Split and Splice by Hans-Jörg Rheinberger: A Natural History of Experimentation

Abstract

To most readers of this journal, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger will be known as the author of studies of the molecular life sciences that combine meticulous reconstructions of historical trajectories of experimental systems with philosophical reflections on their peculiar dynamism. First in a burst of articles in leading anglophone HPS journals (Rheinberger 1992a, b, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997a), and then in a brilliant monograph that came out in 1997 with Stanford University Press (Rheinberger, 1997b), Rheinberger revealed the ineluctable contingency and serendipity of experimentation as a material practice, setting new and lasting historiographical standards along the way.1 Readers familiar with this work will recognize much (but not all) of the historical terrain covered by Split & Splice. And yet, there is something decidedly new and ‘un-Rheinbergerian’ about the book. Let me explain.