Uncomfortable departments: British historians of science and the importance of disciplinary communities

Abstract

This paper explores issues around disciplinary belonging and academic identity. Historians of science learn to think and practise like historians in terms of research practice, but this paper shows that British historians of science do not think of themselves as belonging to the disciplinary community of historians. They may be confident that they do history, but they insist that there is a distinction between historians and historians of science. That distinction is marked by an exaggeration of their differences with general historians, and a strong emphasis on the social value of the contacts and friendships offered by the national and international disciplinary community. In this vision, university departments are no longer seen as the congenial, safe intellectual homes described by previous scholars but are potentially uncomfortable places where academics with different training, experiences and expectations must mix. The comparatively static structures of universities, despite burgeoning new sub-fields of study, make this case study applicable to a far wider range of disciplines.