LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
With this issue, Manguinhos opens its second volume and, once again, introduces some editorial changes. Perhaps out of excessive self-indulgence, we of the journal's editorial staff believe it quite reasonable, maybe even commendable, to have made further modifications. After all, the journal is still so young that there is something of the adolescent about it, and that means change is not only inevitable but welcome. Permissive parents...
The innovations are of two orders, the first formal: the departments 'Archives and Documents' and 'Libraries and Collections' have been merged to form one department entitled 'Sources'. We feel this eliminates a somewhat artificial division that had been bothering us and presenting problems. When not even the editors know how to tell two departments apart, things are bleak... The second change is one of greater substance: starting this issue, the journal will have department editors, something that will decentralize our work and in a way 'collectivize' the journal itself.
This issue features two special highlights. The first is an article by Bruno Latour, excerpted from a book published quite recently in France (Isabelle Stengers, ed., L'Effet Whitehead, Vrin, 1994). It was the author himself a member of our editorial board, incidentally who proposed we translate and publish this paper. A suggestion we happily embraced, since it means the paper will enjoy greater dissemination among us. Although the text has been published elsewhere, the notion of 'original' has more than one meaning, and this reprinting of Bruno Latour's article surely fits within one of them.
The second highlight is found in 'Interview'. Taking advantage of the presence of a number of scientists here in Rio to attend a colloquium sponsored by the Pasteur Institute and the Fundação Oswaldo Cruz or was it to attend carnival? Manguinhos interviewed François Jacob, scientist and historian of science and 1965 Nobel prize winner, who in these pages addresses his fields of expertise: the origin of life and the history of knowledge.
The only other news, if indeed it qualifies as such, is that this issue comes with articles in all its departments like a samba school in all its glory, a teenage girl in all her bewilderment, an editor in all his haste to meet deadlines.
Sergio Goes de Paula
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
25 July 2006 -
Date of issue
June 1995
