Visual Representation and Science: Editors' Introduction

Abstract

The theme of visual representations in science was already central to our research when we aended the 6th European Spring School on History of Science and Popularization in Menorca, Spain, in 2011. As discussed in the review of this conference by Ignacio SuayMatallana and Mar Cuenca-Lorente (245), many participants not only described the particulars of the generation of individual images, but also broader issues surrounding the constitution of visual domains. We were impressed by the range of scholarship surrounding the production, circulation, and interpretation of a wide variety of images, yet a nagging question remained: what issues unite this diversity of research and compel us to investigate such representations? Beyond their novelty, why study scientific images at all?