Field Formation in Intellectual Networks: the Emergence of the Life Sciences in Germany, 1770-1890

How do sciences come to be organized into disciplines?  Much of the sociological literature treats discipline formation as resulting from either the rational reconstruction of university curricula or the successful professionalization of a new intellectual community.  In contrast, in this talk I conceive of scientific disciplines as dynamic and mutable “coalitions of the mind” composed of scientists sharing a common interest in mobilizing support from patrons, lay audiences, and other scientists.  Successful disciplinary projects, I argue, must not only organize their own members, but also intercalate themselves into the activities of universities and other disciplines.  Using a unique longitudinal data set of German life science institutes and their recruitment networks, I analyze the success and failure of some two dozen disciplinary projects in the life sciences from 1770, well before the onset of widespread discipline-building, to 1890, by which time disciplinary boundaries in the life sciences were largely settled.  I find that state efforts to rationalize the organization of higher education altered academic recruitment networks, but did not lead directly to the emergence of new disciplines.  Instead, new disciplines thrived when they were incorporated into concrete networks of recruitment between universities and symbolic networks of recognition among disciplines.  The results carry implications for organizational theory, economic sociology, and the sociology of innovation.