Scholarship in the history of science has much to say to contemporary concerns and deserves a bigger public audience than it often receives—or so historians of science like to tell themselves. In this colloquium series, we seek to go beyond platitudes and aspirations by featuring scholars who have successfully brought their scholarship into the public sphere, often in creative, unexpected, and challenging ways. We invite them to share their findings, experiences, and methods, and to tell us how their engagement with non-academic publics has (or, perhaps, has not) changed the way they approach their research.

The scope of public engagement that we are considering is quite broad: it includes non-academic publishing, editing, filmmaking, podcasts, policy advising, expert witnessing, and community-based collaboration. But we see some common questions and concerns across this broad spectrum. What forms of translation are necessary for research to gain purchase in the public sphere? Are there certain kinds of research that are well-suited for such translation, and others that are not? How does public engagement, in its various forms, influence the practice of research? Where does it generate synergies, and where does it require tradeoffs? Have recent developments in the history of science and in the media landscape made it easier or harder to bring our research into the public sphere?