Room for Maneuver: Clemens Heller and Science

Wolf Feuerhahn

Research Director at the CNRS, he is a historian of science and a member of the Alexandre Koyré Centre at the EHESS. He was awarded the CNRS Bronze Medal in 2017. His research focuses on the history of the organization of knowledge in Europe from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century, with particular attention to the sharing of knowledge, disciplinary conflicts, and interdisciplinary programmes. The author of around fifty scholarly articles and several edited volumes published in English, French, and German, he co-edits the Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines and the “Archives” series of the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle. He is currently preparing a transnational and transdisciplinary history of the concept of milieu since the second half of the nineteenth century.

 Maurice Aymard

Director of Studies at the EHESS, he is a historian. He served as Deputy Administrator of the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (FMSH) alongside Clemens Heller from 1976 to 1992, before becoming its Administrator from 1992 to 2005. He is the author of numerous publications on the Mediterranean world, with a particular focus on Italy. He co-edited a history of Sicily after Italian unification, as well as two major histories of Europe: one, published in five volumes by Einaudi (Storia d’Europa), and the other, published in French with Hélène Ahrweiler by Hermann (Les Européens). His research has also explored the history of food and eating practices, notably in collaboration with Claude Grignon and Françoise Sabban (Le Temps de manger), as well as the history of friendship. In addition, he is a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and serves on the Scientific Committee of the Polish Historical and Literary Society in Paris.