Panellists: PROF. ROB WILSON (UWA), GEMMA LUCY SMART (USYD), DR. ALAN JURGENS (UOW)
This panel will explore new approaches to teaching philosophy of science, with a focus on making pedagogy more inclusive and interdisciplinary. Prof. Rob Wilson will examine how philosophy of science units can expand their appeal by incorporating diverse formats and topics such as psychiatry, bioethics, and the politics of biology. Dr. Alan Jurgens will discuss how philosophy of science connects with other disciplines, offering students insights into shared scientific processes and the influence of social norms on scientific practice, especially through the lens of feminist philosophy of science. Gemma Lucy Smart will highlight the importance of inclusivity, advocating for Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to engage students from diverse backgrounds and promote critical thinking through flexible teaching methods. Together, these talks will propose a vision for philosophy of science education that is accessible, interdisciplinary, and responsive to the needs of today’s students.
The event is available both in person and online, from 10am-12pm AWST, Tuesday, November 26th.
We are pleased to announce that the 2024 Dyason Lecture is set to be given by Professor Alison Bashford on Wednesday, December 4th at 6.30pm at the Forum Theatre at the University of Melbourne. The title of the lecture is Secrets Disclosed: Reading the Hand from Chiromancy to Genetics.
Speaker: Professor Alison Bashford (UNSW) Title: Secrets Disclosed: Reading the Hand from Chiromancy to Genetics When: 6:30pm, Wednesday 4th December Where: Forum Theatre, Arts West, The University of Melbourne
Further details and abstract to follow.
Professor Alison Bashford
Speaker Bio: Alison Bashford is Scientia Professor in History and Director of the Laureate Centre for History & Population at UNSW Sydney. She also directs the New Earth Histories Research Program. Her work connects the history of science, global history, and environmental history into new assessments of the modern world, from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. Her most recent book is An Intimate History of Evolution: The Story of the Huxley Family (Random House, 2022), winner of the Nib Literary Prize, an Economist Best Book of 2022, and shortlisted for the Cundill History Prize, 2023. Before taking up her Research Chair at UNSW, Alison Bashford was the Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at the University of Cambridge, Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. She is Fellow of the British Academy and of the Australian Academy of Humanities. Secrets Disclosed: The Hand from Chiromancy to Genetics is her next book (Chicago, 2025).
Featured image credits Richard Saunders, Palmistry, the secrets thereof disclosed… (London, 1663). Plate prepared for L.S. Penrose, “Finger-prints, palms and chromosomes,” Nature (1963)
We are sad to announce that Dr Natalie Köhle passed away on Monday morning. Natalie was a historian of Chinese medicine, interested in the transcultural history of bodily fluids and in the history of Chinese materia medica. Her co-authored book Fluid Matter(s): Flow and Transformation in the History of the Body was published by ANU Press in 2020. She received a MA and PhD degrees from Harvard University and a BA Hons. degree from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University. She was located at the University of Sydney within the School of History and Philosophy of Science for a relatively short time but is remembered as a generous, kind and deeply scholarly colleague. In 2023 AAHPSSS welcomed Natalie to present one of our plenary sessions at the AAHPSSS Conference.
We send our deepest condolences to her family, friends and close colleagues at this difficult time.
Members in Melbourne may be interested in this upcoming seminar presented by Visiting Professor Ludmilla Jordanova, Emeritus Professor of History and Visual Culture at Durham University, UK, and hosted by the University of Melbourne.
When? Tuesday, June 11, 6PM
Abstract: The popularity of portraiture, especially in the English-speaking world, is well known. That medical practitioners were keen on portraits is also a familiar claim.
In this talk Professor Ludmilla Jordanova will explore the affinities between medicine and portraiture by reflecting on the notion of ‘somatic affinity’ and on the ways in which health care professionals necessarily have to make careful visual appraisals all the time.
Since ‘portrait’ is a powerful metaphor, we might say they are in the business of generating portraits. We might also plausibly claim that those who produce portraits in the literal sense are doing something that is quasi-medical. There’s a wealth of contemporary material that can be put to use here, but there is also a golden opportunity for historical research capable of making a useful contribution to the medical humanities.
