Dagmar Schäfer
Director, Department III, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin.
Dr., Honorarprofessorin für Wissenschafts ‐ und Technikgeschichte an der TU Berlin, Honorarprofessor für Sinologie an der FU Berlin
Her main interest is the history and sociology of technology of China, focusing on the paradigms configuring the discourse on technological development, past and present. She has published widely on the Premodern history of China (Song-Ming) and technology, materiality, the processes and structures that lead to varying knowledge systems, and the changing role of artefacts - texts, objects and spaces - in the creation, diffusion and use of scientific and technological knowledge. Her monograph The Crafting of the 10,000 Things (University of Chicago Press, 2011) won the History of Science Society: Pfizer Award in 2012 and the Association for Asian Studies: Joseph Levenson Prize (Pre-1900) in 2013. Her current research focus is the historical dynamics of concept formation, situations, and experiences of action through which actors have explored, handled and explained their physical, social and individual worlds.