Dr. Catelijne Coopmans’ new book out with MIT Press

Representation in Scientific Practice Revisited
(edited by Catelijne Coopmans, Janet Vertesi, Michael Lynch and Steve Woolgar)

Whether it concerns planets, brains, molecular cell biology, nanoscale realities or economic behaviour, in order to know about phenomena in the world we have to find ways to make them visible or otherwise amenable to research. This book is about the work scientists and others do to accomplish this, and about the tools that support them in this work. Written by sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers, historians and interdisciplinary scholars, the book contains case studies and reflections on what ‘representation in scientific practice’ entails and how to study it. It presents questions and observations about, among other things, how our ways of knowing are shaped by (new) technologies, how data and the imagination work together, how scientists develop a feel for what they are investigating, and why and how certain representations are so seductive.

The book is available from MIT Press and Amazon.

Also available in the Tembusu College Reading Room!