CALL FOR PAPERS: XXXVII Scientific Instrument Symposium

3 - 7 September 2018
Leiden and Haarlem, The Netherlands


The XXXVII Symposium of the Scientific Instrument Commission will take place from the 3rd to the 7th of September 2018 in Leiden and Haarlem, the Netherlands. The general topic of the conference is Instruments and the ‘Empire of Man over Things’. In The New Organon (1620), Francis Bacon famously wrote that “the empire of man over things depends wholly on the arts and sciences. For we cannot command nature except by obeying her” [Works 8 (1863), 162-63]. How have instruments of the “arts and sciences” been deployed in efforts to “command nature” for social, economic, political or personal purposes? How have instruments entered public works projects (waterways, transport, energy, pollution control), economic projects (mining, agriculture, factories), or political projects (military, public health, exploration, cadastral surveying)? Are different instruments required when the goal is not only knowing but also controlling?

We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers that fit in any of the following three subtopics.

1. Water works and technics is inspired by the fact that the SIC conference is taking place in the Netherlands and thus water works are very appropriate. Proposals in this session could range from locks, building of dykes, to all kind of measuring instruments used for water works or technics. Also social aspects may be the subject of a paper, as for large projects a lot of coordination, politics, economics is needed.

2. Electricity nods to the fact that Teylers Museum is famous for its huge electricity machine and Rijksmuseum Boerhaave has also large collection of electrical instruments. Proposals in this session could range from static electricity toys, human electricity to powerplants. Also economic aspects may be the subject of a paper, such as the electrification of the homes, cars and electrical energy.

3. Citizens instrumental science proceeds from the idea that in the eighteenth century Dutch societies of interested upper middle class citizens flourished. Teylers is only one of them. In other countries people also gathered to see demonstrations by Desaguliers and others. What kind of organisations were they and what instruments were used and what for? Who joined these gatherings and what came of it? What was their relationship with the universities? Proposals in this session will address to these questions and other aspects of scientific societies.

Furthermore, the SIC invites members to organize other sessions that explore the general theme. Of course we also welcome proposals for sessions, papers or posters on any topic dealing with the material culture of science.

For the first time the SIC will include pitch sessions at the Dutch symposium. Speakers have to put forward their point of view of a subject in a short time. After 5 pitches we turn to an in-depth debate. SIC 2018 welcomes proposals for pitches related to the following two topics.

1. End of the SIC? In the past, historians of science took material heritage for granted and did not often make it a topic of analysis. Studies on the history of science and the activities related to scientific instruments (research, preservation, promotion) have been separated from each other for a long time. One of the main goals of the SIC in its early decades was to put this material heritage on the map. Nowadays more and more examples of interactions between the two fields appear: some historians of science base their researches and/or their lectures on scientific instruments, they co-curate exhibitions with curators, etc. So has the SIC done its job well? Should we step aside now? Proposals in this session should contain pitches with short and precise arguments and should contribute to an in-depth discussion on the future of the SIC.

2. Instruments that failed, became obsolete or forgotten. Cases of instruments that were regarded as failures have occurred throughout the centuries. But there are also cases of instruments that were relevant in their own time, but turned out to be no part of the history. And there are cases of research (instruments) which led to dead ends. Why do some instruments fail or fall into oblivion? What can we learn from such instruments? Can their study enrich the history of science? Should they be displayed and how? Proposals in this session should contain pitches with short and precise arguments and should contribute to an in-depth discussion on the role of these instruments in museums and the history of science.

The final deadline for the abstracts is March 1, 2018. The Symposium will be hosted jointly by Rijksmuseum Boerhaave in Leiden and the Teyler's Museum in Haarlem with visits to nearby cities and collections. The preliminary program can be found at the conference website.

The Bodleian Libraries Centre for the Study of the Book summer school: “The Scientific Image”

25-29 July 2018.  Course convener: Roger Gaskell.   Application form (doc)

THEMES

Origination and transfer of images; relief, intaglio and lithographic printing; the role of the author, draughtsman and printmaker; formal analysis of images; text-image relationships; bibliographical description and cataloguing; the history of scientific, technical, medical, and natural history illustration.

DESCRIPTION

This course examines the production and use of printed pictures in scientific books from the incunable period (before 1501) to the end of the nineteenth century. Diagrams and pictures are not ancillary to scientific texts: they are part and parcel of the intellectual content; ‘illustration’ is a misleading if unavoidable term. To understand the role of images, this course looks at how the production of images affects how and what theories, facts or observations can be communicated, and can be part of the making of scientific knowledge. What an author sketches or an artist draws will often be enhanced and refined in collaboration with the author in the print making process. By analysing the formal qualities of the printed image we can ask: what visual strategies of description, analysis, explanation and persuasion are deployed? We will also consider the description and cataloguing of the illustrated scientific book. The course will provide an introduction to the history of scientific illustration in the physical sciences, technology, medicine and natural history.

This course is intended for those with a strong interest in the history of scientific books and printed images. Some previous training in either art history or the history of science and the basics of analytical and descriptive bibliography will enable students to get the most out of this course, but neither one is a prerequisite. No language skills are required. In their personal statements, applicants should describe the nature of their interest in the history of the technical image and explain briefly the purposes to which they propose to put the knowledge gained from the course.

SPECIAL GUEST LECTURE: Jim Bennett

‘Printed mathematical instruments of the 16th century, bound and unbound’
Jim Bennett will discuss the use of printed mathematical instruments in the 16th century, paper machines that were operational instruments on the page of the book, or intended to be separated from the book and possibly pasted on card or wood, or even cut from the book and used independently.

COURSE STRUCTURE

Taught seminars will take place in the Bodleian Library where participants will examine original drawings, original printing blocks and plates and printed books from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries.

Printing demonstrations, led by Richard Lawrence at the Bodleian Bibliographical Press, will provide a first-hand understanding of relief, intaglio and lithographic printing.
Visits will be made to the Sherardian Library of Plant taxonomy and the Museum of the History of Science to look at original drawings, specimens and scientific instruments.

Roger Gaskell is an antiquarian bookseller specializing in scientific medical and technical books. He has lectured on scientific book illustration at the Bodleian Summer School and teaches a regular seminar, ‘Science in print’ in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, and a regular course at the Rare Book School in Virginia.

Jim Bennett is former Director of the Museum of the History of Science at the University of Oxford and curator of the Whipple Museum, University of Cambridge. His publications include London’s Leonardo: the life and work of Robert Hooke.

COURSE FEES

The fee of £500 covers tuition, refreshments and lunches. Note that accommodation is not included in the fees and securing accommodation is the responsibility of the student.

