Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

'Java Man,’ the first Homo erectus discovered, is finally going home Excavated with colonial labor and shipped to the Netherlands, the famous fossil is being repatriated to Indonesia along with 28,000 other fossils.

Journalist-in-residence alumna @rochmyaningsih.bsky.social quotes Dwirahmi Suryandari in National Geographic on the #Repatriation of #JavaMan, the first #HomoErectus discovered, to Indonesia.

🔗 on.natgeo.com/48MVFd6

#HistSci #Paleontology #Restitution

Poster for the event. In the background it features a drawing by Tomás Cohen, consisting of abstract lines of varying stroke boldness and density.

Join #ArtistInResidence Tomás Cohen for a performative lecture with #poetry & music: "The Sex of the Planets: A Week’s Progress" 🪐

The event will be introduced by Jeffrey Kotyk & jointly performed with the musician Salvador Burrell.

🗓️ Dec 12, 2025 (12:30 CET)

📍 MPIWG

🔗 bit.ly/3XwyF

#HistSci

Poster of the MPIWG Institute’s Colloquium. It features the titles of its five events below an image that shows a colorful mixture of liquids in red, orange, yellow, green, and violet.

Next in our Institute's Colloquium series 2025/26 "Rethinking #Time in the History of Science": @profemmakowal.bsky.social on "Freezing Time: A Decade of #Cryopolitics" ❄️🕰️

🗓️ Jan 27, 2025 (14:00 CET)
📍 Harnack Haus, Berlin

🔗 bit.ly/48w3WAR

#HistSci #Anthropology @deakinuniversity.bsky.social

Dear Teun, thank you for pointing that out! It should now be working as supposed.

Collage of three images. The first reads: "Max Planck Institute for the history of Science. Career. We're hiring." The second image shows a researcher presenting at the March 2025 Publications Slam. The third shows a group of people at the institute's courtyard. Second image by Anna Ruhnow, MPIWG 2025. Third image by MPIWG, 2021.

#CallForApplications ✨🔭
Short term #Fellowships with a stipend and self-funded #ResearchStays in #HistSci, #PhilSci, and #SocSci are open to applicants of any nationality 🌏

🔗 bit.ly/4od8Jx5
🗓️ Deadline: Jan 15 and Sep 15 (rolling basis)
📍 Berlin, Germany

#CfA #AcademicCareer

The cover is designed in blue. The title, editor, and publisher are shown in the foreground of the cover. In the background, two people can be seen sitting and standing to the right and left of a Buddha statue.

📚 New #OpenAccess special issue edited by Jeffrey Kotyk & Ru Zhan:

“Buddhism, Science and #Technology” analyzes how Buddhism faces the challenges posed by a scientific and technological world in the process of modernization and digitization.

🔗 bit.ly/0qkNr

#HistSci #AI #Theology

CrossAsia Talks: Mackenzie Cooley, Huiyi Wu, Shih-Pei Chen - SBB aktuell Event Details Date: 04.12.2025 18:00 – 19:30 Categories: CrossAsia, Kulturprogramm

Knowing an Empire: Early Modern Chinese and Spanish Worlds in Dialogue - Zum Jahresabschluss der #CrossAsia-Talks am 4. Dezember geben Mackenzie Cooley, Huiyi Wu & Shih-Pei Chen einen Einblick in den gleichnamigen Sammelband. Alle Infos 👉 blog.sbb.berlin/termin/cross...

@crossasia.bsky.social

In an @szde.bsky.social interview, Christian Weber speaks with @annalahlers.bsky.social about China’s rise in the global system of science, its current #SciencePolicy, and how #China approaches notions of #AcademicFreedom.

🔗 www.sueddeutsche.de/wissen/china... (GER)

#HistSci #SocSci #PolSci

Collage of three images. The first reads: “Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. Career. We’re hiring!" The second image shows researchers looking for books in the institute’s library. And the third image shows the MPIWG main building. Photos by setform 2017.

Research Group “China in the Global System of Science” seeks to appoint a #GraduateAssistant with English and Chinese language skills

Support the team with:
🖥️ Project websites
🖋️ Research databases
🌐 Social media
📙 Text analysis
🚀 Research tasks

🗓️ Deadline: Dec 31, 2025

🔗 bit.ly/4h0N8

#SocSci

#BookLaunch: Join Huiyi Wu & @mackenziecooley.bsky.social in discussion with Shih-Pei Chen (MPIWG), Lasse Hölck @freieuniversitaet.bsky.social, & Henning Klöter @humboldtuni.bsky.social 🎤

🗓️ Nov 25, 2025 (18:00 CET)
📍Lateinamerika-Institut (FUB) & Online

🔗 bit.ly/3LFUtz4

#HistSci #Sinology

Cover of the volume. On an orange and olive background, it features excerpts of two drawn maps, one with Spanish, one with Chinese inscriptions.

New #OpenAccess volume by Huiyi Wu and Mackenzie Cooley: "Knowing an Empire: Early Modern Chinese and Spanish Worlds in Dialogue" 🗺️

The book unveils how both empires developed comparable systems to gather, order, and wield knowledge about their local worlds.

🔗 bit.ly/3XqwYN

#HistSci #Sinology

Grafik mit Text: Einsteintag 2025 – Wie gehen wir um mit dem „kulturellem Erbe“?, Mit Christoph Markschies, Manja Schüle, Ina Czyborra, Eva Ehninger, Julia Fischer, Lars-Christian Koch, Martin Maischberger, Hermann Parzinger und Dagmar Schäfer, Freitag, 28.11. | 19 Uhr, Nikolaisaal Potsdam, Wilhelm-Staab-Str. 10–11, 14467 Potsdam

🎓 Einsteintag 2025 in Potsdam!

Was bedeutet kulturelles Erbe – und wem gehört es?
Welche Verantwortung tragen Wissenschaft & Museen?

Mit einem Bericht des Präsidenten, einer Podiumsdiskussion, Preisverleihungen und Musik der Barenboim-Said Akademie.

Zur Anmeldung: www.bbaw.de/veranstaltun...

Poster of the MPIWG Institute’s Colloquium. It features the titles of its five events below an image that shows a colorful mixture of liquids in red, orange, yellow, green, and violet.

The first talk of our Institute's Colloquium series 2025/26 "Rethinking #Time in the History of Science": @helgejojo.bsky.social and François Hartog on "Unsettling the Historiographic Operation." 🗃

🗓️ Nov 18, 2025 (14:00 CET)
📍 MPIWG

🔗 bit.ly/3IApzqX

#HistSci #CulturalHistory @ehess.fr

Monitor display of Northern Ryukyu Islands, Japan and coral bleaching alert area level 4 (high). Sea surface temperature anomaly is relatively high.

People looking down at the coral health monitor at ground level and looking up at video installation of "CORAL SONIC RESILIENCE." In the foreground is a solar-powered device that was part of Marco Barotti's acoustic intervention.

Sounds of healthy reefs can help corals grow! 🎶🪸 Reclaiming '🐢s All the Way Down' Working Group @mpiwg.bsky.social visited media artist Marco Barotti's exhibit "Beyond Us" @ berlinscienceweek.com/exhibition-beyond-us 日本の皆様、Coral Sonic Resilienceが2026年2月13-15日まで、DIGSHIBUYAで展示される予定です。 #ecology #marine

India’s First Socialist: The Untold Story of Dr Narayan Krishna | India's World In the summer of 1910, an Indian social democrat named Dr Narayan Kesheo Krishna startled Europe’s socialist elite in Copenhagen. A globe-trotting thinker w ...

I'm excited to share my latest essay on Dr Narayan Krishna - India's first socialist - out now in India's World. Register for a free account to read 8 articles per month. indiasworld.in/indias-first...

The book cover is a painting depicting a landscape of mountains, sky, and fields in an abstract manner. The fields and mountains consist of colorful square fields lined up next to each other, which become lighter in color from bottom to top. The sky consists of two wide stripes in blue and green and blue and pink. At the bottom of the image are the names of the authors written: He Bian and Marten Söderblom Saarela. At the top of the image, it is written: "The Manchu Mirror and the Knowledge of Plants and Animals in High Qing China."

New book by He Bian and Mårten Söderblom Saarela:
"The Manchu Mirrors and the Knowledge of Plants and Animals in High Qing #China" 📙

The volume examines how the Qing court sought to codify Manchu and Chinese words for animals and plants throughout the eighteenth century.

🔗 bit.ly/4qpE

#EnvHum

📢: Our High Gravity Talk with @audreytruschke.bsky.social is just over two weeks away. It is free to attend but registration is required. Seats a quickly filling up, so register now to secure your place. www.eventbrite.com/e/fieldnotes...

@mpiwg.bsky.social

The image shows an X-ray of a skull against a black background. Inside the image of the skull is an image of an open hand, facing the viewer with slightly shaded palms. The word "You" outlines the skull and forms a border around the suggested eye sockets. To the left of the skull is written: "Edited by Elizabeth W. Hughes and Alfred Freeborn." In the centre of the lower part of the image is the name of the publisher, "HATJE CANTZ".

📗 New #OpenAccess volume edited by Elizabeth Hughes & Alfred Freeborn:

"Biomedical Visions" brings together epistemology, medicine, and art to understand what biomedicine looks like and how we might view it differently in the past and future.

🔗 bit.ly/4nHBZ

#HistSci #HistArt

Come find us at #BerlinScienceWeek this weekend! 🎲

Jacob Schmidt-Madsen will host the interactive exhibition "Cosmic #Games: Real Gods Play Dice," where you can play and learn about historic board games.

🗓️ Nov 1–2, 9:30–18:00 (CET)
📍Museum für Naturkunde

🔗 bitly.cx/ctPR

#HistSci #SciComm

For our new #ResearchReels series, we invited scholars across the institute to pitch their recent publications!⚡️

To find more of our #ResearchReels or to learn more about our scholars and the MPIWG, visit our Mediathek:

🔗 www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/mediathek/re...

