The seminar is organised with Leandro Rodriguez Medina.
Decades of historical and sociological research have taught us some simple lessons: academic knowledge is a human artifact, it results from social and collective practices, and it is always produced in a specific place and at a particular time. Understanding and explaining the circulation of academic knowledge therefore has to pay careful attention to communication processes, in the broad sense of the term. Among the questions that need further development nowadays, we can list how and why does knowledge circulate? How can we objectify the fact that knowledge circulates? How does the legitimacy of knowledge change when it circulates? Who has and who does not have access to it, and how does access shape circulation?
The Handbook of Academic Knowledge Circulation, a publication in process, is thought to be a critical contribution to these major questions by guiding our understanding of the cultural and political nature of science, social sciences and technology. The handbook aims to fill the existing gaps, but also to start thinking what tools can be (or already have been, in historical perspective) useful to increase knowledge circulation.