The Medical Humanities Research Lab invites prospective applicants with an interest in projects aligned with our research focus to submit an Expression of Interest for a PhD.
Project proposals are invited from prospective students with a background in the humanities and social sciences in areas that align with the following: histories of mental illness, psychiatry, psychology, and therapies (late 19th to 21st centuries), or the history and social implications of the use of technologies in mental health.
The successful applicant will be embedded within the Initiative in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, Faculty of Arts. All applicants will be automatically considered for a Melbourne Research Scholarship.
The 27th International Congress of History of Science and Technology will be held from 29 June - 5 July 2025 at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. Symposium Proposals are due by 1 May 2024. Standalone Papers are due by 1 December 2024. For further details, please go to the Congress website: https://www.ichst2025.org
Conference Details
The International Congress of History of Science and Technology(ICHST), held every four years, is the world’s premier meeting for history of science and technology. The 27th Congress will be held as a hybrid in-person and online event at the University of Otago’s Dunedin campus in June-July 2025. Delegates registered for virtual participation will be able to both present and attend online. The Congress will bring together a diverse group of the world’s leading scholars and students in the fields of history of science, technology, and medicine as well as related disciplines. It will be the first time the Congress has been held in Australasia and only the second time in the Southern Hemisphere. The theme of the 27th ICHST is “Peoples, Places, Exchanges, and Circulation."
Critical Social Science Approaches to Epidemic Intelligence
21-22 March 2024
Organizers: Professor Sonja van Wichelen (University of Sydney), Associate Professor Kari Lancaster (UNSW), and Professor Warwick Anderson (University of Sydney)
Workshop Précis
The role of the social sciences in enhancing the social and cultural complexity of epidemic intelligence has been recognised, and in some contexts, institutionalised. Yet, most of the input from the social sciences have been restricted to those coming from the psychological or behavioural sciences, emphasizing, on the level of epistemology, positivistic values of experimental evidence, and on the level of policy, the belief and commitment to the behavioural economic framework of nudging. By bringing together critical social science scholars from medical anthropology, sociology of medicine, the history and philosophy of science, and science and technology studies, this workshop explores how a critical social science of epidemic intelligence can contribute to a more complex conceptualisation of epidemic intelligence, which could advance effective disease modelling.
The workshop will provide a cross-disciplinary conversation between social science scholars aiming to do four things. First, engaging with the current, and with previous global pandemics, we intend to assess how the sociological inputs and metrics have been integrated with disease models and understandings of epidemic intelligence. Second, we aim to interrogate how more critical approaches to epidemic intelligence—linked to social medicine, disease ecology, biosocial approaches, and planetary health—can more adequately capture the biosocial conditions in which viruses become pathogenic. Third, we want to examine what modelling does, sociologically and politically, to the time frames and perceived configurations of epidemic disease. And, finally, we take this opportunity to also think about how our findings could inform science policy and can offer an alternative to the governance of nudge worlds.
Call for Expression of Interest
The workshop is interdisciplinary in nature and brings together scholars from Europe, the US and Asia across a range of disciplines. In order to identify and include Early Career Researchers working in this area in Australia, we are opening a call for expression of interest. The University of Sydney will contribute to costs for travel and accommodation.
There are two ways to participate: as a presenter of a thought-piece or as an active participant in discussions. As funding is limited, priority for funding will be given to presenter of thought pieces. The deadline for a statement of purpose (300-500 words) and a one-page CV is November 30th, 2023. Please send these materials to Rachel Yang: r.yang@sydney.edu.au
We will notify you of the outcome by Mid December at the latest. Thought-pieces (3-5 pages) should be submitted by the first week of March so that we can disseminate prior to the workshop. The plan is to compile papers for an edited volume pitched at Cambridge University Press.
If you were trying to register for the Conference, or set up a membership account, we now have the ability to accept payment via debit/credit cards and bank payment. Unfortunately a bug somewhere is blocking our use of PayPal, and we have not been able to find out why.
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