Paper(s) as Carrier of Knowledge
Special Issue Edited by Michael Friedman and Daniela Zetti
A computer program listing from the 1970s. Before computers had screens, paper printouts were the only way to correct and adapt programs to new requirements. A program was developed in a series of iterations and printed on continuous form paper with green and white ›zebra‹ stripes. Copyright: ArnoldReinhold, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
On February 22nd-23rd, 2023 MoA member Michael Friedman, and Daniela Zetti from the University of Lubeck organized a workshop at the Deutsches Museum entitled »Paper(s) as Epistemic Carrier of Knowledge«, and a special issue resulting from this workshop has recently been published. The contributions in the special issue investigate and reflect on the possibilities and limitations that various historical actors saw in the development and use of paper. They ask what were the practices, functions and characteristics that were transferred to paper – and in which contexts – for it to be perceived as a technology.
The contributions by Thomas Morel, Axel Hüntelmann, Lotte Schüßler, and Michael Zakim provide insights into historical fields in which technology, administration, and science existed side by side and were partly interrelated and partly independent of one another. The special issue hence aims to think about paper as an object of circulation of knowledge and practices that enable and transform collective memory. The special issue is published in »Technikgeschichte« at »Nomos eLibrary«.
More information on the publication can be found here:
https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/0040-117X-2024-3/tg-technikgeschichte-jahrgang-91-2024-heft-3