Programs, Past Meetings

XI, Stockholm, 2006: Constructing and Deconstructing Icons of Achievement in Science and Technology

THURSDAY, September 14

16:00 Tour of Nobel Museum and its Research Library

Comments by Svante Lindqvist: Problems and Challenges associated with collecting objects associated with Nobel Prize winners

Reception and buffet dinner at the Nobel Museum

FRIDAY, September 15

8:30-9:00 Coffee

9:00-9:30 Introduction

Helmuth Trischler, Opening comments

Svante Lindqvist, Welcome

Barney Finn-Summary of Artefacts X

Robert Bud, Preliminary thoughts on icons

9:30-10:50 Session 1: Personal Icons
Chair: Hans Weinberger

Peter Jakab, From Invention to Icon: The transformation of the Wright brothers' research aircraft

Dag Andreassen, A Letter from Sir Frank Whittle. Inventing a Norwegian inventor

Robert Anderson, Scientists and their icons

Discussion

10:50-11:10 Coffee Break

11:10-12:50 Session 2 Personal Icons (cont.)
Chair: Liba Taub

Peter Donhauser, Rise and fall of the neo-Bechstein. Constructing Walther Nernst as a figurehead

Frode Weium, The Theremin as an icon of achievement

Loic Petitgirard, Icons in CNAM

Andrew Nahum, Whittle and Wankel: Self-made icons

Discussion

12:50-14:00 LUNCH

14:00-15:40 Session 3: Icons of Achievement
Chair: Silke Berdux

Bart Hacker, Dog turds where no dog trod: Technological prowess and cultural blinders in Vietnam

Damon Yarnell, Building the bicycle: The controversial life of a simple machine

Joe Tatarewicz, The Hubble space telescope: Icon of failure and achievement

Alice Nicholls, The iron lung in Britain's African colonies--an icon of medical technology?

Discussion

15:40-16:00 Coffee Break

16:00-17:20 Session 4: Icons of Achievement (cont.)
Chair: Omar Moritsch

Randall Brooks,
ZEEP: A different kind of scientific instrument

Margaret Vining, The OODA loop: Linking the technology of aerial combat to corporate strategy

Dan Albert, Isambard's folly: How a bloated whale became one of England's great ships

Discussion

Reception and sit-down dinner at the Nobel Museum

SATURDAY, September 16

8:30-8:50 Coffee

8:50-10:30 Session 5: Other thoughts
Chair: Roy Macleod

Eva Åhrén Snickare, The bust of Chief White Fox: Anthropological objects and racial science at the Karolinska Institute

Thomas Söderqvist, The GeneChip as an icon for molecularization, digitalization and miniaturization in the history of recent biomedicine

Christian Sichau, Peace to the ordinary objects! War on the icons!

Nathan Ensmenger, Nathan Hersch, Views from the academy: Program at Penn

Discussion

10:30-10:40 Coffee Break

10:40-11:20 Session 6a Wrap-up
Chair: Derek Robinson

Martin Collins, Commentary

Discussion

11:20-12:40 Session 6b: State of the Museums
Bart Hacker, Tim Boon, Helmuth Trischler, Svante Lindqvist, Otmar Moritsch, Loic Petitgirard, Hans Weinberger, Kimberley Webber, Randall Brooks

12:40-13:10 Session 6c: The Future of Artefacts
Robert Bud, Helmuth Trischler, Barney Finn

13:30-16:00 Lunch on steamship during tour of archipelago outside Stockholm