Trafficking Materials and Gendered Experimental - Radium Research in Early 20th Century Vienna Vienna

Erscheinungsjahr 2009
ISBN: 978-0-231-13558-0
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 320 Seiten, Format (B × H): 162 mm x 239 mm, Gewicht: 636 g

Reihe: Gutenberg-e

Maria Rentetzi surveys the experimental practices of radioactivity research in early-twentieth-century Vienna, focusing on radioactive materials, instruments, women's work in physics, and gendered skills. She shows how experimental cultures in radioactivity-scientific practices employed by gendered subjects who shared a certain material and epistemic style of research& mdash;were constructed and reshaped by socialist politics in Vienna at that time. She also explores the different ways experimental practices affected men and women in laboratory sciences.Rentetzi expands the notion of material culture to include not only instruments and objects but also materials that operated as both commodities and objects of scientific inquiry. She tells a multifaceted story of how purified radium ended up on laboratory benches and who extracted and isolated it from tons of residues; the individuals who designed experiments and instruments for probing radium's properties; and those who carried radium outside of the physics laboratory and into the clinic and medical amphitheatres. Rentetzi examines how the architecture of the laboratory affected men's and women's scientific work and the way in which its urban setting reflected assumptions about scientific cross-disciplinary collaborations.Following the circulation of radium and the pursuit of power through strategies of partnership and collaboration, Rentetzi redraws paths of scientific exchange and transfers the reader from scientific laboratories to hospitals and from academic to industrial sites.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Rentetzi, Maria

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wissenschafts- und Universitätsgeschichte
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Formalen Wissenschaften & Technik
• Naturwissenschaften Physik Physik Allgemein Geschichte der Physik
• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Psychologie / Allgemeines & Theorie Geschichte der Psychologie
• Naturwissenschaften Chemie Chemie Allgemein Geschichte der Chemie
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Geschichte der Human- und Sozialwissenschaften
• Naturwissenschaften Chemie Chemie Allgemein Chemische Labormethoden, Stöchiometrie
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Forschung und Information Forschungsmethodik, Wissenschaftliche Ausstattung
• Naturwissenschaften Chemie Chemie Allgemein Chemometrik, Chemoinformatik
• Technische Wissenschaften Technik Allgemein Technikgeschichte
• Naturwissenschaften Chemie Chemie Allgemein Pharmazeutische Chemie, Medizinische Chemie
• Naturwissenschaften Chemie Chemie Allgemein Toxikologie, Gefahrstoffe, Sicherheit in der Chemie

Über Autor(innen)

Maria Rentetzi is an assistant professor at the National Technical University of Athens in Greece. She teaches science and technology studies, and her articles have appeared in journals such as Isis, the British Journal for History of Science, Centauraus, Endeavour, and Nuncius. Her forthcoming book deals with the development of nuclear science and technology in Greece after the Second World War.