Conference Report

Abstract

Although historians have much to contribute to understanding such "Big Science" projects as the Human Genome project, they also face special challenges in placing these ongoing events in historical context. To address these problems from an interdisciplinary perspective, the Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry brought together a group of scholars and students of contemporary science on September 12-13, 1991, with a specific mandate to explore their common methodologies. Sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the conference on Writing History of Science While it Happens revealed that the difficulties faced by historians interested in contemporary science are shared by scholars of other disciplines. Historians, journalists, sociologists, and anthropologists increasingly share both tools and subjects of interest.