Abstract

Close‐Ups and Long Shots: Perspectives on Time in the History of Science. In the last decade, historians of science have shown a growing interest in the question of time. Especially when looking at the huge amount of valuable work performed within the methodological frames of microhistory, experimental and social history of science, the question has come up how to re‐integrate ‘longue‐durée‐perspectives’ into historiography of science. The Society for History of Science has dedicated its 45th symposion (1 to 3 Mai 2008) in Halle to this question. This introduction deals with the problems of different and may be incommensurable modes of ‘being‐in‐time’. How can different perspectives on time be combined, how can “close‐ups”, together with “long shots” (Gianna Pomata) make sense in the history of science? The quest for a narrative transporting the simultaneity of the non‐simultaneous, or, as Koselleck's “Zeitschichten” could be translated, of different layers of time, may start with a criticism of the homogeneous and empty time (Benjamin) and its colonizing connotations, or, with re‐examining historiographical concepts of discontinuity (e.g. scientific revolutions, breaks, eras and epochs) and their relationship to concepts of continuity. Recent accounts in the history of science have insisted on the non‐disposability (Unverfügbarkeit) of historical events, on their contingency. And this is possibly an effect of the different time‐structures of the objects of historiography.