The Australasian Association for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science
Click on the below to see the Agenda and the Treasurer’s Report
[pdf-embedder url=”https://aahpsss.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/AAHPSSS-AGM-2018-Agenda.pdf” title=”AAHPSSS AGM 2018 Agenda”] [pdf-embedder url=”https://aahpsss.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/AAAHPSSS-Acting-Treasurers-Report-2017-2018.pdf” title=”AAAHPSSS Acting Treasurer’s Report 2017-2018″]
The recording of the Dyason lecture for 2018, present by Professor Helen Verran, is now available from this page. If the audio does not start immediately, click once into the panel.
Helen Verran,
Professor, College of Indigenous Futures, Arts and Social Sciences, Charles Darwin University, Northern Territory.
HelenVerran@cdu.edu.au
Title: Dancing with Strangers. Imagining an Originary Moment for Australian STS.
In 1788 in what would in a few years become Sydney, not too far from the site where in 2018 a large group of scholars will meet to critically discuss the roles of sciences and technologies in modern cultures and societies, a group of sailors and soldiers danced with the strangers who had been warily awaiting them when they arrived on shore. Science and technology had also arrived, albeit to an extent unheralded. Of course, the strangers who at first hesitantly welcomed the group they assumed were mere temporary visitors, had their own highly elaborated traditions of knowing and doing that could with careful translation also have been understood as sciences and technologies. It is recorded in the colonial archive that as a start to that translation work, the two groups danced together. Each presumably also showed the other how to dance ‘properly’.
In this lecture I take this promising moment in which knowers in disparate traditions engaged each other with curiosity and respect, as occasion to articulate (another) originary moment in Australian STS.
Biography
Helen Verran grew up in her grandmother’s house playing in the creeks that ran into the lower reaches of Sydney’s Middle Harbour. Along with biology lessons at a lesser girls high school, the Long Reef rock shelf played its part, and to the bemusement of her family she went away to study science at university. In the 1970s the sciences in Australia were not welcoming for women rearing young children, so like many before her she turned to school teaching. An unexpected opportunity to teach science education in Nigeria led to a career shift, and returning to Victoria in the 1980s Helen joined Deakin University Science Studies Unit. It was here that her long engagement with Indigenous Australian knowledge traditions began. Retiring from nearly 25 years of teaching in the History and Philosophy Department at University of Melbourne, she took up a part-time professorship at Charles Darwin where her work with Aboriginal Australian knowledge practitioners continues.
The Dyason Lecture took place at the State Library of New South Wales on Thursday 30 August
Helen’s talk commences around 11:00. You have to click in the sound bars to hear the talk.
RESEARCH PRESENTATION
SEMESTER ONE 2018
START: 1.30PM
NEW LAW ANNEX SEMINAR ROOM 340
Welcome – Hans Pols Head of School
1:45–2:10 Eamon Little – Completing Honours Student
“Psychopathy and Moral Exculpation: A Clarification”
2:10– 2:35 Alexander Pereira – Current Honours Student
2:35 Afternoon Tea
3:00–3:30 Tim Shaw – Current PhD Candidate
3:30–4:00 Georg Repnikov recent PhD graduate :
“Beyond Classificatory Realism: A Deflationary Perspective on Psychiatric Nosology”.
Rob Wilson, Ph.D., FRSC
Professor of Philosophy
La Trobe University, Melbourne
Eugenics has usually been studied as a historical phenomenon, perhaps one with lessons for present and future uses of science and technology. Here I want to raise some questions about the relationship of eugenics to both history and philosophy, drawing my experience working in constructing oral histories with survivors of Canadian eugenics over the past 10 years. This will allow us to discuss received views of eugenics, the enthusiasm for aspects of eugenics in the philosophical bioethics community, and some topics in the philosophy of disability.
5:00PM – Please join us for Drinks and Canapes to celebrate Georg’s recent graduation and all our achievements.
RSVP: hps.admin@sydney.edu.au
March 13-14, 7–8.30pm: Philosophical Perspectives on Biosciences, two public lectures organized by the Philosophy and the Sciences working group of PEiPL (Philosophical Engagement in Public Life) network and co-sponsored by HPS/Philosophy, University of Melbourne.
Malaysian Theatre B121 and the Singapore Theatre B120, Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne.
All welcome: these are public lectures. Reception to follow the talk on the 14th.
March 15, 11.30am – 1pm
Sponsored by PEiPL. Politics and Philosophy Lounge, 324 Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Bundoora. Light lunch provided, spaces limited, all welcome.
RSVP rwilson.robert@gmail.com by March 9th.
Posters:
[pdf-embedder url=”https://aahpsss.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Phil-Perspectives-on-Bio-Sterelny.pdf” title=”Phil Perspectives on Bio Sterelny”]
[pdf-embedder url=”https://aahpsss.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Phil-Perspectives-on-Bio-Griffiths.pdf” title=”Phil Perspectives on Bio Griffiths”]
Symposium “Fluid Matter(s): A cross-cultural examination of bodily fluids and drugs that act upon them” at the Australian Centre on China in the World (CIW) at ANU in Canberra, December 15-17, 2017
https://fluidmattersblog.wordpress.com/ (please find the programme and venue, participants and abstracts here)
Organised by Natalie Köhle (ANU), Shigehisa Kuriyama (Harvard), Lena Springer (Charité)
The final 2017 Conference Timetable and Program are now available here.
If you are attending and have not yet paid, please do so from here. Don’t forget to buy tickets to the Conference Dinner on Friday night as well!
See you all there!
The important historian of sexuality Theo van der Meer from Amsterdam is coming to USyd soon to present some of his work. I am sure many of you will be interested in attending. His paper is entitled “Castration will turn you into a real man”: Surgical castration of sex offenders in The Netherlands, 1938-1968″. I am sure it will be of interest to historians, lawyers, criminologists, HPS and gender studies people alike.
He will present at Wednesday 26 April, 2-4pm at New Law Annex SR 444, Eastern Ave.
Further details about Theo and his work are available at:
https://wordvine.sydney.edu.au/files/1900/16221/
Ivan Crozier