#HistSci #SciComm

For our new #ResearchReels series, we invited scholars across the institute to pitch their recent publications!⚡️
To find more of our #ResearchReels or to learn more about our scholars and the MPIWG, visit our Mediathek:

🔗 www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/mediathek/research-insights

#HistSci #SciComm

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. - YouTube

#ResearchReels: 1 publication—3 minutes🏅

Researcher Jacob Schmidt-Madsen presents his article "Discovering Dadu: A Ludemic Enigma from South Asia," published in "Board Game Studies Journal" 🎲

🔗 youtu.be/QKR_Zi2MH08?si=QKmwfX9JyEJ

#HistSci #CulturalStudies #GameStudies @astra-mpiwg.bsky.social

Lorraine Daston · Kaboom! Slow-Motion Extinction Historians who address such topics as extinction, which straddle the history of humans and of the Earth, face the...

"Kaboom!"/"Extinction, Fast and Slow"

Director emerita Lorraine Daston is featured in the current issue of @lrb.co.uk and on The LRB Podcast 🌋

"Extinction is a protracted, uneven process, and hard to square with our mental picture of abrupt catastrophe."

🗞️ bit.ly/3L72ddi
🎧 bit.ly/4huQXd

#HistSci

"Cosmic Games: Real Gods Play Dice" ✨🎲

Visit us at #Berlin Science Week's CAMPUS to play traditional board games associated with cosmological representations from cultures and societies across the world.

🗓️ Nov. 1–2, 2025
📍@mfnberlin.bsky.social
🔗bit.ly/3LtFpV6

#HistSci @astra-mpiwg.bsky.social

The image consists of a collage of three images. The first one displays a graphic with the description: “Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. Career. We’re hiring.“ The image on the top right shows a group of people at the Institute’s courtyard. Several flowers are depicted in the foreground. Photography by MPIWG, 2021. The image on the bottom left shows two women sitting on a bench in the library. Photography by Setform, 2017.

#CallForApplications
Offering up to three positions in our “First Research Article” Fellowship Program!

🌐 For PhD students at Asian, African, or Latin American institutions
🚀 Research in History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, or #STS

🗓️ Deadline: Jan 15, 2026
🔗 bit.ly/4oygRbJ

#HistSci

Energy’s History: From colonialism, to anti-colonialism, and back again?

Book launch event:

"Energy's History: Toward a Global Canon" with editors Daniela Russ and Thomas Turnbull, followed by a talk by historian Jean-Baptiste Fressoz.

🗓️ November 3, 2025

🕛 16.00-17.30

📍 Spore Initiative Berlin

🔗 spore-initiative.org/en/programmi...

#HistSci #EnvHum

Congratulations to Oliver Eberle on winning the 2025 Heinz Billing Prize! The prize was awarded for his contributions to the MPIWG-@bifold.berlin project "The Sphere: Knowledge System Evolution & the Shared Scientific Identity of Europe."
🔗 bit.ly/48K86a9

#DigitalHumanities #HistSci @maxplanck.de

Collage of three images. The first reads: "Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. Career. We're hiring." The second image shows bookshelves in the institute's library (Photo by Vivienne Rischke, 2024). The third image shows the MPIWG Summer Publications Slam held in the institute's library (Photo by Marvin Müller (2024).

Three new funded #DoctoralPositions in the International Max Planck School "Knowledge and Its Resources: Historical Reciprocities!"

🗓️ Deadline: Jan 15, 2026
🔗 bit.ly/4peeKez

#HistSci #DH #STS #HistSTM #EnvHum #PolSci #SocSci

Sonne, Mond und schwarze Löcher: Diese Forscher bringen Licht in die Planetensysteme Was hat das All mit dem Leben bei uns auf der Erde zu tun? Diese Berliner Forscherinnen und Forscher richten den Blick auf ferne Himmelskörper – und vertiefen unser Wissen zum Heimatplaneten.

Megan Briers has been named by Tagesspiegel among Berlin's top 100 researchers 2025! ⭐️

Megan is part of our International Max Planck Research School, where she works on her PhD project "Women in C19th British and American Astronomical Fieldwork."

🔗 bit.ly/4qai3n (GER, paywall)

#HistSci #AstroSky

Die 100 wichtigsten Köpfe der Berliner Wissenschaft: Sie erforschen, was den Markt regelt Auch das Rechtssystem, die Verwaltung und die Mechanismen der Märkte wollen erforscht sein. Denn ohne Wissen, wie der Warenstrom fließt und der Markt funktioniert, stehen wir bald vor dem nächsten…

Research Group Leader Anna L. Ahlers has been named by @tagesspiegel.de among Berlin’s top 100 researchers 2025! 👏

@annalahlers.bsky.social heads the MPIWG's Lise Meitner Research Group “China in the Global System of Science.”

🔗 bit.ly/4nRTGt2 (GER, paywall)

#SocSci #Sinology