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.
DRAFT AGENDA – Annual General Meeting
Australasian Association for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science
DRAFT AGENDA
Annual General Meeting
Monday 3 December 2018 @ 11.00 am
Research Hub, Rm 19.2062a, University of Wollongong
+ Tele-Conference via Zoom & Cisco
(details to be provided in early November)
1. Welcome to members
2. Endorsement of previous AGM 2017 minutes.
3. Acting Treasurer’s Report
a. income & expenditure from AAHPSSS 2017 Conference
b. finance update on Paypal & St George accounts
c. progress on proposal to move AAHPSSS funds into a higher interest bearing account, with some funds placed in rolling term deposits.
4. Vice-President’s Report on Dyason Lecture at State Library of NSW, and Society for Social Studies of Science Conference at Sydney International Convention Centre, in August 2018.
5. Nominations and vote on filling positions of Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, Assistant Treasurer, 2019 NZ Conference Representative/s.
6. Progress on proposal for a history of science and technology archive at the University of Wollongong with possibly financial input from AAHPSSS.
7. Discussion of organisation for AAHPSSS 2019 Conference at the Victoria University of Wellington:
a. Organising Committee for AAHPSSS 2019
b. Budgetary considerations
c. Program considerations
i. Daily plenaries in evening sessions
ii. Ian Langham Bursaries funding for post-graduates
iii. Co-hosting of sessions with APSTSN
d. Endorsement of funding proposal for Prof Margaret Pelham as Dyason Lecturer in 2019.
8. Other relevant STS/HPS conferences forthcoming in Australia and New Zealand.
9. Other business
Nominations for Executive positions
Australasian Association for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science
NOMINATIONS FOR EXECUTIVE POSITIONS
The positions of Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, Assistant Treasurer and 2019 NZ Conference Representative/s are now open for nominations from interested members of AAHPSSS.
Please send nominations, along with some brief biographical information and a one-page CV to the AAHPSSS President, Dr Adam Lucas, at alucas@uow.edu.au
A vote on all nominations will occur at the AAHPSSS AGM to be held on:
Monday 3 December 2018 @ 11.00 am
Research Hub, Rm 19.2062a, University of Wollongong
+ Tele-Conference via Zoom and Cisco
(details to be provided in early November)
ISHPSSB Off-Year Workshop 2018: Registration Open
Dear Friends and Colleagues:
We are pleased to announce the opening of registration for the 2018 ISHPSSB Off-Year Workshop, Regeneration Across Complex Living Systems: From Regenerating Microbiomes to Ecosystems Resiliency, which will be held at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, MA on October 22nd and 23rd, 2018.
Registration for the Workshop is available here and also at the ISH Off-Year website: https://2018ishregeneration.wordpress.com/.
This website contains a draft program as well as preliminary logistics and information about Woods Hole, including travel information and links to housing options aside from the MBL's own campus housing. The Off-Year Workshop website will be updated continuously as we get closer tothe Workshop dates.
Please note that registration for the 2018 ISHPSSB Off-Year Workshopcloses at MIDNIGHT (EST) on SEPTEMBER 12TH, 2018.
It will be difficult to accommodate travel assistance requests, MBL housing requests, and meal requests after this date. Expenses for housing and meals while at the MBL will be covered for graduate students, and we will also be able to provide some travel assistance to both graduate students and post docs. Requests for travel assistance can be submitted during the registration process.
Finally, please note that all participants in the 2018 ISH Off-Year Workshop will also need to register with the MBL campus in order to receive an ID card, which will allow access to the MBL campus and cafeteria. The deadline for this campus registration is October 5th, 2018.Once you register for the 2018 ISH Off-Year Workshop by midnight (EST) on September 12th, 2018, an e-mail will be sent to you with instructions on howto complete the MBL campus registration.
Please feel free to circulate this information widely, and as always, do not hesitate to contact us with any questions. We look forward to welcoming you to the MBL!
Warmly,
Kathryn Maxson Jones (kmaxson@princeton.edu)
Kate MacCord (kmaccord@mbl.edu)
Workshop Coordinators
Dyason Lecture 2018: Dancing with Strangers. Imagining an Originary Moment for Australian STS
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.
2018 ISHPSSB Off-year Call for Papers
Regeneration Across Complex Living Systems: From Regenerating Microbiomes to Ecosystems Resiliency
When: October 22 & 23, 2018
Where: Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA
Submission Due Date: 11:59pm EST July 15th, 2018
General Information
This ISHPSSB off-year workshop will focus on understanding the phenomenon of regeneration across complex living systems, asking the question of how regeneration has been understood, defined, and utilized in scientific research at different scales of living systems, both now and in the past. The workshop will begin with the premise that all complex living systems maintain some capacity to repair and to maintain themselves in the face of events that cause disturbances or damage. For example, microbial communities can regenerate to achieve the same function even as species composition changes, spinal neurons in a lamprey can regenerate function even though their cellular wiring changes, and ecosystems can maintain a level of resiliency in the face of changing conditions. In all instances, while these biological systems undergo stress and damage, their parts can coordinate responses to provide repair. But do we mean the same thing by regeneration in each case? How do regenerating parts “know” how to cooperate to make the individuals and systems healthy and whole again? How does an understanding of one level inform the others? What does regeneration, particularly across levels, mean for conceptions of individuality?
Over the course of two days, participants in the workshop will explore the historical, philosophical, and scientific foundations of regeneration across living systems. The organizers welcome papers that address any aspect of regeneration at any level of living systems. Please contact Kate MacCord (kmaccord@mbl.edu) with any questions about the workshop.
Pre-Registration (for those who wish to submit an abstract and/or request travel support) For those who wish to give a presentation and/or would like to request travel support, please fill out the pre-registration link available here. Funding requests and/or presentation abstracts received after 11:59pm EST on July 15, 2018, will not receive priority. Presenters whose abstracts are accepted will receive access to full travel funding. Travel support for those not presenting will be available on an as-needed basis, but funding is limited. The amount of travel support provided to each participant will depend on the number of requests.
Registration
A full registration will open on August 1, 2018, after speakers have been selected and those receiving travel support have been notified. More information on the link will be sent after the close of pre-registration.
PhD Scholarship – Merchants and Museums: The Natural History Trade
SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL INQUIRY
The University of Wollongong’s Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts is offering a PhD scholarship in connection with the Australian Research Council funded Linkage Project ‘Reconstructing museum specimen data through the pathways of global commerce’ (LP160101761). The aim of the project is to revitalize irreplaceable zoological specimens through a closer understanding of their origins, exchange and preservation as part of a global trade in natural history. The project draws on broad expertise in anthropology, economic history, cultural history, archaeology, and spectroscopy.
The PhD project will focus on the growth of the natural history trade in zoological specimens from the Linnean period (c.1758) to the early twentieth century. It will analyse the main trade routes, supply chains, exchange processes, and preservation practices for the natural history trade. Understanding the trade and preservation of natural history products will assist in recovering the stories and scientific knowledge hidden in many currently moribund museum specimens.
One scholarship is available for commencement in or mid-2018 or early 2019, but further PhD opportunities are also available on the project.
RESEARCH ENVIRONMENT
Successful candidates will be supervised by Professor Simon Ville (Wollongong), but with the support and encouragement of other members of the project team. Simon is a leading economic historian and supervises a group of graduate students. He is a member of the history discipline at Wollongong that scores very highly in research rankings and includes many holders of ARC grants and fellowships.
ELIGIBILTY AND APPLICATION DETAILS
Both domestic and international prospective students are encouraged to apply. The scholarship is for three years full-time with a stipend of $AUD 27,082 per annum (tax free).
This project would suit a candidate with:
- A background in History, Economics, or Anthropology
- Some experience handling descriptive data and/or archival sources
- An interest in Transnational History, Economic History or the History of Science
- Additional relevant research experience and/or peer-reviewed research activity, awards and/or prizes will be regarded favourably
- Applicants should submit:
- A cover letter detailing relevant experience, your CV, and academic transcripts to the Faculty Research Unit via lha-research@uow.edu.au
- A full Higher Degree Research (HDR) admission application via https://www.uow.edu.au/apply/index.html.
For further enquiries contact Simon Ville: sville@uow.edu.au
USyd HPS Research Presentation and Keynote
SCHOOL OF HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
RESEARCH PRESENTATION
SEMESTER ONE 2018
START: 1.30PM
NEW LAW ANNEX SEMINAR ROOM 340
PROGRAM
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".
4:15 - 5:00 KEYNOTE:
Rob Wilson, Ph.D., FRSC
Professor of Philosophy
La Trobe University, Melbourne
"Disciplining Eugenics: History, Philosophy, and HPS"
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