The ‘Migration, Mobility, and Expertise’ Symposium at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin

On the 29th of September, Felicia, Floris, Oliver and Rémi all visited the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin to take part in a symposium. The symposium had been organised jointly by Felicia and Qiao Yang from the Max Planck Institute.

The symposium brought together a number of scholars with different geographical and disciplinary areas of expertise in order to discuss matter of ‘Migration, Mobility, and Expertise.’

The day was separated into three sessions that all focused on different aspects of the main topics. The first session gave the team a chance to introduce the project and give talks on the newest research we are conducting. The second session gave a closer look at the ideas and concepts of early modern science.

After the second session, lunch provided a wonderful opportunity to get to know the scholars at the Max Planck better and to discuss our work whilst enjoying a lunch outside in the beautiful weather.

After lunch we turned to the third session which focused on migration and skill in a mainly East Asian context.

At the end of the day Dagmar Schafer synthesised the disparate talks and created the perfect base from which to conduct the closing discussion.

The symposium provided a wonderful opportunity to discuss the project with a very active group of scholars of the History of technology. We are very thankful to the Max Planck Institute to have hosted us and to invite us to their beautiful corner of Berlin.