Notices

Posted on

2014 Conference program

A2HPS3 Conference (July 16-18, 2014), Katoomba

Schedule

Wednesday 16th

1:30-3:30 Early Modern I

• Alan Salter, The 1616 Anatomy lecture of William Harvey given to the London College of Physicians.
• Marco Zuccato, A Forgotten World of Exotic Wonders in Early-Medieval Spain.
• Julie Anne Davies, German Perceptions of Joseph Glanvill.
• Ofer Gal, Descartes, Spinoza, and the Turn from Reason to the Passions.

3:30-4:00 Tea/coffee Break

4:00-5:30 Dyason Lecture

Philip Catton, Diagrammatic Reasoning, Exemplary Practice, Public Experience: Newton vs Leibniz.

Thursday 17th

9:15-10:45 String Theory: An HPSS Buffet

• Kristian Camilleri, In What Sense is String Theory Progressive?
• Dean Rickles, Duality and Equivalence in String Theory.
• Sophie Ritson, ArXiv, Trackbacks, and the String Wars.

10:45-11:00 Tea break

11:00-1:00 Early Modern II

• John Schuster, Descartes’ Regulae and their Discontents: Why Philosophical Attacks on the Weber-Schuster Thesis Fail in Light of the New ‘Cambridge ms.’ of the Regulae.
• Keith Hutchison, Galileo, Sunspots and the Motion of the Earth.
• Luciano Boschiero, On Impact and Motion: Giovanni Borelli’s Treatises on Physico-mathematics.
• Peter Anstey, Principles in Early Modern Natural Philosophy: A Provisional Taxonomy.

1:00-2:15 Lunch

2:15-3:45 Implications of Temporal Limits of Perception in Psychology for Philosophical Approaches to Temporal Experience

• Alex Holcombe, Seeing Slow, Seeing Fast
• Patrick Goodbourn, Attentional Episodes and the Experience of Simultaneity
• Maria Kon, Philosophical Models of Temporal Experience and Psychological Restrictions

3:45-4:00 Tea break

4:00-5:00 Book Symposium

• John Schuster, Descartes-Agonistes: Physico-mathematics, Method and Copuscular-Mechanism 1618-1633, Dordrecht: Springer, 2013. [Ofer Gal, Luciano Boschiero commenting, with responses by John Schuster].

5.00-6.00 AGM

7.00 Conference Dinner

Friday 18th

9:00-10:30 Political HPSS

• Ian Wills, Football, Meat Pies, Kangaroos, and Holden Cars: The Neglected History of Manufacturing in Australia
• Kathryn Ticehurst, Anthropological Field Work in ‘Mixed Race’ Aboriginal Communities in Australia, 1940–1965
• Darrin Durant, STS Styled Politics of Expertise, According to Political Theory

10.30-10.45 Tea break

10:45-12:15 Cosmology and Scientific Understanding

• David Mercer, Thinking about the History of the History of Science in Popular Culture: ‘Cosmos’ then and now : A Personal Journey in the History of the Recent History of the History Science in Popular Culture.
• Katia Wilson, What Matters Most: A Small Episode in the Formation of the Dark Matter Entity.
• Ruth Barton, Victorian Scientific Naturalism Reconsidered.

12.15-1.15 Lunch

1:15-2.45 Identity Crisis: Manipulating Identities Through Technological Practice

• Christopher Hesselbein, Constituting Identities Through Technology: The HPV Vaccination Controversy in the Netherlands.
• Ian Lawson, Constituting Identities Through Technology: Margaret Cavendish’s Portrayal of Experimental Philosophy in Seventeenth Century England.
• Sahar Tavakoli, Constituting Identities Through Technology: The Hospital Gown in the Construction of the Hospital Patient.

2.45-3.00 Tea break

3:00-4:30 Potpourri

• Richard Heersmink, The Metaphysics of Cognitive Artifacts.
• Adam Lucas, Ecclesiastical Lordship and the Commercialization of Medieval Milling.
• William Palmer, David Boswell Reid: Chemistry, Textbooks and Ventilation.

Posted on

Nominations for International Scholars, Society for the History of Technology (SHOT), 2014

Each year the Society for the History of Technology designates up to four International Scholars for a two-year term. One of the goals of the International Scholars program is to foster an international network of scholars in the history of technology that will benefit all members of the Society. International Scholars shall receive regular SHOT membership at no cost during their two-year term. At each annual meeting, SHOT will host a special gathering to welcome current International Scholars, introduce them to SHOT officers, and discuss with them SHOT’s international outreach and the international intellectual dimensions of our field.

The Society particularly welcomes applications from or nominations of scholars from Africa, Asia and Latin America. Graduate students, post-docs, and visiting scholars who are living and working in North America are not eligible to become International Scholars; however, they are eligible to apply once they return to their home countries. The deadline of 2014 nominations is April 15. For more information about the application procedures, please visit:

http://www.historyoftechnology.org/about_us/international_programs.html

Posted on

Oral histories of Australian Geoscience project

Expressions of Interest: Contract Oral Historian - 
Oral histories of Australian Geoscience project. 
[Applications close at 5:00pm on Friday 6 December 2013].
The National Library of Australia, in partnership with Geoscience Australia, 
is seeking interviewers with extensive experience and understanding of history, 
oral history methodology and a science, geoscience or science history background, 
to conduct oral history interviews.
Posted on

Information on Darryl Reanney sought

Donald Forsdyke of Queens University has sent this request:

As set out on a recent paper in Biological Theory, the microbiologist/philosopher Darryl Reanney, who I believe started off in New Zealand but did most of his work in Australia, advanced one of the earliest hypotheses on the role of introns when they were discovered in 1977. Apart from a TV interview he gave shortly before his death from leukaemia in 1994, there is little I can find on him on the internet. In particular, I would like a photo to add to the web version of my intron paper. If anyone in AAHPSSS can help it would be much appreciated.

