On Friday December 12th  the members of the international project Scientific Personae in Cultural Encounters (Wallenberg Foundation) and the NWO project The Scholarly Self met at the University of Groningen to discuss central concepts that they share.

      During this one day seminar, both projects presented their ideas as to how in particular the concept of ‘scientific persona’  can be understood and used as an analytical tool in current research into the history of science. In SPICE ‘scientific persona’ is understood as a category of identity that centers around reliability and credibility.  As such it is a central concept in the study of scientific biography that takes account of internal and external cultural patterns of identity formation that can contribute to the building of trust. The seminar was chaired by prof.dr. Mineke Bosch.

      Prof. Herman Paul started the seminar by giving his keynote lecture. Following up on two recent History and Theory articles, “Performing History” (2011) and “What Is a Scholarly Persona?” (2014), he commented on the hermeneutic relation between performances of scholarly selfhood in everyday scholarly practice, on the one hand, and culturally sanctioned repertoires of scholarly selfhood known as scholarly personae, on the other.

      Kaat Wils congratulated Herman Paul on his wonderful lecture and stated that she found it very interesting as well as very useful for the research in project SPICE. She then discussed the concept of persona some more by linking it also to ideas about private life and embodiment.

      Then there were five lectures from the PhD students from both The Scholarly Self and Project SPICE.

      First up was Christiaan Engberts who is working on the sub-project ‘Men with a Mission: Informal Accountability Practices’. His research focuses on a case-study on informal exchanges amongst scholars in the oriental studies. He was followed up by his colleague Katharine Manteufel. She is working  on the sub-project ‘Scholarly Aptitude: Criteria for Selection and Promotion’. In doing so she is investigating how prominent normative views were negotiated and worked out in practice. She focuses on the role of the teacher-student relationship in shaping individuals as well as the scholarly landscape of the humanities. Last from the Scholarly Self was Léjon Saarloos who is working  on the sub-project ‘Scholarly Selves: How to Discipline One’s Body, Heart and Mind’. His research engages a large number of lengthy scholarly obituaries to examine how scholars around 1900 envisioned the disciplining of their bodies, hearts, and minds through the acquisition of relevant habits, virtues, and character traits.

      The PhD’s from Project SPICE then gave their presentations. Both Lisa Swanfeldt-Winter and Rozemarijn van de Wal presented their research plans as they had only started their PhD’s three months earlier. Swanfeldt-Winter proposed to work on Finnish scientists in the field of Folklore studies, whereas van de Wal proposed to do case-studies on travelling scientists such as Eileen Power. Lastly they welcomed Anna Cabanel to their research team as she just started her PhD the week before.

      In the afternoon Pieter Huis gave a wonderful lecture. He talked about the Belgian American Educational Foundation (BAEF) and how they provided funding for hundreds of Belgian scientists going to America in the Inter War Period. This can be seen as an indicator of two phenomena of increasing importance in twentieth-century science: travel and funding agencies. In this presentation he discussed the influence the BAEF had on what it took to be a scientist.

      The final lecture of the day was given by prof.dr. Kirsti Niskanen. She discussed with us the current state of affairs of her research on the role of internationalization of research after the first World War. She specifically talked to us about how the Rockefeller Fellowship Program played a role in the emergence and formation of new scientific disciplines in Sweden such as economy, new sciences and medicine.