A limited number of reduced-price places are available for postgraduate students at UK universities. If you wish to be considered for one of these places, please indicate this on your application form.

A non-refundable deposit of £150 is required within two weeks of notification of admission.

The balance of the course fee is due by 25 May 2018. If you are unable to attend the course after paying the balance of the fee, this is refundable only in extraordinary circumstances.
HOW TO APPLY

Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis until the course is full. Your application should include a cv and a one-page letter indicating how you plan to use the knowledge gained on the course.

If you are a postgraduate student at a UK institution and wish to be considered for one of the reduced-price places, please indicate this on your application form.

Those accepted will be notified as soon as the applications have been approved.

Dr Alexandra Franklin, Project Co-ordinator Bodleian Libraries Centre for the Study of the Book Bodleian Library Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG

E-mail: Alexandra Franklin

Remembering James Petiver (1665-1718)

26th April 2018
The Linnean Society of London

Registration Now Open

Remembering James Petiver (1665-1718)

This day meeting marks the tercentenary of the death of James Petiver FRS, an important but often overlooked professional apothecary and compulsive natural historian in 18th-century London. Petiver made significant contributions to multiple fields of natural history, above all botany and entomology. An assiduous correspondent and collector, he successfully cultivated sources of natural historical intelligence and material from the Americas to the East Indies.

Speakers will assess Petiver’s life and legacy by deploying a range of historical and scientific disciplinary perspectives. On the 300th anniversary of his death, the meeting will set out to remember James Petiver:

• as a practising natural historian of substantial abilities and merit
• as a collector and cataloguer of natural historical specimens with enduring significance
• as a writer of both manuscript correspondence and published natural historical texts
• as an apothecary whose professional and private scientific interests mutually informed each other
• as a social networker both within London and across the globe
• as an historical figure whose legacy has been contested and which is ripe for reconsideration

Speakers: Dr Arnold Hunt, Dr Charles E Jarvis FLS, Sebestian Kroupa, Dr Alice Marples, Katrina Maydom, Professor Kathleen S Murphy, Dr Victoria Pickering, Professor Richard Vane-Wright FLS. Respondent: Dr Emma Spary.

Organisers: Richard Coulton, Charlie Jarvis

Dr Richard Coulton
Senior Lecturer in English
School of English and Drama
Queen Mary University of London

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'Remembering James Petiver (1665-1718)': Thursday 26 April 2018
Stealing Books in Eighteenth-Century London (Palgrave, 2016)
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CALL FOR PAPERS: 'Locating the Ancient World in Early Modern Subversive Thought'

Newcastle University, 12th-14th April 2018

Dichotomies have long been used to define the intellectual developments of early modern Europe - reason and faith; authority and subversion; science and humanism; radicalism and tradition; heterodoxy and orthodoxy — with classical thought usually located on the side of tradition, a behemoth of learning which inhibited man’s reason and his ability to learn through observation. Such unilinear accounts of the progression to modernity have been subjected to increasingly numerous challenges in the last two decades, as scholars have sought to demonstrate that the ideas which drove Europe towards the Enlightenment were far more complex and multi-layered than suggested by the traditional narratives.

The aim of this conference is to expand on this revived appreciation of the classical influence in early modernity by looking specifically at the role played by the ancient world in that sphere from which it has most usually been excluded: subversive literature. The idea that the texts, philosophies, and exempla of the ancient world might have served as significant tools for those who sought to undermine and challenge political, religious and cultural authority stands in direct opposition to the traditional role assigned to the classics in this period. Emphasising an interdisciplinary approach, this conference will draw scholars together to build a coherent picture of how the classical tradition functioned as a tool for subversion, illuminating a previously neglected aspect of the ancient world in the early modern thought.

The keynote speakers will be Peter Harrison (University of Queensland) and Marianne Pade (Danish Academy at Rome).

We are inviting abstracts for papers of thirty minutes on topics including, but not limited to:

• Ancient philosophical involvement in epistemological challenges to traditional understandings of knowledge and belief
• Ancient theories of natural philosophy in the debates concerning God and the universe in both religion and science
• The contribution of ancient texts to the arguments for natural religion, and against magic, miracles, and the supernatural
• Classical rhetoric and literary forms as models for argumentation in subversive treatises, polemics, pamphlets, poetry, and other literary genres
• Ancient religion in the construction of arguments in favour of toleration, and the establishment of a civil religion
• The function of ancient examples in radical political ideologies, including republicanism, democracy, and theories of resistance and revolution
• Classical scholarship as a tool for subversion, and print culture as a sphere facilitating this function of the classics

If you would like to offer a paper for the conference, please submit an abstract of 300 words to Katherine East by 9th February 2018.

See Locating Subversion for further information.


Katherine A. East
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow
School of History, Classics, and Archaeology
Newcastle University

Locating the Ancient World in Early Modern Subversive Thought

12th – 14th April 2018
The Boiler House, Newcastle University

The aim of this conference is to expand on this revived appreciation of the classical influence in early modernity by looking specifically at the role played by the ancient world in that sphere from which it has most usually been excluded: subversive literature. The idea that the texts, philosophies, and exempla of the ancient world might have served as significant tools for those who sought to undermine and challenge political, religious and cultural authority stands in direct opposition to the traditional role assigned to the classics in this period. Emphasising an interdisciplinary approach, this conference will draw scholars together to build a coherent picture of how the classical tradition functioned as a tool for subversion, illuminating a previously neglected aspect of the ancient world in the early modern thought.

Featuring keynote speakers Peter Harrison (University of Queensland) and Marianne Pade (Danish Academy at Rome).

There is no delegate fee for this conference, but if you plan to attend please email Katherine East to register for the event by Monday 9th April.


PROGRAMME

Thursday 12th April

13.30-14.00 Coffee and Registration

14.00-14.30 Welcome Address

14.30-16.30 Panel One: Institutions of Religion

Alasdair Raffe (Edinburgh): ‘Numa in Plaid: Scottish Interpretations of Roman Religion, c. 1602-1759’

John Holton (Newcastle): ‘Thomas Hobbes, Diodorus Siculus, and Early Human Society’

Ashley Walsh (Cambridge): ‘Ciceronianism and the Multitude in the Civil Religion of the Third Earl of Shaftesbury’

17.00-18.00 Keynote Address

Marianne Pade (Danish Academy at Rome): ‘Thucydides vs Aristotle: Leonardo Bruni on Popular Government’

18.00-19.00 Drinks Reception

Friday 13th April

9.30-11.30 Panel Two: Rewriting the Natural World

Valentina Zaffino (Pontifical Lateran University): ‘Subverting Aristotelianism through Aristotle: Giordano Bruno’s Interpretation of the Physics’

Karine Durin (Nantes): ‘Dangerous Pliny: Natural Philosophy and the Limits of Christian Orthodoxy in the Renaissance’

Michelle Pfeffer (Oxford): ‘William Coward (1657-1724), the Material Soul, and ‘Undeniable History’: a Physician’s Critical Study of Pagan, Hebrew, and Christian Pasts’

11.30-12.00 Break

12.00-13.30 Panel Three: Pagan Belief

Jonathan Nathan (Cambridge): ‘Orthodox Atheism and the Manuscript Theophrastus Redivivus’

Tim Stuart-Buttle (York): ‘Pagan Philosophy and Early Modern Natural Law Theory: John Maxwell’s Edition of Cumberland’s De Legibus Naturae (1727)’

13.30-14.30 Lunch

14.30-16.30 Panel Four: The Power of Words

Callum Murrell (Durham): ‘The Invention of Subversion: Fiction and Narrative in the Elizabethan Star Chamber’

Julianne Mentzer (St Andrews): ‘“Give me my fee!”: Transgressive Use of Rhetoric in The Dutch Courtesan’

Rowland Smith (Newcastle): ‘The Persecuting Pagan and the Philosophic Protestant: Julian the Apostate in English Reception from Marvell to Gibbon, by way of Hampton Court and Voltaire the Bigot’

17.00-18.00 Keynote Address

Peter Harrison (University of Queensland): ‘The Authority of the Ancients: the Case of Heterodox Religion in Seventeenth Century England’

18.00 Drinks Reception and Conference Dinner

Saturday 14th April

9.30-11.30 Panel Five: Popular Politics

Astrid Khoo (KCL): ‘Subverting Cicero: Roman Republican Polemic in Milton’s Defensio Pro Populo Anglicano’

Dikaia Gavala (Aberdeen): ‘“Rise before the Majesty of the People”: Popular Republicanism in Restoration Drama’

Minchul Kim (St Andrews): ‘War and Patriotism: Roman History and Military Government in the French Revolutionary Debates’

11.30-12.00 Break

12.00-13.30 Panel Five: Epicurean Echoes

Jessica Pirie (Birmingham): ‘Aphra Behn’s The Young King and the Lucretian Revival’

Jared Holley (EUI): ‘Epicureanism and Popular Sovereignty in Rousseau’

13.30 Lunch and Farewells



Dr Katherine A. East
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow
School of History, Classics and Archaeology
Newcastle University
Katherine East

Exhibition and Lecture: Ceaseless motion: William Harvey's experiments in circulation

Royal College of Physicians, 

11 St Andrews Place, 

Regent's Park, 

London NW1 4LE

19 January 2018 to 26 July 2018

Library, Archive and Museum
Telephone: +44 (0)20 3075 1543
Email: history@rcplondon.ac.uk

Opening January 2018, a new exhibition coinciding with the Royal College of Physicians' (RCP's) 500th anniversary exploring the life, work and legacy of revolutionary anatomist William Harvey – the physician who revealed the secrets of circulation.

The 'Ceaseless motion: William Harvey's experiments in circulation' exhibition runs from 19 January to 26 July 2018, and is open Monday–Friday, 9am–5pm.

William Harvey (1578–1657) was an anatomist and physician with an insatiable curiosity about the inner workings of all living creatures. Harvey lived through an extraordinary age of scientific revolution, to which he would contribute with his own discovery on the heart and blood circulation.

Within his London home, Harvey conducted countless experiments and observed the beating hearts of many animals, including dogs, eels, crows and even wasps. As an anatomist, he was able to dissect the bodies of hanged men, in the anatomy theatre at the Royal College of Physicians.

It is absolutely necessary to conclude that the blood is in a state of ceaseless motion; that this is the function which the heart performs by means of its pulse; and that this is the sole and only end of the motion and contraction of the heart. William Harvey, 1628 

Oil on canvas portrait of William Harvey by unknown artist, c.1650. (detail) 

In 1628, after 10 years of painstaking solitary research, Harvey at last published his discovery in a book, known as De motu cordis. His idea, that blood is pumped around the body by the heart in a state of ceaseless motion, proved highly controversial to some, challenging 1,500 years of established scientific and medical belief.

Harvey encouraged his fellow physicians ‘to search and study out the secrets of nature by way of experiment’. His legacy of curiosity, research and discovery has had a lasting impact on the practice and science of medicine. This exhibition places William Harvey at the heart of the RCP as it celebrates its 500th anniversary.

#WilliamHarvey

William Harvey's demonstration rod. Whalebone and silver c.1616

Exhibition launch
Join us on Thursday 18 January to celebrate the opening of the first exhibition in the RCP's 500th anniversary year with a lecture by Professor Andrew Cunningham on the life and legacy of William Harvey. The lecture is free to attend but booking is essential.
Book via Eventbrite

Visiting information
The exhibition will be open from 19 January to 26 July 2018, Monday–Friday, 9am–5pm.
Opening times may vary – check the RCP visiting page for closure days before your visit.

Museum lates
New for 2018, the RCP museum including the 'Ceaseless motion' exhibition will be open until 8pm on the first Thursday of the month. No booking required, free museum and exhibition entry.

Forthcoming RCP museum lates:
Thursday 1 February 2018, 5–8pm
Thursday 1 March 2018, 5–8pm
Thursday 3 May 2018, 5–8pm
Thursday 7 June 2018, 5–8pm.

Exhibition team and contributors

Exhibition team: Kristin Hussey, Matthew Wood, Pamela Forde, Natalie Craven and Katie Birkwood.

Exhibition contributors: National Portrait Gallery, Royal College of Surgeons, Science Museum, British Cardiovascular Society, Worcester College, University of Oxford and Wellcome Collection.

Special thanks to: Chocolate Films, Spectrum Drama, Professor Ludmilla Jordanova and Professor Andrew Cunningham.

For all media enquiries please contact Discover Medical London

Details
Price to attend: Free
Contact us

Wellcome Collection: “Finding Lost Science in Early Modern Poetry”

Wellcome Collection, 22 November.

We are hosting an afternoon workshop here at Wellcome Collection on ‘Finding Lost Science in Early Modern Poetry’. The workshop is free to attend and open to all. We would be delighted to see you there! To register, please contact Prof. Gesine Manuwald: g.manuwald@ucl.ac.uk

The workshop will be followed by a public event with viewings of early printed books, forming part of the Being Human festival: https://beinghumanfestival.org/event/finding-lost-science-in-early-modern-poetry/

Didactic poetry of the early modern period can reveal fascinating insights about what people of the time thought about science and how they expressed these ideas in poetic form. Texts of this literary genre, however, tend to be neglected because they are regarded neither as ‘proper scientific texts’ nor as ‘proper poetry’. This workshop, organised by the Society for Neo-Latin Studies, Wellcome Collection and the Department of Greek & Latin at University College London, aims to bring this type of literature into focus again. Specialists from a range of disciplinary backgrounds will present case studies, looking at a variety of English and Latin texts, and there will be plenty of opportunity for discussion. The day will conclude with a public event as part of the Being Human festival.

Programme

12.45–1.00 pm: Registration

1.00–1.15 pm: Welcome and introduction

1.15–2.00 pm: Claire Preston (Queen Mary University of London), ‘The gallery, the eye, and the rhetoric of observation in some 17th-century descriptions’

2.00–2.45 pm: David McOmish (University of Glasgow), ‘Teaching the Scientific Revolution in verse: when poetry ruled the cosmos’

2.45–3.15 pm: Coffee/tea

3.15–4.00 pm: Victoria Moul (King’s College London), ‘Latin poetry and medicine’

4.00–4.15 pm: Closing discussion

4.30–6.00 pm: Public event as part of the Being Human festival

Location: Wellcome Library, Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE.

The workshop and public event are free to attend. To register to attend the workshop, contact Gesine Manuwald. No registration is needed to attend the public event.

Wellcome Collection
183 Euston Road
London NW1 2BE, UK

CALL FOR PAPERS: “Translation in Science, Science in Translation”

30-31 March 2017, Justus Liebig University Giessen
Deadline for applications: 31 July 2016

Invited speakers: Dr Doris Bachmann-Medick (Giessen), Dr Maeve Olohan (Manchester), Dr Benedikt Perak (Rijeka)

In recent years, considerable scholarly attention has been drawn to interdisciplinary research between the fields of Translation Studies and History of Science, which has shed light on, for instance, the workings of scientific communities, the dissemination of knowledge across languages and cultures, and the transformation in the process of that knowledge and of the scientific communities involved. Translators are brought to the fore, and if they were once treated as anecdotal actors in scientific exchanges, they are now understood as key agents. The Translation in Science, Science in Translation conference precisely engages in all these questions suggested by the conversation between Translation Studies and History of Science, and understands language as a complex phenomenon that includes dialects, sociolects and disciplinary tongues, and science as encompassing the natural and the social sciences. The focus is from early modernity to the present, and the conference’s translational perspective also applies to movements across disciplines, and to communication between scholars and lays (Montgomery 2000, Elshakry 2013, Olohan 2014).

We particularly welcome proposals from scholars and PhD students working on regions and languages underrepresented in research on the following topics:

1. Scientific Translation over Time and Space

• Changes in the practice and norms of scientific translation over time, space and across disciplines.
• The role of translated texts in the appropriation of scientific knowledge.
• The impact of the language of science upon non-scientific language and everyday language on the language of science through translation (science communication).

2. Behind the Scenes: Actors and Strategies Involved in Scientific Translation

• Changes in translation policies: the role of scientific translators.
• The practice of individual and collective translation of scientific texts, spaces and networks of scientific translation (institutions, funding, freedom of research).

3. Scientific Translation as Epistemic Practice

• Scientific translation and epistemic change.
• Scientific translation and change within the scientific culture/community of the source text.
• Translating non-verbal material: images, illustrations, graphs and tables, photographs, etc.
• Scientific translation and the creation or reinforcement of cultural boundaries (Brisset 2000, Ramakrishnas 2010).

Proposals
Please submit an abstract of no more than 350 words along with a bio-bibliographical note (as a single PDF-file) by 31 July 2016 to translationinscience@gmail.com.
There are a limited number of grants to cover travel and accommodation expenses. Should you wish to be considered for one of these, please submit a short letter of motivation.

Organization
The conference is organized by Katharina Kühn (International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture, University of Giessen), Dr Rocío G. Sumillera (Universidad de Granada), and Dr Jan Surman (Herder Institute, Marburg), in collaboration with the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC), the Giessen Graduate School for Humanities (GGK), the Giessen Centre for East European Studies (GiZo), the Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe – Institute of the Leibniz Association, the Department for Cultural Studies at the University of Rijeka, and the University of Granada.

ReferencesBachmann-Medick, Doris. The Trans/National Study of Culture: A Translational Perspective. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2016.
Brisset, Annie. “The Search for a Native Language: Translation and Cultural Identity,” in The Translation Studies Reader, ed. Lawrence Venuti. London/New York: Routledge, 2000, 343-375.
Elshakry, Marwa. Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860–1950. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.
Montgomery, Scott L. Science in Translation: Movements of Knowledge through Cultures and Time. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
Olohan, Maeve. “History of Science and History of Translation: Disciplinary Commensurability?”, The Translator, 20.1 (2014): 9-25.
Ramakrishnas, Shanta. “Translation and the Quest of Identity: Democratization of Knowledge in 19th-Century India”, in Translation and Culture: Indian Perspectives, ed. G. J. V. Prasad. New Delhi: Pencraft, 2010, 19-35.

--

Dr. Jan Surman
wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter
Leibniz Graduate School “Geschichte, Wissen, Medien in Ostmitteleuropa”
Herder-Institut für historische Ostmitteleuropaforschung Gisonenweg 5-7, D-35037 Marburg
Email: Jan Surman
WWW: https://herder-institut.academia.edu/JanSurman
Tel.: +49 6421 1754983

Postdoctoral Research Associate
Leibniz Graduate School “History, Knowledge, Media in East Central Europe”
Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe Gisonenweg 5-7, D-35037 Marburg
Email: Jan Surman
WWW: https://herder-institut.academia.edu/JanSurman
Tel.: +49 6421 1754983

Postdoctoral Research Associates: “Metropolitan Science: Places, Objects and Cultures of Practice and Knowledge in London, 1600-1800”

The Centre for the History of the Sciences within the School of History at the University of Kent seeks two qualified postdoctoral researchers to work as part of a three-year Leverhulme Trust-funded project, “Metropolitan Science: Places, Objects and Cultures of Practice and Knowledge in London, 1600-1800”, led by Dr Rebekah Higgitt.

In this role, you will conduct object-based and archival research, particularly in the collections of the Science Museum and among the papers of London’s Livery and Trading Companies. You will participate fully in the activities of the project, attending workshops and conferences, publishing results of research, feeding into the development and interpretation of the Science Museum’s “London, Science City” gallery (opening 2019), and assisting Dr Higgitt’s research and public engagement agendas.

If you have specialist knowledge of the history of early modern London, experience in archival work and publishing research articles and a keen interest in contributing to this project, this is a great chance to join a unique working environment that offers excellent training, benefits and future opportunities.

Further Information
Start date for applications: 15 December 2016
Closing date for applications: 22 January 2017
Interviews are to be held: 6 February 2017

Informal enquiries about the roles and the project can be made to Dr Rebekah Higgitt by email at r.higgitt@kent.ac.uk

Science Museum Group Journal Prize

The Science Museum Group Journal has now launched a new prize to encourage and reward research articles by talented young scholars. The Journal itself aims to provide open access to peer-reviewed research by international scholars, bringing together ideas across the broad areas of study that inform our work and fascinate our wide readership. This ambition can only be fuelled by the quality and originality of our contributors, now and in the future and the Journal is proud to take a role in encouraging and developing academic excellence.

The SMGJ writing prize of £500 will be awarded annually to the author of the best original research article which addresses research questions around science history, heritage, exhibitions, communications and public engagement.

Submission is open to all researchers in the early stages of their career and it is expected that the winning article will be published in the Journal. We warmly welcome submissions (in English) from international scholars which will deal with previously unpublished research, and the judges (our eminent Editorial Board) will especially look for work which takes advantage of the Journal’s capacity to feature rich imagery and multi-media.

The prize will be launched at the opening of our new Research Centre on 31st March 2016 and the deadline for the inaugural prize is 1st March 2017. For more information, contact the editorial team: richard.nicholls@sciencemuseum.ac.uk. 

The rules are as follows:

• Articles submitted for the prize must be previously unpublished and it is expected that the winning article will be published in the Journal[1].
• The prize will be judged by the Journal’s Editorial Board, and the judges will look particularly favourably on articles which make good use of the Journal’s capacity to include images, film and audio as an integral part of the content. The judges’ decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
• Submission is open to all researchers in the early stages of their career. Eligibility will be taken to cease after five years in relevant employment (for example a curatorial or other professional position in a museum) or, where relevant, five years after the completion of a PhD. Allowance can be made for periods devoted to family obligations or extended illness, at the discretion of the board.
• Authors are invited to nominate their own papers and all articles that meet the criteria will be judged entirely on their own merit. Only one submission per author will be considered each year.
• Submitted articles should be not less than 3000 words and not more than 10,000 words long.
• Submissions from authors from all countries are warmly welcomed, though all articles must be written in English.
• The submission deadline is 1 September of each year and articles submitted for the prize will be accepted at any time in the preceding year. The prize will normally be judged by the end of September and announced in October
• The competition is closed to all staff and fellows from within the SMG Group. However, Collaborative Doctoral Students are not considered as coming from the group and are eligible to apply for the prize.

[1] Although submissions are accepted on the understanding that the author will publish the paper in the Science Museum Group Journal, this is at the discretion of the Editor. The Editor may also accept other excellent papers submitted for the prize as submissions to the Journal and put them forward for publication with the author’s agreement.

http://journal.sciencemuseum.org.uk/subscribe/

CALL FOR PAPERS: Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal: Women and Science Issue

The next Forum for Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 11, issue 1, to be published October, 2016, will be on women and science.

Topics to be considered may include any subject that addresses the activity of women in science (including medicine), natural philosophy, or natural history broadly conceived in the period from 1350 to 1750. Forum pieces may consider, for example, women as scientists in any field, the influence of women as patrons of scientists and academies, or the scientific study of gender.

Proposal on related topics are welcome. Please send an abstract of 300 words to either mlindemann@miami.edu or msuzuki@miami.edu. We will respond promptly. The completed Forum essays of approximately 3000-3500 words will be due on January 15, 2016.

Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal is the only journal devoted solely to the interdisciplinary and global study of women and gender during the years 1400 to 1750. Each volume gathers essays on early modern women from every country and region, by scholars from a wide range of academic disciplines, including art history, cultural studies, music, history, languages and literatures, political science, religion, theatre, history of science, and history of philosophy.

Longitude: back and forth across the years

6:30 pm — 7:30 pm on Thursday 25 September 2014
at National Maritime Museum, London

Public event with Lord Martin Rees FRS and Dr Rebekah Higgitt, in partnership with the National Maritime Museum

The search for an accurate measurement of longitude is a fascinating story that transformed seafaring navigation forever. Many designs were submitted after the passing of the Longitude Act in 1714. Two complementary methods were developed that, ultimately, allowed the widespread adoption of the marine chronometer.

Was parliament's decision to offer a reward essential to these innovations? Are there lessons to be drawn about how we support science and technology? As the Royal Museum Greenwich open their exhibition Ships, Clocks & Stars about the quest for longitude, exhibition curator Dr Rebekah Higgitt and Astronomer Royal Lord Martin Rees explore these and other questions whilst discussing the impacts of the Act over the last 300 years and what the future may bring from the discoveries of Nesta’s newly launched 2014 Longitude Prize.

This event will be followed by a late opening of Ships, Clocks & Stars.

The discussion will be chaired by UK Space Agency research Fellow, Dr Lewis Dartnell.

Attending this event:

Tickets are required for this event and may be purchased from the National Maritime Museum. Tickets are £5, £4 members for event-only; £12 for event and exhibition ticket.

http://www.rmg.co.uk/tickets
Enquiries: Contact the events team – events@royalsociety.org
Read more about the quest for longitude here: http://blogs.royalsociety.org/history-of-science/2014/09/15/longitude/

Benjamin Palmer
Events Officer, Public Engagement
T +44 20 7451 2241
The Royal Society
6-9 Carlton House Terrace
London SW1Y 5AG
royalsociety.org

Registered Charity No 207043

Library and Information History Group Conference 2015: Libraries and the Development of Professional Knowledge

Pusey House Oxford on Saturday 19 September.

This conference will consider the various ways in which libraries have served as generators of professional knowledge, and examine how they succeeded in doing so. A student bursary is being offered to attend the conference which covers conference fees and refreshments and up to £100 towards travel expenses. The deadline for the bursary is 31st August 2015. Applications can be made by emailing a short paragraph explaining why you would like to attend the conference, together with a one page CV, to the Chair, Renae Satterley, r.satterley@middletemple.org.uk.

9.45 – Registration and Welcome

10.20 – Libraries and professional knowledge in the Early Modern age
Lucy Gwynn: Folios, hedgehogs, sketches and pickles: the traffic of books, specimens and drawings between physicians in Restoration England

Helen Kemp: The role of manuscripts in the acquisition of professional knowledge for the seventeenth century clergy

11.00 Questions and Refreshments

11.30 – Libraries and the growth of technical knowledge during the nineteenth century 

Jennifer Hillyard: The Library of the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers

John Tiernan: A Pioneer Regional Professional Association for Librarians in the UK 

Martyn Walker: ‘For the last many years in England everybody has been educating the people, but they have forgotten to find them any books’. The Mechanics’ Institute in Britain

12.45 – Lunch

13.45 – Keynote Address by Anthony Watkinson, Honorary Lecturer (UCL) and Principal Consultant (CIBER Research)
The growth in numbers, cost and importance of journals in the later twentieth century and how this has impacted on the role of academic libraries

14.30 – Refreshments

15.00 – Founding professional libraries in the 20th century 

Kristine Chapman: Building a natural history library: the collection of Willoughby Gardner

Daniel Gooding: Mind, Body, and Spiritualism: a case study of the personal collections of Sir Henry Solomon Wellcome and Harry Houdini

Julie Mathias: The National Library of Wales’s Duplicates Section 

Full details on the conference, including the programme, are available at: http://www.cilip.org.uk/library-information-history-group/events/library-information-history-group-conference-2015


Middle Temple Library, Ashley Building, Middle Temple Lane, London EC4Y 9BT
T: 020 7427 4830 I F: 020 7427 4831
www.middletemple.org.uk/library

10th International Conference on the History of Chemistry (10th ICHC)

University of Aveiro, Portugal, 9th to 12th September 2015
This interdisciplinary conference welcomes participants from a range of
academic disciplines including history of science and technology,
science and technology studies (STS), economic and business history, and
the history of material culture and museum studies. We also warmly
welcome participants from chemistry and related disciplines with an
interest in the history of their discipline.

The theme is CHEMICAL BIOGRAPHY IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Key-notes : Prof. Jorge Calado, Prof. Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and
Prof. Michael Gordin

Biographies-whether in the form of books or articles-have always been an
important genre in the history of chemistry. General histories of
chemistry have often taken a biographical approach, most notably the
four volume work of J. R. Partington. Many chemists, especially in the
German-speaking world, have written autobiographies which along with the
formal obituaries produced by national academies of science have formed
an important source of information for historians of chemistry. More
recently the American Chemical Society published the "Profiles, Pathways
and Dreams" series which extended the autobiographical form up to the
end of the 20th century. For several decades in the latter half of the
20th century, professional historians of chemistry avoided the
biographical approach as being inherently too hagiographical and
"Whiggish". However following the pioneering work of scholars in the
history of physics the biography has been taken up anew as a framework
for analysing thematic problems and social-cultural questions. This
conference will critically examine this conceptual "turn" in the
historiography of chemistry and explore ways in which the biographical
approach can be fruitfully employed by historians of chemistry.

The conference will embrace all aspects of the history of alchemy and
chemistry including the history of materials and the history of
biochemistry. Papers which simply present the biography of a chemist
will not be accepted, as there must be a line of argument or a
historical problematic. Papers might address:

1. Autobiographies as a source for historians of chemistry
2. Biography and discipline building
3. Biographies and nationalism
4. The making and unmaking of chemical heroes
5. Myths and misrepresentation
6. Iconography as a mode of self-representation in the visual arts, sculpture and photography
7. The historiography of the biographical mode
8. Collective biographies including biographical dictionaries and the "biographies" of research groups

Proposals for papers on other topics can be submitted, but preference will be given to papers reflecting the conference theme.  Proposals can be made for sessions, standard papers (20 minutes), short papers (10 minutes) and posters.

Proposals (abstracts) should be uploaded using Easychair on the website and be a minimum of 150 words and a maximum of 300 words.  The session proposals should also contain the abstracts of the proposed papers.  The deadline for all proposals is midnight (Universal Time/GMT) on 30 April 2015.

Further details of the conference, including local arrangements and accommodation, will be found on the website.  Please address any queries to the chair of the programme committee, Peter Morris.

The Marginalisation of Astrology

Utrecht, 19-20 March 2015; Deadline 30 September 2014

The Descartes Centrum for history of science of the University of Utrecht, in collaboaration with the department of philosophy of the Radboud University at Nijmegen, will host an international conference on the problem of the marginalization of astrology in the early modern period.

Astrology has been a well-established and respected part of scholarship for centuries, practiced in many cultural and geographical settings. However, in the modern world, astrology, though still very much present, has lost its scientific status and is relegated to the fringes of serious learning. In the history of the sciences, this must be regarded as a momentous shift. The definite step in the “marginalization” of astrology appears to have been taken in the seventeenth century and should therefore be regarded as an important element (rather than as a consequence) of the so-called Scientific Revolution.

The reasons for this development are far from clear. Actually, even the development itself (when, where and by whom did astrology become disavowed) has so far been only poorly documented. The conference therefore aims at bringing together specialists from various fields to throw light on this intruiging question.

It is the aim of the conference to study the subject from various different angles:

· History of astrology. Although the project is about people NOT practising astrology rather than about astrologers, the history of astrology proper remains of course central. At the very least, an attempt should be made to compare differences in astrological practice (and their marginalization) between various local, cultural and religious contexts. Other relevant questions concern criticisms and apologies of astrology and attempts at astrological reform.

· History of science. The idea that astrology was discredited directly because of new scientific discoveries is no longer regarded as credible; on the other hand, it does not appears believable that there was no connection at all. The dismissal of astrology implied a transformation of the work and the identity of astronomers. In natural philosophy, it implied a rejection of the idea of celestial influence, which had become an integral part of scholastic philosophy.

· History of medicine. Medicine was a major application of astrology. Medieval physicians would routinely cast horoscopes for diagnostic and other purposes. The question is when and how this changed. Obviously, both the supply and the demand sides have to be taken into account.

· Court culture. Important on the side of demand were princely and noble courts. In the sixteenth century, princes would regularly employ court mathematicians/astronomers, whose task it was to cast horoscopes. In the seventeenth century, on the other hand, Louis XIV spent a fortune on the Paris Observatory, while casting horoscopes was not among the tasks of this institution. Again, the reasons behind this change are not clear.

· Print culture. Almanacs, ephemerides, and prognostics, in conjunction with information on their makers, editions, and distribution, should enable us (at least) to get some idea of the popularity, or lack of popularity, of astrological ideas and practices. This is a field wherein some work has already been done.

· History of religion. The era of the Reformation and Counter Reformation saw important developments in the field of theology, Church discipline and organization, which may have affected the status of astrology. One should also look to what one might call religious anthropology: shifting attitudes toward the supernatural and a changing definition of “superstition”, more or less identifiable with Weber’s “disenchantment of the world”. It is not clear to what extent astrology (as a learned practice) was placed in the same category as other superstitions, but the question should be asked.

· Finally, the question to what extent this development remained limited to Western Europe, and whether similar things happened elsewhere (and when), should not be forgotten, even if it is probably hard to answer at this stage.

People who are interested to give a paper at this conference are invited to send a title and abstract (300 words maximum) by the end of September to the organizers:

· Rienk Vermij, history of science, University of Oklahoma (rienk.vermij@ou.edu)

· Hiro Hirai, department of philosophy, University of Nijmegen (hhirai2@gmail.com)

For all other information, please also contact the organizers mentioned above.

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/

Bodies of Ideas: Science and Classical Reception

11th December 2014, Warburg Institute, Woburn Square, London WC1H 0AB

For further details and to register please visit the Warburg Institute website.

Programme:

10.15 Registration opens

11.15 “Infinitely Material”? Francis Bacon and Ancient Wisdom
(Sam Galson, Princeton)

God or Nature, God and Nature: The Reception of Stoic Physics
(John Sellars, KCL)

12.30 Lunch

1.30 The Prehistory of Distraction: Unfelt Atoms from Lucretius to Locke
(Joe Moshenska, Cambridge)

Michel Serres’ Nonmodern Lucretius and the Time of Reception
(Brooke Holmes, Princeton)

2.45 Short Break

3.00 Purging the body and the soul. The ‘purgatio’ in the Sixteenth Century as a Treatment for Different Diseases
(Roberta Guibilini, Warburg Institute)

Sixteenth-century commentators of Aristotle’s De sensu on the relationship between medicine and natural philosophy
(Roberto Lo Presti, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

4.15 Tea break

4.45 The Material Subject of Ancient Experience
(Hamutal Minkowich, UCL)

Time for metaphysics? Reception after Bruno Latour
(Duncan F. Kennedy, Bristol)

6.00 Wine Reception

The conference is supported by Postclassicisms at Princeton (www.postclassicisms.org) and the Warburg Institute.

Organisers: Sam Galson and Guido Giglioni

Henry More (1614-1687): A Conference to mark the fourth centenary of his birth

Date: Friday 5 December 2014

Place: The Warburg Institute

Organisers: Sarah Hutton and Guido Giglioni

Despite being one of the most important thinkers in seventeenth-century British philosophy, Henry More has been denied the status of proper philosopher that his contemporaries Hobbes and Locke have long enjoyed. More’s work deserves to be recognized as a significant contribution to early modern philosophy. He was a figure who relentlessly engaged with the most pressing issues of his time. He intervened in the debate about the new science of nature and medicine, contributed in an original way to the recovery of Platonism and various elements of the classical tradition, left a lasting impact on the literary scene, played a role in the contemporary religious controversies and, finally, demonstrated a remarkable ability in identifying and reacting to the major cultural trends of the period.

This conference will take advantage of More’s centenary to engage in a one-day reappraisal of his legacy. It will do so against the background of a more nuanced and historicized understanding of early modern philosophy, theology and science, which have resulted in a more positive consideration of Renaissance theories of universal animation, a reassessment of the meaning of early modern experimental knowledge, the acknowledgment of the productive interplay of philology and philosophy advocated by the humanist movement, and, finally, a more balanced attitude towards the role that religious and theological arguments play in shaping metaphysical and logical ideas.

Speakers include: Alan Gabbey (Barnard), Guido Giglioni (Warburg Institute), Douglas Hedley (Cambridge), Sarah Hutton (Aberystwyth), David Leech (Bristol), Cecilia Muratori (Warwick), Jasper Reid (KCL).

Programme:

10.00 Registration and coffee

10.45 Morning session - Chair: Stephen Clucas (Birkbeck, University of London)

Introduction: Sarah Hutton (University of Aberystwyth)

Jasper Reid (King’s College) - More's Place in Seventeenth-Century Thought

Guido Giglioni (Warburg Institute) - Henry More’s Psychozoia and the Epic of Emanation

Douglas Hedley (University of Cambridge) - Henry More and Nathaniel Ingelo: The Platonic Imagination in Cambridge?

12.30 Lunch

1.30 Afternoon session - Chair: Richard Serjeantson (University of Cambridge)

Cecilia Muratori (University of Warwick) - Henry More on Animals

Sarah Hutton (University of Aberystwyth) - Henry More and Renaissance Philosophy: More's Response to Girolamo Cardano in his Of the Immortality of the Soul

3.15 Tea

3.45

David Leech (University of Bristol) - Henry More on the ‘Boniform Faculty’

Alan Gabbey (Barnard College, Columbia University) - Philosophia Spinozana Destructa: Henry More (1671-1679)

5.30 Reception

------------------------------


Registration Details

Conference fees
Conference fees (which include coffee/tea, and a sandwich lunch) are as follows:

Standard rate: £25

Concessionary rate: £12.50 (for full-time students/retired)

CONFERENCE CATERING: We provide a range of meat/fish and vegetarian rolls/sandwiches for lunch. If you have other dietary requirements please email warburg(at)sas.ac.uk at least ten days before the conference so that we can try to cater for your needs.


Registering and paying for a conference/course

Please note that in order to attend Institute conferences you need to register and pay online in advance. PLEASE NOTE THAT CONFERENCE SPEAKERS DO NOT NEED TO REGISTER OR PAY TO ATTEND CONFERENCES.

CLICK ON LINK BELOW TO REGISTER ONLINE

http://store.london.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=5&catid=38&prodid=751

NB: online registration closes 30 HOURS BEFORE the start of each conference (i.e. at midnight two days before the conference).

Alternative Payment Arrangements

If you are registering for a 2 day conference but only wish to attend for one day, please email warburg(at)sas.ac.uk to register. In your email please say which day of the conference you wish to attend and whether you are standard or concessionary rate (as explained above under Conference fees).

If you are unable to pay online, you can pay by cheque or cash in advance of the conference, but only if you are based in the UK. Attendees from outside the UK must pay online in advance.

· To pay by cheque: please send your cheque made out to The University of London with a note of your name, email, phone number, name of your institution if relevant, and the name of the conference you wish to attend to: Warburg Events, The Warburg Institute, Woburn Square, London WC1H 0AB.

· To pay in cash: please visit the Institute to pay on weekdays from 10.00 to 13.00, or 14.00 to 17.00.

CALL FOR PAPERS: British Society for the History of Science Annual Conference 2015

2 – 5 July 2015, Swansea University

The BSHS Annual Conference will take place from Thursday 2 to Sunday 5 July 2015 at Swansea University.

The BSHS Conferences Committee now invites proposals for individual papers and for sessions from historians of science, technology and medicine, and from their colleagues in the wider scholarly community, on any theme, topic or period. Proposals are welcomed from researchers of all nationalities at all stages of their careers. Participation is in no way limited to members of the Society, although members will receive a discount on the registration fee. Offers of papers and sessions should be directed to bshs2015programme@bshs.org.uk which is the address for all enquiries about the programme (see below for enquiries about local arrangements).

Proposals for individual papers should include an abstract of no more than 250 words, be comprehensible to a non-specialist audience and avoid footnotes. Sessions, of either ninety minutes or two hours, should normally consist of three or four papers. They may also have a commentator. Proposals for alternative types of session, such as ‘round-tables’ (e.g., history of science and ‘impact’; managing research teams in history of science), are strongly encouraged. Please discuss your ideas for such alternative sessions well in advance of the submission deadline.

The deadline for proposals is 31 January 2015.

Further details on how to submit individual abstracts and session proposals are now available on the BSHS website at http://www.bshs.org.uk/conferences/annual-conference/2015-swansea.

Venue and accommodation

The conference will be held at the Singleton Park campus of Swansea University, which overlooks the magnificent sandy beach of Swansea Bay and adjoins Singleton Park proper, containing botanical gardens, boating lake, and acres of open meadow. It will start on the evening of 2 July with a plenary lecture delivered by Prof Iwan Morus (Aberystwyth University). Friday evening will offer a change of scene, with an opportunity to take in some of the sites and dining options of the city. On the Saturday evening, we shall remain on campus for the Presidential address and conference dinner featuring Welsh cuisine.

Delegates choosing to stay in the en-suite accommodation on campus will be no more than ten minutes from the dining facilities and the venue for the academic sessions, the appropriately-named Faraday Building. The programme will include parallel themed sessions, an opportunity to explore the archives and museums of the University and the city, and optional excursions to local sites of interest. An inclusive conference package will be available. Twin rooms can be requested. All enquiries relating to the local arrangements should be directed to bshsswansea2015@bshs.org.uk.

About the area
Swansea University was founded in 1920 as the fourth college of the University of Wales. It became a university in its own right in 2007. Currently it is enjoying the kudos of having been shortlisted by the Times Higher for ‘University of the Year 2014’, and the anticipation of expanding on to a second campus, due to open in 2015. History of science, medicine, and technology takes place at the University in a number of guises: in the activities of the historians of science based in the large History & Classics department, whose interests span the ancient world to the twentieth century; in the cross-campus collaboration that has led to the University become a leading centre for Disability History; in the ‘Science, Scientists, and Society’ seminar convened by staff within the College of Science; in work on the Dillwyn family, whose diverse nineteenth-century interests encompassed pottery, photography, astronomy, and literature; and in the ongoing historical work on the metal industries of South Wales, which includes the Cu@Swansea project to preserve, interpret, and regenerate the Hafod-Morfa copperworks in the Lower Swansea Valley. The University’s Richard Burton Archives contain not only the eponymous collection of the actor’s papers but also the papers of Raymond Williams, part of the South Wales Coalfield Collection, and many materials concerning the metal industries of South Wales and the families who dominated them in the nineteenth century.

Swansea, Wales’s second-largest city, is situated on the sandy southwest Wales coast, not far from the Brecon Beacons, and serves as the gateway to the Gower peninsula, the first site in Britain to be designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Direct trains to Swansea run from London Paddington and Manchester Piccadilly, taking approximately 3 hours and 4 hours respectively; buses run directly from the train station to the University via the city centre. Swansea can also be reached by intercity coach services. The nearest airports are at Cardiff, and then Bristol. The attractions of Swansea include two medieval castles, the Swansea Museum (formerly the Royal Institution of South Wales), the National Waterfront Museum, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, West Glamorgan Archives, and the Dylan Thomas Centre. It can serve as your staging post for day-trips and vacations further afield: to Worm’s Head and Rhossili Bay, named Britain’s best beach by TripAdvisor; to the castles of Gower; to the National Botanic Garden of Wales at Llanarthne; further west to Pembrokeshire and the spectacular Pembrokeshire Coast Path; northeast to the Brecons; or southeast to Wales’s capital city, Cardiff. Further information on getting to Swansea can be found here. General tourist information for the area is available here, with information specific to the city to be found at here

Dr Ben Marsden
Senior Lecturer, Department of History
Associate Member, Department of Music

Director, Centre for History and Philosophy of Science,Technology and Medicine (CASS)
Chair, BSHS Conferences Committee

Crombie Annexe
Meston Walk
Aberdeen AB24 3FX
United Kingdom
e-mail: b.marsden@abdn.ac.uk
phone: +44 (0)1224 272637 (office)
web: www.abdn.ac.uk/sdhp/history/

Recent publications:
http://www.pickeringchatto.com/titles/1498-9781848933620-uncommon-contexts
http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415520430/

The University of Aberdeen is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013683.
Tha Oilthigh Obar Dheathain na charthannas clàraichte ann an Alba, Àir. SC013683.

‘The Royal Typographer and the Alchemist: Willem Sylvius and John Dee’

SHAC event, 26 October 2014: ‘The Royal Typographer and the Alchemist: Willem Sylvius and John Dee’, Museum Plantin-Moretus, Vrijdagmarkt 22, Antwerp, Belgium, 26 October 2014

A meeting sponsored by the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry, ‘The Royal Typographer and the Alchemist: Willem Sylvius and John Dee’, will take place on 26 October at the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, Belgium. Coinciding with the 450th Anniversary of the publication of John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica, this colloquium will bring together specialists on John Dee and specialists on late sixteenth-century print culture and humanistic activities in Antwerp. The aim of the colloquium is to investigate the links between Antwerp’s vibrant print culture and its relationship to alchemy and the occult philosophy in the late sixteenth century.

Programme:

Stephen Clucas (Birkbeck, University of London), “The printer and the alchemist: John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphicaafter 450 years”.

Peter J. Forshaw (University of Amsterdam), “John Dee and the Stars (Astrology, Magic, and Alchemy)”

Steven vanden Broecke (University of Ghent) “Spirit, print, and the public good in the productions of Willem Silvius”.

Manuel Mertens, “Willem Silvius and the archive”.

Arjan Vandixhoorn (University of Utrecht), “Printers and the Culture of Knowledge in Sixteenth Century Antwerp: The Vernacular Perspective”.

Goran Proot, “The typographical identity of the Monas hieroglyphica”.

Registration fee: 20 Pounds/20 Euros. To register for this colloquium, or for further information, please contact Stephen Clucas: s.clucas@bbk.ac.uk