野。

    此次会议将由德国马克斯·普朗克科学史研究所主任薛凤（Dagmar Schäfer）做主旨演讲，其代表作为《工开万物：17世纪中国的知识与技术》。

    此次会议向包括研究生和教授在内的所有学者开放。提交的会议申请材料包括：论文标题、摘要（英文300个单词），附加一至二页的个人简历。申请截止日期为2017年1月1日，2017年2月1日公布申请结果，2017年5月1日前提交论文全文（英文5000单词，中文12000余字）。所有论文将事先在与会者中间传阅，会议中不做论文宣读。

    申请评审委员会成员包括：Helmuth Trischler教授，德意志博物馆研究部主任，慕尼黑大学蕾切尔·卡森中心联合主任；Donald Worster教授，堪萨斯大学赫尔杰出教授（荣休），中国人民大学海外高层次文教专家；夏明方教授，中国人民大学生态史研究中心主任。会议组委会主席为侯深副教授，中国人民大学生态史研究中心副主任。

    所有申请请发往会议秘书，中国人民大学生态史研究中心助理教授：柯安慈（Agnes Kneitz）博士：a.kneitz@ruc.edu.cn

    会议不收取会务费。境外学者旅费将由蕾切尔·卡森中心承担，中国人民大学生态史研究中心将负责所有与会学者在京会议期间食宿。

中国人民大学生态史研究中心

德国蕾切尔·卡森社会与环境中心

2017年10月27日

Call for Papers

KNOWING NATURE:  

The Changing Foundations of

Environmental Knowledge
 

An international conference to be held in Beijing,

Renmin University of China,

25-27 May 2017
 

 Co-Sponsored by the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, and the Center for Ecological History, Renmin University of China, Beijing, with the collaboration of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin

Who knows nature best? Over the past 10,000 years competing communities of knowledge have evolved, each with formalized standards and processes.  Peasants have competed against craftsmen, religious leaders, and urban experts. In modern societies based on science and technology, the claims to knowledge have changed even more dramatically, although scientific knowledge still competes with other bodies of knowledge. And always, who gets to define knowledge can have profound consequences for the natural world.

For our conference we seek proposals that examine what has been seen and understood as measurable, speculative, safe or unsafe and how scale (of landscapes, research projects etc.) can affect knowledge production. We welcome proposals on the rise of new fields of knowledge about nature and the environment and their search for disciplinary and institutional stability. Our conference will seek to move beyond simple dichotomies (modernity vs. tradition, science vs. religion, folk wisdom vs. urban ignorance), to develop comparisons that cross national boundaries, and to bring neglected parts of the globe and time into view.

Our keynote speaker will be Dagmar Schäfer, managing director of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, and author of The Crafting of the 10,000 Things: Knowledge and Technology in Seventeenth-Century China (University of Chicago Press, 2011).

This conference is open to all ranks of scholars, from graduate students to senior professors. Paper proposals should be one-page long (or about 300 words) and include a title and a one- or two-page CV.

Send proposals to conference secretary Agnes Kneitz, Assistant Professor of History at Renmin University at this address: a.kneitz@ruc.edu.cn.  The deadline for consideration is 1 January 2017. 

Successful proposals will be announced around 1 February, and complete drafts of papers (minimum of 5,000 words in English or the equivalent in Chinese characters) will be required by 1 May 2017. All papers will be circulated to the participants in advance and will not be orally presented during the conference.

The members of the selection committee include Mingfang Xia, Director of the Center for Ecological History and Senior Professor in the School of History, Renmin University of China; Helmuth Trischler, Head of Research at the Deutsches Museum, Munich, and Co-Director of the Rachel Carson Center; and Donald Worster, Hall Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus, University of Kansas, and Distinguished Foreign Expert, Renmin University.  

The organizing chairperson for the conference is Professor Shen Hou, Deputy Director of the Center for Ecological History and Associate Professor of history at Renmin University.

Travel expenses for scholars living outside of China will be reimbursed by the Rachel Carson Center. Scholars living within China should depend on their own universities for covering travel expenses. For all participants, hotel accommodations for four nights and all meals will be covered by Renmin University of China.  

Following the conference we will organize a group field trip to the Great Wall as a site and symbol of what Joseph Needham called “science and civilization in China.”