Friday 11 July and Saturday 12 July 2025
Seminar Room, Radcliffe Humanities Building and Faculty of History, George Street
Register via Eventbrite.
Registration closes 48 hours before the start of the event.
Conference Theme and Goals
Historians have studied extensively how sciences begin—but how do they end? This is a crucial question for understanding how the labour of knowledge-making evolves. Previous attention to the founding, disciplining, and professionalisation of individual sciences has provided robust frameworks for thinking through the birth and growth of knowledge-making communities. Far less attention has been directed toward how those same communities decay, dissipate, or evolve beyond the contemporary boundaries of science. This conference seeks to cultivate case studies of the ends of sciences, and thereby to motivate a new approach to thinking about the developmental trajectories of scientific disciplines, communities, institutions, and the ordering of expert knowledge. A further aim is to strengthen the community of scholars with a shared interest in studying the ends of sciences.
See conference programme here.
A small lunch will be provided on both days of the conference. If you have any dietary requirements, please email Michelle at michelle.pfeffer@history.ox.ac.uk.
We hope to arrange a conference dinner for Friday 11 July following the keynote lecture. Once arrangements are finalised we will be in contact with all registered participants to ask if you'd like to attend.
Divination, Oracles, and Omens Network
