Text and image in the history of biology”.

Text and image in the history of biology

Until recently, historians of science have focused only on textual material as sources of historical research. Visual representations incorporated in published or unpublished sources were generally ignored or, at best, considered as secondary, accompanying ‘illustrations’ in the sense of the word. The pictorial depictions of plants or animals, the envisioning of microscopical observations or even tables, graphs and diagrams were not considered as objects deserving an analysis at its own stake.

Only toward the end of the twentieth century historians have realized the potential of visual analysis. The ‘pictorial turn’ in the history of science refers to the fact that at least in some cases the visual aspects of scientific knowledge are more important than the texts alone. Very often it is only through the analysis of the visual representation of scientific knowledge that we can understand the theoretical and conceptual change in science. This applies both for botanical illustrations in the eighteenth century and to the depiction of antibodies in modern immunology, to the observations of cells in the early nineteenth century and to the visualisation of cognitive processes as currently employed in cognitive studies.

The seminar will be composed of two parts: a methodological and a historical part. In the methodological part, we will discuss the relation between text and image and the possible ways by which a historian can use non-verbal sources in her analysis. We will discuss the wider implications for the methodology of the history of science and its relation with neighbouring disciplines like literary studies and history of art.
In the historical part of the seminar, we will analyse one particular case study in the history of science where the pictorial aspect played a central role, namely the establishment of biology as a scientific discipline in the first decades of the nineteenth century. Studying a series of historical sources, we will discuss the role of visual representations in the establishment of scientific knowledge on plants and animals. Special attention will be given to the study of embryological development, to the microscopical study of life processes and the discovery of cells.