In June 2013, Gewina will organize its 5th biannual meeting at the Woudschoten conference centre. Participants are invited to submit a proposal for a contribution to this two-day meeting before 1 January.

The theme of the conference is ‘Uses of Knowledge’. We invite you to address why individuals have sought or spread knowledge of any kind, be it theoretical insights, practical skills, or a mystical understanding of nature.

For whom did they do it, and to what end? How did these ends feed back into the meaning and nature of the knowledge itself? How have particular purposes affected the credibility or legitimacy of different kinds of knowledge? What kinds of discourse have producers of knowledge developed with respect to the end?

Naturally, these questions are as relevant to our work as historians as to historical actors. Why are we trying to understand the history of knowledge production? What is the ‘use’ of our research, our publications, and – last but not least – our teaching? How do such uses affect or fail to affect our various activities?

We welcome contributions to the conference in the form of:

• Presentations about work in progress or future research plans (max. 20 minutes), preferably, but not necessarily, tuned to the theme of the conference.Posters, which will be displayed in the conference rooms. Poster presenters will get 2 minutes to introduce themselves and their poster in a plenary session. We specifically encourage master students to submit a poster.
• Contributions to a panel discussion: academic staff and students are invited to contribute to join in discussing ‘teaching history of science’, for example with a short presentation on a relevant teaching experience. We would like to stimulate an exchange of views and best practices concerning teaching history of science to various groups of students (BA/MA, science or humanities, etc.).

For all contributions, please submit an abstract or proposal of max. 300 words to: Baneke@strw.leidenuniv.nl before 1 January 2013.

The meeting is organized by the Institute for History and Social Aspects of Science of the VU University, Amsterdam, on behalf of the Belgian-Dutch Society for the History of Science and Universities Gewina.

Date: 14-15 June 2013
Venue: Conferentiecentrum Woudschoten, Zeist, www.woudschoten.nl.