Donald R. Forsdyke, Department of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada

Posted on

AAHPSSS 2013 Annual General Meeting

The 2013 AAHPSSS annual general meeting was held at the University of Sydney on Friday 8 November 2013 at 1.50pm-2.20pm. The minutes of the meeting will be published in the next newsletter (March 2014).

The 2014 AAHPSSS annual general meeting will be held at the biennial conference between the 16th and 18th of July in Katoomba.

Please feel free to send queries or comments via e-mail to Luciano Boschiero (Treasurer).

Posted on

Call for HPS/STS papers at Melbourne

The History and Philosophy of Science Postgraduate Association of the University of Melbourne is pleased to announce that it is organizing a conference whose purpose is to highlight the research of post-graduates as well as academics within HPS.

Proposals for paper presentations are now being invited for the “Melbourne University Research Conference on the History and Philosophy of Science” to be held Thursday Feb. 21, 2013. We are welcome papers from a variety of disciplinary perspectives related to topics within the fields of History and Philosophy of Science and Science and Technology Studies.

We hope that this conference will provide an opportunity for staff and postgraduates at the University of Melbourne to come together and showcase their research, as well as a forum for discussion with the wider HPS and STS communities, in Melbourne and beyond.  We therefore particularly welcome paper proposals from postgraduates of other institutions.

Presentations will run for fifteen minutes plus question time.  Papers presented will appear in a peer reviewed proceedings, tentatively scheduled for publication in June of 2013. It is also anticipated that presentations will be presentations will be recorded and made available via a conference website, subject to the approval of each presenter.

Abstracts of up to 250 words, with a brief biographical statement, should be sent to hpssa.unimelb@gmail.com no later than Friday the 25th of January.

Posted on

APSTSN Biennial Conference July 15–17 2013

The National University of Singapore is pleased to open the Call for Papers for APSTSN Biennial Conference July 15–17 2013.

The Asia-Pacific Science, Technology and Society Network is an association of regional scholars for fostering collaboration and encouraging science, technology and society research, teaching, and critical discussion on current STS themes and issues in the Asia-Pacific region. 

Knowing, Making, Governing – across Asia and the Pacific, the work of science, technology and society calls attention to the region’s plurality of socio-technical projects and ways of knowing. The conference accepts proposals for all themes pertaining to science, technology and society, including:

Themes

Biosciences

Gender

Modeling and Numbers-work

Business, Finance, & Markets

Indigenous Knowledges

Normativity and Normalization

Care

Information & Media

Publics & Participation

Citizenship & Activism

Inter-Species Relations

Posthumanities

Disaster

Government, Policy & Politics

Risk

Energy

Limits of Knowledge

Theory & Method

Environment & Ecology

Medicine

Food & Agriculture

This conference is jointly organized by the STS Research Cluster of the Asia Research Institute (ARI), the STS Research Cluster of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS), and Tembusu College (at University Town), all at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Support has also been received from the Humanities and Social Science Research Fund at NUS.

Abstract submission will open on December 1, 2012 and the deadline for submitting proposals is January 7, 2013. Accepted participants will be notified in February 2013.

Proposals will be reviewed by the NUS Conference Organizing Committee, with the objective to accept all properly prepared proposals. Please note that Science, Technology and Society (STS) is a broad but distinct inter-disciplinary field pertaining to science, technology and their historical and social implications and conditions of possibility. 

Check the conference website for further information on submitting abstract, panel and plenary proposals. 

Posted on

Postgraduate scholarships

Two Postgraduate Scholarships in Race and Ethnicity in the Global South, University of Sydney, Australia

Description:

Two full-time postgraduate scholarships are available for suitably qualified candidates with a good honours or masters degree in history, HPS, or anthropology to undertake research studies leading to a PhD. The PhD topic should relate to the ARC Laureate Fellowship project, which focuses on the development and transmission of concepts of race and human difference in the southern hemisphere during the 20th century, especially on those ideas derived from biological or anthropological studies. Through comparative and transnational histories we seek to reveal influential debates over racial difference conducted by scientists, anthropologists and others across the global South. We are especially interested in projects that bring southern settler societies together into the global picture of 20th-century race science.

Eligibility:

Applicants should have a particular interest in the history of concepts of race and human difference. Knowledge of the history of science is desirable but not essential. Applications are open to Australian citizens, Australian permanent residents or New Zealand citizens.

International students may apply, but need to contact Dr Rodney Taveira (rodney.taveira@sydney.edu.au) in the first instance.

Amount awarded:

The scholarship is valued at $27,651 per annum (tax exempt) and may be renewed for up to three years, subject to satisfactory progress.

Application guide:

Further information can be obtained from Laureate Fellow and Professor Warwick Anderson, Director, Race and Ethnicity in the Global South Project, School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry and Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine, The University of Sydney NSW 2006 (Phone: +61 2 9351 3365 ; Fax: +61 2 9351 7760; E-mail: warwick.anderson@sydney.edu.au).  Applications should be sent direct to Dr Rodney Taveira at Race and Ethnicity in the Global South, K6.07 A14 – Quadrangle, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006 Australia and should include a curriculum vitae, a copy of an academic transcript, and the names and contact details of at least two referees.

Closing date:

07 December 2012

DR RODNEY TAVEIRA | Research Administrative Assistant
Race and Ethnicity in the Global South (REGS)
School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry; Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine