Almagest

The scope, format, and editorial board of Almagest will change from January 2025 onwards. These changes are explained in the text below. Information about the current scope, format, and editorial board of Almagest – valid until the end of 2024 – can be found at the bottom of this page. Please take this editorial transition into account when considering to submit a contribution to Almagest.

Information below valid from January 2025 onwards

The journal Almagest is in transition. From an International Journal for the History of Scientific Ideas it is turning into a Transnational Journal for the History of Technoscience. The shift signifies that the journal will place a new emphasis on the rich histories of not just scientific ideas but also of experiments, people, objects, images, devices, instruments, and epistemic ‘things’ as they cross multiple national and/or institutional boundaries. This change is intended to reflect a prolific disciplinary (dis)order, in which science is seen as deeply entangled with technology, diplomacy as strongly related to science, and knowledge as inherently political.

Almagest invites high-quality contributions from scholars around the globe who bring fresh perspectives to the history of technoscience. The journal is not constrained by focus on any particular time or place. In addition to individual articles and book reviews, Almagest comprises three different sections:

1. A ‘Plog’ — a neologism that stands for Printed blog, a short text written in an accessible, conversational style like a blog and prepared for a website or a digital medium. This section is meant to communicate histories of science and technology in a way that can connect academics with wider audiences outside our ivory towers.

2. A picture is worth a thousand words. This section invites papers of c. 1,000 words that briefly analyze an image related to science and/or technology. The rationale here is that images are not only historical sources of important value as ‘texts’, but that they also open-up further research questions and unearth stories.

3. Alma-g(u)est. Oral history has a strong methodological value, and this section reiterates its importance in writing the history of technoscience. For this section, Almagest invites short, edited interviews with key actors in the field, as well as historical case studies.

Information below valid until the end of 2024

The journal Almagest considers the history of science both as a history of ideas and as an activity that takes place in institutional and social context. In discussing the history of scientific ideas, the journal addresses the philosophical assumptions underpinning the ideas as well as the scientific developments themselves; it also addresses the influence of the historical context on these ideas.
One of the defining features of the journal’s approach to the history of science is the belief that the history of scientific ideas, of research priorities, of conceptualizations of nature, and of the various external factors that are associated with scientific discoveries are deeply related to History, generally construed, and to cultural and socio-economic parameters. Following this approach, the journal invites papers on the history of scientific ideas in specific regions or related to a specific cultural context (for example, papers on science and religion). It also invites papers on the relations of scientific ideas to the material civilization, in particular to scientific instruments.
It is a firm belief of the editorial board that history of science can contribute substantially to the scientific education of both students and the general public, especially at a time when debates over "intelligent design" are raising major questions not only over what counts as science but also on what ought to be available to students in their school curricula. The journal, therefore, invites also papers on the utilization of history of science in science education. Last but not least, Amagest is edited by the network of history of science of Southeastern Europe, and therefore it aims to constitute a forum for the historians of science in Southeastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean.

Le journal Almagest envisage l’histoire de la science en tant qu’histoire des idées et activité se déroulant dans un contexte institutionnel et social. En considérant l’histoire des idées scientifiques, le journal aborde les suppositions philosophiques à l’origine de ces idées ainsi que les développements scientifiques en eux-mêmes ; il traite également de l’influence du contexte historique sur ces idées. L’une des principales caractéristiques de la manière dont le journal aborde l’histoire de la science est la conviction que l’histoire des idées scientifiques, des priorités de recherche, des conceptualisations de la nature et des différents facteurs externes concernant les découvertes scientifiques est profondément liée à l’Histoire, telle qu’elle est généralement interprétée, ainsi qu’aux paramètres culturels et socioéconomiques. Le journal publie également des articles sur les relations entre les idées scientifiques et la civilisation matérielle, en particulier les instruments scientifiques et l’utilisation de l’histoire de la science dans l’éducation scientifique.