Writing Scientific Biography

Greene, Mott T.

doi:10.1007/s10739-007-9124-x

Cited by 37 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…The team flew an Otter aircraft over the island and recorded very satisfactory RES data." 24 Greene (2007 Norway. 28 This glacier had been chosen, physicist John Nye tells us, by glaciologist Bill Ward for the clarity of particular features:…”

Section: Ice Falling At the Right Speedmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Verticalities in oral histories of science

Merchant

2020

Centaurus

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This paper is concerned with the way in which scientists speak—in extended life‐story interviews recorded recently—about the role of verticality (understood here as an orientation in space: up/down rather than across) in past scientific work. In particular, I explore several episodes of scientific work in which (the scientists involved tell us) verticality emerged unexpectedly as an important aspect of the work. I argue that these stories tell us about previously neglected features of the geography of science as well as about the various influences on scientists' written and spoken accounts. I show that attention to stories of fieldwork featuring different aspects of verticality—vertical distance, rate of fall, and position under—sheds new light on the doing of science and its narration after the event, in such different communications as scientific papers and life‐story recordings.

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Section: Ice Falling At the Right Speedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… For example, de Chadarevian (1997);Doel (2003);Hoddeson (2006); Merchant (2019).3 Merchant (2019).4 See the introduction to this issue: Hardenberg & Mahony (2020, p. 599). 5Greene (2007).…”

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confidence: 99%

Verticalities in oral histories of science

Merchant

2020

Centaurus

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“…Biographer of Charles Darwin, James Moore, says that this genre of nonfiction ‘may yet prove the most effective way of informing the widest audience about the politics of scientific practice and the cultural formation of natural knowledge’ (cited in Nye, 2006: 323). Although singling out a scientist for biographical treatment, as I have done in my research, has been criticised for creating a false perception of the collective nature of scientific endeavour (Greene, 2007), personal passions and emotions are pervasive in science research and writing (Spencer and Walby, 2013). Many scientists have been inspired to enter the field by the example of prominent personalities and the combination of the professional and personal aspects of a scientist’s life has ‘the function of providing exemplary lives for the edification of apprentice scientists, as algorithms for “scientific lives well lived” and thus provide a focus for aspiration’ (Greene, 2007: 756).…”

Section: Scientific Life Writingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The power of nonfiction life story narratives to communicate conservation to a non-specialist audience

Pye

2020

The Anthropocene Review

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Without significant adaptation and response to climate change and environmental destruction, human behaviour has the capacity to lead to our eventual demise. However, in our fast-paced media world, conservation messages and warnings are often ignored by the public, politicians and commercial concerns. This article proposes that long-form nonfiction narratives are an important communication tool for the dissemination of conservation science in the Anthropocene. Furthermore, it suggests that future-focused nature biographies have the capacity to present science in a way that is accessible to a non-specialist audience, evoking the necessary responsibilities and stewardship outside of scientific circles. This article compares biographical exemplars with the author’s practice-led research exploring the life of Malaysian biologist and tropical ecologist, Dr Wong Siew Te.

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“…Telling Lives in Science (Greene, 2007) introduces some of the recurring dilemmas faced by historians of science as they wrestle with biography as 'one of the principle narrative modes in the history of science ' (p. 727). While biography appears to be a format audiences find compelling, historians confront prejudices that treat the genre as an 'oldfashioned, stale and distinctly uninteresting resource' (Shortland and Yeo, 1996: xiii).…”

Section: The Science Biographymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Pasteurization of Marie Curie: A (meta)biographical experiment

Wirtén

2015

Soc Stud Sci

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Biographies of scientists occupy a liminal space, highly popular with general readers but questioned in academia. Nonetheless, in recent years, historians of science have not only embraced the genre with more enthusiasm and less guilt, they have also turned to the metabiography in order to renew the study and story of scientists’ roles. This essay focuses on Marie Curie, the world’s most famous female scientist, in order to unpack some of the theoretical and methodological claims of the science biography, and especially to address the sexing mechanisms at play in the construction of the biographical subject. Pierre Curie (1923), Marie’s biography of her husband Pierre, paid tribute to her dead husband and collaborator, but also allowed Curie a legitimate outlet to construct her own persona and legacy. Categories such as personhood, person, and persona are not only central to the biography genre but also are essential to the sense of self and self-fashioning of scientists. Looking at how Marie Curie negotiated these categories in Pierre Curie not only gives new insight into Curie’s self-fashioning strategies but may also shed some light on the more general analytical lacunae of the science biography.

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Writing Scientific Biography

Cited by 37 publications

References 9 publications

Verticalities in oral histories of science

Verticalities in oral histories of science

The power of nonfiction life story narratives to communicate conservation to a non-specialist audience

The Pasteurization of Marie Curie: A (meta)biographical experiment

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