In the common understanding of science, scientific practice is often framed as data collection, the systematic analysis of data, development of scientific models and theory, all with the goal of objectively and factually representing reality. Similarly, in the classical philosophy of science, the results of research activities are viewed as objective and disembodied. What is underrepresented in such views on scientific practices are the ways in which the body of the scientist plays a role in these practices. Recent research in the field of science studies highlights these underrepresented aspects of scientific practices. Scholars in this field ask questions such as: What role do the body, affects and emotions of microbiologists play when they generate computer simulations of protein models (Myers 2015)? Here, the scientist’s body becomes a research instrument, also actively involved in research practices.  If the scientists’ bodies are indeed involved in research practices in various ways, a lot of new questions arise. For example: in what ways may a scientist’s body be involved in research practices and what does it mean for scientific validity that different scientists have different modes of embodiment and embodied experiences? Or: what role do bodies, affects and emotions play when scientists - with different disciplinary backgrounds - collaborate? What implications does embodied scientific research practice have for research ethics or the way we communicate scientific results? Could we develop tools that help us engage with and include our embodiment productively in the different phases of our research practices so as to do good science? 

This course was developed and taught (for 3 years) in collaboration with Ellen Algera and Sonja Zuiderent-Jerak for the Amsterdam Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies.