CfP: History Of Women In Engineering In The UK

Established in 1919 in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, the Women's Engineering Society (WES) provided a focal point for demands by women for a role and voice in the engineering industry as well as its societies and institutions.  However, the foundation of WES does not mark the origins of women in engineering in Britain but rather forms part of a longer history stretching back to the nineteenth century and possibly beyond.

 

We are especially interested in exploring a longer history of women in engineering (loosely defined) and in recovering, highlighting, and better understanding the diverse roles of women in British engineering in nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  We are also interested to explore how a significant number of women came to participate in British engineering (loosely defined) including as facilitators of women’s work in engineering, most pre-eminently Caroline Haslett, and how they faced the challenges of crossing gender boundaries, sometimes with the support of professional engineering bodies such as the IEE (Institution of Electrical Engineers, now the IET).  We would especially like to hear papers on women that have not featured in any previous scholarly study and the factors the brought their careers into this hitherto exclusively masculine profession, for example: women whose careers in engineering began with the new industries of aeronautics and automobile engineering as well increased opportunities for women in engineering, technical, scientific and mathematical roles during the First World War.

 

Co-organised by Anne Locker at IET archives and Elizabeth Bruton at the Science Museum, the History of Women in Engineering one-day conference will take place at the IET Savoy Place in central London on Monday 27 November 2017.  The Women's Engineering Society (WES) are pleased to support the conference in advance of their Centenary celebrations in 2019.

 

Our conference will be of interest to historians and academics, professional engineers, museum curators, archivists, and others involved in and interested in the gender history, women’s history, and the history of science, technology, engineering, and medicine (STEM) as well as those who teach and lecture in these areas.  We invite proposals for twenty-minute papers, or panels of three papers, on the subject of the history of women in engineering.

 

Medical History - October 2017 Issue Out Now

The new issue of Medical History (Volume 61 - Issue 4 - October 2017) is out now. The issue features the following articles:

 ‘Citizenship and Learning Disabled People: The Mental Health Charity MIND’s 1970s Campaign in Historical Context’, by Jonathan Toms

‘Calculable People? Standardising Assessment Guidelines for Alzheimer’s Disease in 1980s Britain’, by Duncan Wilson

‘‘Speaking Kleinian’: Susan Isaacs as Ursula Wise and the Inter-War Popularisation of Psychoanalysis’, by Michal Shapira

‘The Expulsion of South Africa and Rhodesia from the Commonwealth Medical Association, 1947–70’, by John Stewart

‘Homeopathy ‘for Mexicans’: Medical Popularisation, Commercial Endeavours, and Patients’ Choice in the Mexican Medical Marketplace, 1853–1872’, by Jethro Hernández Berrones

Further information is available via Medical History's website: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/medical-history/latest-issue

Postdoctoral position with focus on a study of scientific publication, Centre for Science Studies, Aarhus University

Postdoctoral position with focus on a study of scientific publication, Centre for Science Studies, Aarhus University 

The Center for Science Studies, Department of Mathematics, Aarhus University, invites applications for a postdoctoral position with focus on a study of scientific publication.

The postdoctoral position is expected to last two years, starting February 1st, 2018.  There is the possibility that the position will be extended for a third year.

The Research Project

The focus of the advertised position is to study the epistemological dimensions of scientific publication.  Specifically we will investigate the following aspects of scientific publication:

(I) authorship norms and practices in collaborative research

(II) refereeing practices and effectiveness

(III) citation practices and norms

(IV) the impact of retracted publications

The focus will be on the epistemic impact of the various practices in the publication process in science.  Research will be carried out collaboratively with Dr. K. Brad Wray, but there will be opportunities to pursue independent work within the focus of the project.

Deadline: 31 Oct 2017

Please access the online application here: http://www.au.dk/en/about/vacant-positions/scientific-positions/stillinger/Vacancy/show/929131/5283/

Call for Applications: 2018-19 Beckman Center Fellowships in the History of Chemistry, Including NEW 2-year postdocs

The Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry at the Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF), an independent research library in Philadelphia, PA, invites applications for new multi-year postdoctoral fellowships, as well as for one-year and short-term visiting fellowships in the history of science, medicine, technology, and industry.

Two-Year 80/20 Postdoctoral Fellowships:

CHF is pleased to announce the launch of its new 80/20 postdoctoral fellowship program: these new fellowships reflect the Beckman Center’s commitment to providing career-launching fellowships for recent PhDs and its support for the career diversity initiatives of the American Historical Association and affiliated scholarly societies. The 80/20 postdoctoral fellowship program will allow the Beckman Center’s postdocs to build skills that can enhance their opportunities outside the academy or their work within it. Fellows will spend one day a week working closely with a CHF staff member from the library, museum, publications team, Center for Applied History, outreach group, Oral History Program, archives, or digital library team on developing skills in one of two areas: collections and curation, or outreach and exhibitions. The other four days each week, postdoctoral fellows will have access to CHF’s considerable resources and ample time to develop and publish their own research. Applicants for postdoctoral fellowships must have their PhD in hand before the July prior to the start of the fellowship and must have earned that degree within the last five years. Postdoctoral fellowship stipends are $45,000, paid in monthly installments.  For more information or to apply, go to:  https://www.chemheritage.org/fellowships

Visiting Research Fellowships:

Short Term and Dissertation Fellows take part in the activities of a class of roughly 18 fellows each year, creating a vibrant international community of scholars whose work is in some way tied to CHF’s collections (see below) in the history of the life sciences, chemistry, and related sciences. Applications come from scholars in a wide range of disciplines across the humanities and social sciences. To see this year's list, go to:

http://www.chemheritage.org/research/beckman-center/fellows-and-staff.aspx.

PhD opportunity in history of science, UEA

Url: https://www.uea.ac.uk/study/-/science-in-the-trading-zone-the-school-of-environmental-sciences-uea-1967-2007-mahonym_u18sci-

Project Description

The enduring significance of the sciences of environmental change, and their impact global politics, has increasingly attracted the attention of historians of science (Edwards 2010; Howe 2014). Yet the definition of ‘environmental science’ is often taken for granted.  In the post-war period the idea of ‘the environment’, and of a distinctive ‘environmental science’, began to take root across science and public policy.  Disciplines were encouraged to work together, new tools and ideas were generated, and a whole new way of doing science was created.  Environmental science could be understood as a ‘trading zone’ (Galison 1997), where different scientific cultures interact, building new languages and techniques of cooperation. We can also understand the politics of environmental change as a trading zone where diverse forms of knowledge rub-up against disparate political beliefs and commitments. This project seeks to understand the historical development of environmental science within the wider context of an evolving local, national and global politics of environmental change.

The School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia provides an ideal case study through which to understand this history.  Founded in 1967, the School developed an international reputation for challenging disciplinary boundaries, and for changing the way ‘the environment’ was viewed in science, politics and society more broadly.  Working with published and unpublished archives and oral histories, this project will reconstruct the history of the institution and its interactions with the wider world, while contributing towards developing and maintaining an institutional archive within the School itself.

This PhD project would be suited to applicants with a background in history of science, historical geography or related fields, and with some knowledge of the environmental sciences. The student will sit within the Science, Society and Sustainability (3S) Research Group, but will interact with colleagues from across the School and University.

Interviews will be held w/c 22 January 2018.

References

i) Edwards, P. N. (2010). A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming. MIT Press.

ii) Galison, P. (1997). Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics. University of Chicago Press.

iii)Howe, J. (2014) Behind the Curve: Science and the Politics of Global Warming. University of Washington Press

CfP: Food and...

The Humanities Center at Texas Tech University (Lubbock, Texas) is happy to announce a call for papers for our first Annual Conference in the Humanities.  The conference topic each year aligns with the Center’s annual theme, which for 2017-2018 is “Food and …”.  Ways into the "what" following the ellipsis in "Food and..." may fall into myriad categories: culture, literature, politics, environment, technology, health, malnutrition, access, education, inequities, media representations, depictions in fine art, sustainability, ecology(s), local food, translation, small scale agriculture, agribusiness, taboo, packaging, eating disorders, marketing, terroir, and gastronomy. This list is not exhaustive.

The explosion of food studies at the end of the twentieth century was an institutional response to the myriad ways in which food might be approached by scholars, and the field has only expanded in the intervening years. Humanistic ways of looking at food run the gamut from primary source in material culture to semiotic tool; from literary trope to exchangeable commodity; from colonial weapon to method of cultural resistance; from obsession either due to absence or to fetish; from comfort, reassurance, and sustenance to oddity or source of disgust; from sin to salvation; from welcoming gesture to coercive faux hospitality; and from political bribe to political rallying point.  “Food and . . . ” crosses disciplines and invites many kinds of thinkers and critical conversations. We all eat, yet what counts as appealing, nourishing, traditional food in one culture is repulsive in another. As the introduction to a recent anthology of essays on food and theatre notes, food carries "symbolic and material unwieldiness," showing "comestibles and their consumption to be both bedrock and flashpoints of cultural identity." The myriad conceptualizations and human experiences of food offer the critic, the thinker, and the eater a prime node of analysis—a "place at the table" of intellectual and public discourse.

The conference aims to bring together an international group of scholars in order to interrogate the polyvalent uses of food in human life.  Prominent foodcritic and memoirist Ruth Reichl will offer the conference keynote lecture and performance artists Spatula and Barcode will present an interactive seder as the all-conference dinner on Friday, March 30th—the first night of Passover. 

Call of Applications: Junior Fellowships Spring 2018, University of Bern

The Walter Benjamin Kolleg (WBKolleg) brings together research activities of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Bern. In inter- and transdisciplinary projects, doctoral students, junior fellows and other young researchers examine key questions of the Humanities, Social and Cultural Sciences.

 

The Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Research Network (IPN) is an institution integrated into the WBKolleg to provide the means and organization for promoting researchers at the doctoral and postdoctoral level. Among other things, it incorporates a fellowship program for postdoctoral researchers (Junior Fellows):

 

For the spring term 2018, the IPN offers “starter” fellowships (duration: 6 months, workload: 50%) to candidates with doctoral degrees from the humanities, cultural studies and social sciences. The call addresses primarily candidates who aspire to form a long-term attachment to the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Bern with the help of the relevant means of funding (such as Ambizione from SNSF, SNSF Professorships, Marie Curie Actions). During their fellowship, candidates are expected to write a competitive project proposal and submit it to the respective funding institutions. A sufficient knowledge of German is required (thus the call is only available in German). The starting date of the fellowship is 1 February 2018.

 

Deadline for applications: 30 September 2017

 

You can access the call for applications (in German) here:

 

http://www.ifn.unibe.ch/unibe/portal/fak_historisch/fsuf/g_fin/content/e537531/e537561/e540819/2018FS_WBKolleg_IFN_Ausschreibung_JuniorFellowships_ger.pdf

 

For more on the Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Research Network, visit: http://www.ifn.unibe.ch/index_eng.html

CfP: Phenomenological Approaches to Physics

Phenomenological Approaches to Physics

Historical and Philosophical Perspectives

14-16 June 2018, University of Graz, Austria

Scientific Organizers: Philipp Berghofer and Harald A. Wiltsche

Web: www.phenphysics.weebly.com

Much ink has been spilled over the interrelations between philosophy and physics in the late 19^th and early 20^th century as well as over the emergence of philosophy of science as an autonomous philosophical sub-discipline. Although our understanding of these issues is certainly more nuanced today than it was only a couple of years ago, more work needs to be done in order to arrive at an adequate picture of the intricate relations between philosophy and physics and of how philosophical reflections on the physical sciences evolved during the last century. The aim of this conference is to address one of the remaining blind spots, namely the role of phenomenology in the development of 20^th century physics and for the philosophical interpretation of physics.

The conference will be organized around three topical areas:

1. The first concerns the direct impact phenomenology might have had on the development of 20^th century physics. For instance, a handful of recent studies have pointed to the phenomenological background of mathematicians and physicists such as Hermann Weyl or Fritz London. The conference is interested in papers that expand on these studies or go beyond them by adding to the list of physicists with phenomenological leanings.
2. The second topical area concerns the influence of phenomenology on different attempts to understand the physical sciences from a philosophical point of view. On the one hand, we are interested in papers that focus on phenomenological influences on “standard” philosophy of science in the Anglo-American tradition. On the other hand, we welcome contributions focussing on the phenomenological impact on other traditions such as the French tradition of philosophy and history of science (Bachelard, Canguilhem, Cavaillès, Koyré, Foucault etc.).
3. The third topical area concerns genuinely phenomenological contributions to contemporary philosophy of physics. Is the framework of phenomenology adequate to make sense of modern physics? Are there specific aspects of the research practice in modern physics that could be better understood through phenomenological analyses? What ramifications does a phenomenological approach have for long-standing debates about, for instance, realism and anti-realism, the ontological status of models or the interpretation of space-time? Finally, what can phenomenology tell us about the limits of physics or the project of mathematically describing nature in general? How to estimate the relationship between nature and mathematics?

Confirmed Keynote Speakers

Michel Bitbol (Archives Husserl, École Normale Supérieure)

Steven French (University of Leeds)

Hans-Jörg Rheinberger (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science)

Thomas Ryckman (Stanford University)

Submissions should not exceed 500 words, must be in English (conference language), and should be prepared for blind review. Submissions and general inquiries should be sent to phenphysics@gmail.com. Selected papers will be part of a proposal sent to major philosophical presses. Philosophers who are members of traditionally underrepresented groups are especially encouraged to apply and to self-identify in their emails.

The submission deadline is January 15, 2018.

The conference is supported by the Department for Philosophy (Section Phenomenology) (https://philosophie-gewi.uni-graz.at/en/researching/phenomenology/) and by the Center for the History of Science at the University of Graz (http://wissenschafts-geschichte.uni-graz.at/).

CfP: Revista "Secuencia. Revista de Historia y Ciencias Sociales"

Coordinadoras: Dra. Cristina Sacristán y Dra. María Eugenia Chaoul• Instituto Mora

Envío de textos en: español, inglés, portugués y francés.

Fecha de publicación: Julio de 2019

Fecha límite de entrega de trabajos: 30 de marzo de 2018.

Dirección de contacto: secuencia@institutomora.edu.mx

Secuencia. Revista de Historia y Ciencias Sociales (ISSN 0186-0348 ) editada por el Instituto de Investigaciones Dr. José María Luis Mora contribuye a su campo de especialización con números temáticos especiales que, además de sus números regulares, se publican anualmente y son coordinados por investigadores de alto nivel. Estos números conjuntan trabajos originales que, debido a su afinidad temática, abordan determinados problemas desde un punto de vista específico que permite un análisis más profundo de algunos temas.

    

En esta ocasión convoca a los especialistas a presentar artículos de investigación, inéditos, originales, escritos en español, inglés, francés y portugués, realizados a partir de la revisión de fuentes primarias, para integrar el número especial cuyo tema será: “Enfermedad, desviación y subjetividades en el mundo iberoamericano, siglos XX y XXI”, coordinado por la Dra. Cristina Sacristán y la Dra. María Eugenia Chaoul, que se publicará en julio de 2019. 

Los estudios históricos y sociales sobre la salud, la enfermedad y la desviación han constatado que el análisis de estos fenómenos trasciende el hecho biológico debido a su impacto en multitud de aspectos como la construcción del Estado, la emergencia de saberes especializados, la creación de instituciones y la percepción de la propia salud, entre otros. Así, desde la perspectiva del Estado se han estudiado el diseño de políticas públicas, las regulaciones y las sanciones normativas, y las acciones dirigidas a prevenir y combatir la enfermedad. Existen también estudios orientados a los procesos de profesionalización y legitimación de aquellos conocimientos que, como la medicina, la criminología, la psicología o la pedagogía, han pretendido normar desde una posición científica a grandes colectivos. De igual modo, se han examinado los instrumentos de control y disciplinamiento dirigidos a los individuos y sus cuerpos, que comprenden instituciones, sistemas teóricos y prácticas asistenciales encaminadas a la reducción o el aislamiento de los elementos considerados como nocivos para la sociedad.

En este punto, se hace necesario recuperar a los sujetos que han sido y son objeto de tales intervenciones como actores de su propia historia desde la perspectiva de la subjetividad. Entendemos la subjetividad como una dimensión fundamental de la experiencia humana que constituye al sujeto, que le permite dar sentido a su relación con el mundo y consigo mismo, proceso en el que descubre su propia agencia. La producción de significados se da en la interacción con otros y en un espacio social, por lo que el proceso de interpretación de las vivencias personales y colectivas puede adquirir connotaciones muy diversas, desde la internalización de la norma hasta su rechazo. 

CfP: Barriers without borders

Global and transdisciplinary perspectives on sanitary cordons throughout history

2^nd International Conference of the Quarantine Studies Network

7-8 November 2018

Hosted by the University of the Balearic Islands, Palma de Mallorca

Sanitary cordons to regulate and control the spread of bubonic plague were developed in Italy in the 14^th century in parallel with maritime quarantine (mainly lazarettos) and came to be quickly imposed by other Mediterranean/European countries. Today, various types of cordons are still being used ‘to control the spread of epizootics and to mitigate the impact of both newly emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases upon the human population’ (Cliff, 2009) with the 21^st-century pandemics of Ebola or avian flu showing their continued utility. At this juncture one finds a stunning paradox: despite their functions as instruments of isolation/separation, sanitary cordons came to be highly appreciated, legitimized and defended by state authorities and frequently by the populations themselves. By the 1800s, they had already been accepted and utilized in most countries of the world.

The success of sanitary cordons was also measured by their widespread adoption across various social and cultural domains. Thus, sanitary cordons became inseparable from military and political demarcations of territorial borders especially, but by no means exclusively, at the state level. Well-known cases include the cordon set-up against the plague in the Austrian-Ottoman border as from 1770; the so called ‘yellow fever cordon’ set up in the Catalan sector of the French-Spanish border in 1822; and the one established against cholera on the Ottoman-Persian frontier during the 1850s. The concept of the ‘common good’ via the preservation of public health was also used as an argument to legitimize, consolidate and militarize borders through the setting up of cordons. On the other hand, as sanitary cordons were set up to separate healthy sectors of a community – or indeed whole populations – from others considered sick, they were directly involved in processes of nation-building, international conflict or colonial domination. Sanitary cordons helped to define and ‘protect’ national identities and, at the same time, ‘isolate’ and control various provincial, national and colonial ‘others’. This was legitimized through old and new medical theories, scientific discourse or just pure prejudice or a combination of all these.

Sanitary cordons were also successfully ‘translated’ into the fields of politics and diplomacy, where the concept has been employed metaphorically to refer to attempts to prevent the spread of an ideology or another deemed dangerous to the international or the social order. For example, in 1917, the French minister of Foreign Affairs employed such a term to designate the new states (Finland, the Baltic republics, Poland and Romania) established along the Western border of the USSR (as buffer states) against the spread of the Bolshevist revolution into Central and Western Europe. Besides geography, politics and diplomacy, personal narratives of sanitary cordons became a sort of subgenre in modern literature, where they have also been used as metaphors to deal with issues of social control, identity/alterity or dystopic futures.

Incorporating all these perspectives and seeking papers with original research approaches, this conference wants to explore sanitary cordons throughout history to the present as they were put in place and employed in different parts of the globe and different social and cultural domains. Topics to be addressed could include, among others:

• Origins and development of sanitary cordons for the prevention of epidemics throughout history to the present: concepts, practices, regulations, global expansion, unknown or understudied historical cases throughout the world.
•  Patterns of sanitary cordons throughout history and in different regions/countries of the world.
•  Sanitary cordons as border sites of negotiation and/or resistance.
• Pre-modern and non-European forms of isolation/separation of diseased groups or communities from the rest in all their diversity (and cultural specificities).
• Literary narratives recounting eye-witness accounts/experience of cordons or employing the metaphor ‘sanitary cordons’ on issues of identity and otherness, liminality, movement/migration, global inequality, and so on.
•  Memorialization: sanitary cordons in the collective imaginaries, shared memories, material culture/heritage sites, lieux de mémoire.
•   Sanitary cordons and the construction, and expansion, of early-modern/modern borders of states, provinces or any other territorial demarcations.
•  Place of non-human creatures and organisms (animals, plants, substances) within cordons.
•   Juridical, ethical, humanitarian and religious issues raised by the use of cordons in public health, war, political struggle, migration control, and human rights.
•  Sanitary cordons and science: particularly the connections between contagionism and hygiene, as well as the part played by novel advances in medicine – bacteriology.
• Relations with power: effective sanitary cordons and types of state projections of power (national sovereignty, central administrative state development, Imperial/colonial state power).
• Connections between cordons and other forms of quarantine, isolation hospitals and the public health systems. Sanitary cordons and western medicalization of society: surveillance and disciplinary processes.