CALL FOR PAPERS: The Making of Measurement

CRASSH, University of Cambridge, 23-4 July 2015

Proposals are invited for individual papers and sessions for The Making of Measurement, an interdisciplinary conference that seeks to consolidate an emerging international community of scholars interested in the history, philosophy and/or sociology of measurement. The conference will be held at the University of Cambridge, hosted by the Centre for Research in Arts Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DT, on the 23rd and 24th July, 2015. Keynote addresses will be delivered by Nancy Cartwright, Terry Quinn, and Graeme Gooday, and in addition a number of sessions with contributed papers will be organized. The conference webpage is located at: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/25661.

Inevitably, tensions exist between methodologically-diverse approaches across the fields of philosophy, history, and sociology of science, particularly with respect to whether measurement outcomes reflect facts about nature, or about human tools and concepts. An important aim of this conference is to bring together scholars to review recent advances and to identify key issues for further development.

This decade is also seeing dramatic changes in the metric system because four scientific units are being redefined in terms of fundamental constants; the contemporary relevance of a systematic approach in the humanities to the study of measurement is therefore particularly strong.

The new wave of humanistic scholarship concerning measurement is still in an embryonic stage and no agreed general conceptual frameworks have emerged. All proposals relating to the making of measurement will therefore be considered, although contributors might choose to address one or more of the questions listed under the following themes:

Philosophies of Measurement: Under what conditions is the world justifiably deemed quantifiable? How do existing philosophies of measurement, for example operationalism, fit specific historical cases? Can measurements of the properties of macroscopic bodies and microscopic entities be analyzed in the same way? When measuring instruments disagree, is it always possible to ascertain which one is in error? Do the relationships between measurement and theory in the natural sciences hold true for the social and human sciences? How does measurement function in areas of scientific enquiry where entities under study have a dubious ontological grounding?

Units, Standards, and Metrology: Are measurement standards accurate by virtue of fact or convention? What are the social, political, and scientific aims for which units and standards are established? What are the means of their establishment? What impact have specialized metrological institutions had on processes of standardization?

Practices of Measurement: What kinds of conceptual approaches, methodological and mathematical tools, and practical steps have been necessary for ensuring sufficient reliability and precision? How have these varied from sites ranging from the elite laboratory to the workshop, factory, and home? What kinds of exchange (of personnel, instruments, apparatus, techniques, and so on) have taken place between these sites? What determines judgments of the level of acceptable error, and how do these relate to the various purposes of measurement, and economic and technological development?

Proposals for individual papers and sessions are both welcome. Sessions comprising researchers from different stages in their career are encouraged. Proposals for individual papers should include an abstract of up to 500 words. Sessions in a standard format, of up to two hours, should consist of three or four papers, with or without a commentator; proposals for such sessions should include an overall description as well as a 500-word abstract for each paper. All proposals should include the names and institutional affiliations of all participants, and contact details (including e-mail address) of one person who will serve as the main point of contact.

The conference organizers would be delighted to receive proposals for innovative and unconventional session formats. With this in mind, we offer the following templates:
Classic work: contributors prepare responses to a classic work before opening up discussion to the audience.

Review of the field: between them, contributors offer a critical review of a particular aspect of the field for scrutiny by the audience.

Pre-circulation: contributors pre-circulate their draft papers, leaving the majority of the session for open-ended discussion.

Round table: panelists present briefly on a prescribed theme and then discuss questions from the audience (but round table sessions can take many formats).

The formats above, however, are only suggestions, and proposals of any format, including ‘conventional’ ones and adaptations of the above, will be considered on equal footing. Please send all proposals to Dr. Daniel Jon Mitchell (djm232@cam.ac.uk) and feel free to contact the organizers with any questions.

The deadline for proposals is 28th February 2015.

Students will receive a discount on the registration fee and may be granted travel bursaries depending on the availability of funds.

Daniel Jon Mitchell
Eran Tal

Hasok Chang


Dr. Eran Tal
Marie Curie Research Fellow
Department of History and Philosophy of Science
University of Cambridge
https://sites.google.com/site/erantalphilosophy/

CALL FOR PAPERS: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities: Thinking with Things, 1500-1940

Thinking with Things, 1500-1940: An interdisciplinary material culture workshop for graduate students and early career scholars

25th April 2014

Keynote speaker: Dr Spike Bucklow, Hamilton Kerr Institute, Cambridge
Closing Remarks: Dr Katy Barrett, Royal Museums, Greenwich

Thinking with Things is a one-day workshop to be held on Friday 25th April, 2014 at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), at the University of Cambridge. Research students from any discipline within the arts, social sciences, and humanities are invited to submit proposals for papers, and/or panels of three papers, that consider how ‘things’ can put a new perspective on the past. This workshop is affiliated with the ‘Things: Comparing Material Cultures’ seminar series at CRASSH http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/programmes/things

Over the past thirty years, the ‘material turn’ has reformed the way in which many historians approach the past, but attention to the ‘stuff’ of history has concerned archaeologists, art historians, anthropologists and sociologists for some time. From shoes to anatomical specimens, from people to paintings, from durable glass and porcelain to fragile fabrics and ephemeral foodstuffs, a vast array of ‘things’ are now subject to the researcher’s gaze, offering valuable windows into the experience of historical actors and the objects that mediated past social and cultural interactions.

The recognition that material objects are worthy subjects of scholarship is the premise of the successful CRASSH Graduate Seminar ‘Things’. Now in its third year, ‘Things’ began life as a series whose primary object was the study of material culture in the so-called consumerist ‘long eighteenth century’, taking the format of regular sessions of two papers on related themes and/or objects presented by scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds. Today, the series incorporates a longer chronological span, but retains its original focus on the material lives of the past and continues to attract scholars of all stripes to speak on a range of topics.

The aim of this workshop is to give graduate students (at both PhD and Masters level) and early career scholars a chance to present their work and to participate in discussion in the lively, welcoming and highly interdisciplinary space that ‘Things’ has created. Following the model of the ‘Things’ series, the conference will be structured around a series of panels that focus on particular types of objects or particular thematic questions (such as issues of methodology or themes like industrialisation).

We encourage applications for 20-minute papers (or panels of 3 such papers) along the following themes (broadly construed) in relation to the period 1500-1940:

• Methodologies of material culture
• Material culture and modernity
• Print and advertising: books, newspapers, posters, magazines, packaging and ephemera
• Material culture of religion: art, icons, buildings
• Objects of desire: fashion, clothing and luxury
• Eating and drink: festivals, cooking, eating paraphernalia, and food itself
• Scientific and medical objects: tools, images, teaching materials
• Industrial objects: mass production machines and the objects they make
• War: memorials, diaries, uniforms
• Gendered things
• Cultures of collecting & travel

Abstracts of no more than 300 words, accompanied by a brief biographical note of no more than 100 words stating degree status and any institutional affiliation, should be sent to ThinkingThingsCRASSH@gmail.comby 3rd March 2014. This conference is being organised by Lesley Steinitz, Michelle Wallis and Mike Ashby (University of Cambridge).

This workshop has been made possible due to funding from the University of Cambridge History Faculty, and organisational assistance and facilities from CRASSH. We are unable to cover travel or accommodation costs for speakers, though we are happy to help book affordable accommodation for those participants that require it. We would encourage participants to request accommodation early, as college guest rooms are in high demand.

Lesley Steinitz
PhD Candidate, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge