Seminario on line: María Jesús Santesmases, "Curar y gobernar las infecciones: historia de las penicilinas en España"

Fecha: 20 de marzo de 2019

Lugar de celebración: Salón de Grados. Edificio Balmis. Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche. Campus de Sant Joan d’Alacant

Hora: 16:30

El seminario podrá seguirse en directo a través del sistema Adobe Connect (no requiere ningún tipo de instalación previa) entrando en la página:

http://reunion.uv.es/hcc2

e identificándose como invitado

Seminario coorganizado por el Master Conjunto de Salud Pública (Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche / Universidad de Alicante) y el Instituto Interuniversitario López Piñero de Estudios Históricos y Sociales, sobre Ciencia, Tecnología, Medicina y Medio Ambiente - sede de la Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche.

En este seminario trataré de la penicilina como objeto biomédico de la posguerra en España, su desplazamiento por espacios sociales, políticos y clínicos; su presencia y la trayectoria de su fama pública. Articularé así en torno a ese objeto que es la penicilina, en sus diversas y sucesivas presentaciones, su valor cultural como generador de expectativas en el momento preciso de promoción de la investigación y de creación de organismos internacionales de ciencias y salud que fue la segunda posguerra mundial. Al análisis de la cartografía y los desplazamientos geográficos acompañaré el repaso de las temporalidades de la penicilina y sus traslados entre el laboratorio, la clínica y la fábrica, las calles y los frigoríficos de los bares. El amplio espacio por el que ese nuevo material biomédico transitaba se presentará como compuesto de un conjunto de agentes de una biografía viajera en la que el espacio extranjero y las políticas internacionales interactuaban con las políticas de la dictadura de Franco, que la usó como objeto de control al tiempo que quedó inscrita en una historia de la práctica médica que precede a la guerra civil y al triunfo de esa dictadura. Con la materialidad de la penicilina viaja el conocimiento sobre su capacidad para curar infecciones y generar promesas y expectativas sobre la desaparición de estas, que ha marcado una buena parte del desarrollo de la investigación biomédica a lo largo de la segunda mitad del siglo XX.

María Jesús Santesmases es Profesora de Investigación en el Instituto de Filosofía del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Madrid). Sus principales líneas de investigación son la historia de las ciencias biomédicas en España y los estudios de ciencia, tecnología y género. Ha publicado en las principales revistas de historia de la ciencia y de social studies of science. Entre sus libros se encuentran “Mujeres científicas en España (1940-1970): profesionalización y modernización social” (2000), “Entre Cajal y Ochoa: ciencias biomédicas en la España de Franco, 1939-1975” (2001), “Severo Ochoa: de músculos a proteínas” (2005); con Ana Romero de Pablos ha coordinado “La física y las ciencias de la vida en el siglo XX : radiactividad y biología” (2003), “Cien años de política científica en España” (2008); con Eulalia López Sedeño y otras autoras ha coordinado “Mujer y ciencia: la situación de las mujeres investigadoras en el sistema español de ciencia y tecnología” (2005, 2007), “Ciencia, tecnología y género en Iberoamérica” (2006). Sus dos contribuciones recientes más sobresalientes son el volumen coordinado con Teresa Ortiz “Gendered Drugs and Medicine. Historical and Socio-Cultural Perspectives” (Ashgate, 2014) y el libro del que es objeto el presente seminario “The Circulation of Penicillin in Spain: Health, Wealth and Authority” (Palgrave. Macmillan, 2018).

María Jesús Santesmases.  SInstituto de Filosofía. CSIC, Madrid.

Interactive Historical Atlas of the Disciplines

New online resource available at the University of Geneva: an "Interactive Historical Atlas of the Disciplines". The website is in open access here: http://atlas-disciplines.unige.ch

This atlas aims at mapping the evolution of the disciplinary borders of  science over time, as well as tracing back the successive redefinitions  of scientific disciplines throughout the centuries. Furthermore, the  project is open to scholarly (reviewed) participation: each disciplinary
map comes with dedicated tools for adding content or bibliographic entries.

CfA: European Society for the History of Science - Young ScholarsConference - Transcultural Knowledge

The Young Scholars Network of the European Society for the History of Science was founded to better integrate graduate students and early career researches in the activities of the Society and in the field of history of science and give them the opportunity to connect with each other. Our first Young Scholars Conference will be held at the Paris Observatory, September 10th - 12th, 2019.

We invite submissions for individual papers and symposia which address the main topic of the conference: Transcultural Knowledge. This topic includes (but is not limited to) the transmission of knowledge from one culture to another and its transformation in the process, new knowledge emerging from the use of known traditions, transnational knowledge, the significance of culture in history of science and history of knowledge, circulation of scientific knowledge by translations and transliterations, merging traditions, influences of cultural background of scientists on their work, reintroduction of ancient methods in science, technology and the arts, and mutual interactions of knowledge and cultures.

Abstracts for individual papers should contain max. 300 words (20 min. + 10 min. discussion). Symposia should be held by three authors (1.5 hours altogether).

ESHS offers several travel bursaries for speakers who need funding.

Keynote Speakers:

Karine Chemla (SPHERE - CNRS & University Paris Diderot)

Rivkah Feldhay (Minerva Humanities Center, Tel Aviv University)

Samuel Gessner (SYRTE - Paris Observatory)

Submission:

Please submit all proposals via the form on the conference website:

https://eshs.sciencesconf.org/user/submit

Submission deadline: April 30th, 2019

Notification of acceptance: May 24th, 2019

If you have any questions, you can contact us at ESHSYoungScholars2019@gmail.com

Conference organizing committee:

Idit Chikurel, Laure Miolo, Hugo Soares and Alexander Stöger

2 PhD candidates, Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History

The University of Luxembourg invites applications for the following vacancy in its Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH)

2 Doctoral candidates (PhD student) in the field of contemporary history/history of technology (M/F)

• Ref. 50012960 and 50012961 – (R-AGR-3499-10-C), Acronym: REPAIR
• Fixed-term contract 14 months, renewable up to 4 years, full-time (40h/week)
• Student and employee status (48 months studies programme)
• Latest possible start date 1 September 2019

Your Role

The candidate will be a member of the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH), which is one of the three Interdisciplinary Centres of Luxembourg University. The C²DH is a research centre for the study, analysis and public dissemination of contemporary history of Luxembourg and Europe with a particular focus on digital methods and tools for doing innovative historical research. It serves as a catalyst for innovative and creative scholarship and new forms of public dissemination and societal engagement with history.

The PhD student will work under supervision of assistant professor Stefan Krebs in the FNR funded research project “Repairing Technology – Fixing Society? History of Maintenance and Repair in Luxembourg (1918-1990)” (C15/SC/12547405). The REPAIR project will be the first systematic historical study of repair practices, networks and infrastructures in the short 20^th century (c. 1918-1990).

So far, repair and maintenance have been understudied sites and moments in the history of technology. The focus on innovation has obscured the importance of maintenance and repair; instead the bulk of research focused on design, manufacturing and use of technology. It is generally assumed that practices of repair and reuse have gradually declined along with the rise of 20th-century mass consumption societies. However, it is safe to argue that maintenance and repair have not become obsolete in modern consumer societies. And the recent repair movement, visible in local repair cafés and fix-it clinics, highlights the timeliness of studying the history of repair.

The REPAIR project will analyse the changes and continuities in the history of maintenance and repair, using Luxembourg as a key example of a Western consumer society. The project encompasses three research strands: the first investigates the maintenance and repair of one of the quintessential 20^th century consumer technologies: the telephone; the second traces the decline of professional repair services; and the third focuses on the development of post-war self-repair practices, situated between leisure activity and political activism.

Analysing the maintenance of technical infrastructures, urban repair offers and cultures of self-repair will advance our historical knowledge of the large material, organisational, knowledge and discursive investments needed to keep technologies functioning. By revealing when, why and how technical objects were maintained, repaired or scrapped, the project will provide crucial insights into the historical and political contexts of the emergence of consumer identities, the hidden societal and environmental dimensions of repair, and the quest for more sustainable consumption practices.

Activities

Call for contributions: Science in Public Conference 2019

Url: https://sip2019.com/call-for-contributions

The Science in Public Conference 2019 will be held in Manchester, UK from Wednesday 10 to Friday 12 July 2019.

Science in Public is an interdisciplinary annual conference addressing how scientific practice, science communication, science policy, and representations of science interact with the wider world. We aim to bring together researchers and practitioners from a variety of fields to explore how activities and understandings in these fields have developed in the past, where they now stand, and how they might develop in future.

Conference theme and aims

This year’s theme is ‘the global and the local’. We are particularly keen to encourage proposals addressing questions such as the following:

• What lessons can we learn from science communication practice, public engagement, and science policy work that’s built around the needs of local communities or local opportunities?
• What are the opportunities and pitfalls of scaling up locally successful approaches to address wider audiences?
• How can the international research community benefit from taking a broader range of global perspectives – in particular, perspectives from the global South – into account?
• Does the global reach of large online media platforms threaten established approaches to science communication at the national or local level?
• How has the professed universality of science influenced attempts to speak to multiple audiences, or bring different audiences together? What are the practical limitations of this approach?

Another priority for this year’s conference is to increase engagement between science communication practitioners and the research community. We are offering a number of bursaries (see below) to aid practitioner attendance, and are looking to include the widest possible range of perspectives in the programme content.

Presentation and display formats

This year, we are trialling a variety of formats which we hope will appeal to a wide range of researchers and practitioners:  

Panel discussion. Thematic panels will be given 90 minutes of session time. Panel organisers may propose to distribute this time between speaker presentations, commentary and general discussion as they choose, but we may give priority to proposals that include a larger or more diverse range of contributors. Panel organisers should make their own arrangements for chairing. Larger-scale activities running over two sessions may be possible, but please contact us in advance to discuss what you have in mind.

Individual research presentations. Speakers will be given 15 minutes to present, followed by time for audience questions. Co-presentations with more than one speaker (within the same 15-minute slot) are welcome. Presenters do not need to submit full texts. We will group individual presentations into sessions based, as far as possible, on similarities in theme.

Lightning talks. Speaker will be given 5 minutes to present, as part of a series of talks with audience questions at the end. We are particularly keen to receive lightning talk proposals that showcase the work of a particular project in science communication practice or research.

Call for chapters: "Contemporary Applications of the Actor Network Theory"

Title: Contemporary Applications of the Actor Network Theory

Proposal deadline: 30th June, 2019

Editor: Dr. Idongesit Williams. Center for Communications, Media and Information Technology. 

Publishers: Palgrave Macmillan (A part of Springer Nature)

Call for Contributions:

This is a call for contributions for an edited interdisciplinary book that illustrate the new and emerging relationships and interactions between either human actants and technology actants or organizational actants and technology actants. The technology of interest are those that are or enabled by Information Technology or Communications Technologies.

Actor Network Theory is a widely used theory in the social sciences. It has been used in the analysis of social interactions, socio-technical systems, the social construction of technology and in the analysis in the transformation of different networks. Actor Network Theory lacks universal constructs and hence possess a great deal of fluidity. The fluidity is advantageous as it enables researchers to utilize its theoretical parameters in the analysis of emerging systems. Such analysis could be retrospective, introspective or prospective in nature.

In the world today, there is a growing interaction between human actants and ICT enabled technology (non-human actants). To a certain level, it could be said that these interactions are becoming more social. That is if we should consider examples such as, assisted living and our interactions with robots; and our growing dependency and interaction with our mobile phones and other interactive gadgets. In the same vein, there is also an interaction between non-human actant such organizations and other non-human actant, such as ICT enabled technology. These technologies facilitate the daily operations of the company. Furthermore, with the growth in the usage of analytics, these technologies provide feedback. Hence, the organization also derives value in the adoption of these ICT enabled technologies.

These black boxed interactions are evolving at a rapid pace and these evolutions are driven by the symbiotic relationship exhibited by the actants. The symbiotic relationships are driven by the actions that produce mutual utility exhibited by the actants involved. As an example, technology facilitates efficiency in the delivery of organizational services. Organizations on the other hand facilitate a conducive environment for the technology to be branded “efficient”. Furthermore, technology acts as an enabler to individuals in society today, while individuals produce and adopt technology to facilitate a less cumbersome lifestyle.

These symbiotic relationships are not simple but complex relationships involving different actants. It also provides the possibility of explaining the Actor Network underpinning these innovations. Furthermore, it provides the possibility for the evaluation of these Actor Networks. Such evaluations could result with ideas on how the Actor Networks could be improved upon to facilitate more innovation. The aim of this book is to evaluate or re-evaluate the symbiotic relationships between the abovementioned black boxed actants using Actor network Theory as well as revealing the potential of towards explaining the new age we are stepping into.

CfP for 2nd Annual Phenomenological Approaches to Physics Conference - Quantum Mechanics: Paradigm or Ontology of Nature?

2nd Annual Phenomenological Approaches to Physics Conference. Quantum Mechanics: Paradigm or Ontology of Nature?

SEPTEMBER 26-28, 2019. STONY BROOK UNIVERSITY

Recently, a number of phenomenologically inspired thinkers have devoted attention to quantum mechanics. For these thinkers, quantum mechanics brings attention to the ways that scientific phenomena are produced within subjective frames of knowledge and experimentation.

A persistent question for these interpretations is whether the mathematical formalism and experimental data of quantum mechanics represent reality as it is ‘in itself,’ or whether they constitute merely subjective beliefs and models based on the appearing of certain kinds of phenomena. Some philosophers of science struggle to normalize issues of quantum physics in terms of traditional realisms that present quantum phenomena as indications of a need for an entirely new ontology of nature. On the other hand, others resist these ontological speculations. Following in the steps of physicists like Bohr, these interpretations take quantum phenomena to demonstrate nothing but the predictive power of instrumental models given within a still ‘classical’ frame. Still other interpretations attempt to balance subjective belief and ontological implication. Quantum Bayesianism, for instance, places the subject’s beliefs at the heart of reflection on quantum phenomena, despite claiming to hold to a ‘participatory realism.’

We are interested in papers that explore the conflicts between ontological and non-ontological interpretations of quantum physics, particularly from a phenomenological perspective. We take the debates over the ontological significance of quantum mechanics to draw attention to the role of subjective interpretation and conceptual framing in scientific experimentation. In part, these debates reflect conflicts over the role of the subject in registering quantum phenomena through various instruments and conceptual apparatuses. How does reflection on the subjective conditions of knowledge making, including conceptual paradigms and pre-scientific language, affect the ‘frame’ in which quantum phenomena appear? Does the subjective ‘frame’ reveal an inability for our models to reflect reality ‘in itself,’ or is the subject a part of a reality that is quantum ‘all the way up?’ More generally, is a phenomenological perspective on quantum phenomena compatible with various species of quantum realisms?

We are open to papers that engage the problems above, in addition to the following themes: 

• The influence of philosophy, especially phenomenology, on Bohr, Heisenberg, and Schrödinger
• The role of the pre-theoretical lifeworld in scientific practice and theory
• How language, tools, and theory ‘frame’ the appearing of quantum phenomena
• Competing standards of objectivity and subjectivity in realist and anti-realist interpretations of quantum mechanics
• Differences in method and theory in phenomenological versus naturalistic interpretations of quantum phenomena
• Quantum mechanics through the perspective of phenomenologists including Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty
• Challenges that quantum mechanics pose to phenomenological inquiry

Vacancy: Librarian, Linnean Society of London

LIBRARIAN

(Full-time, permanent post)

Salary: £30,000 p.a. with a generous workplace pension scheme

Job description

The Linnean Society of London is a charity, the world’s oldest extant biological society, and has in its care several scientifically important collections, most notably those of the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. The Collections include a library, archives and biological specimens, and have been awarded Designation status by Arts Council England.

Working as part of a small Collections team, as the only librarian the post holder will be responsible for the printed collections and support the Head of Collections. The Librarian will have the opportunity to work with a rich and unique collection and will be responsible for the smooth running of all aspects of the Library, including:

• - Supporting the research requirements of Library users;
• - Cataloguing and classifying Library material, and managing the operation and development of the library management system (Heritage Cirqa);
• - Coordinating and working alongside the Library’s long-standing volunteers, some of whom are central to cataloguing work;
• - Overseeing the migration of records to the National Bibliographic Knowledgebase in the near future;
• - Acting as Administrator for the Linnaeus Link Project, which includes attending the Linnaeus Link and European Botanical and Horticultural Libraries meetings yearly;
• - Getting involved in the Society’s charitable public engagement and educational activities, including giving tours, creating displays in the Reading Room, and writing blogs.

 Further information is available on the Society's website: https://www.linnean.org/the-society/vacancies-and-volunteering

CfP: Sick girls in European visual art, literature, medical science and popular culture in the 19th century

Url: https://events.au.dk/sickgirls2019/call-for-papers.html

We're delighted to announce a Call for Papers for the conference Sick girls in European visual art, literature, medical science and popular culture in the 19^th century, at Aarhus University on November 7-8 2019. 

The motif “sick girl” was dealt with by artists all the way back to the 17th century where especially the Dutch painters made a lot of works with the subject sick girl/young woman, but it was only at the end of the 19th century that this motif became popular among European artists. In these works the artists created an individual picture of illness, which contrasted with the focus on the body as an anatomical research object and the body seen below the skin as in microbiology. The artists literally gave the state of being sick a face at time when there were several pioneering discoveries and inventions in the field of medicine, inventions that focused more on the inside of the body than the outside.

Some of the most iconic and renowned works of sick girls are made by Nordic artists like Christian Krohg, Edvard Munch, and Helene Schjerfbeck works that place the sick girls in interiors which are more or less infected by the illness of the young girl. However, the motif “sick girl” is seen all over Europe in the 19th century and the works of the sick girls were made during a period in which there was a huge focus on illness and various diseases. The motifs of the sick girls in visual art reappear in the 1800s at the same time as medical science experiences a huge progress, a discrepancy that can only partly be explained by the fact that despite medical progress a lot of people still died from trivial diseases.

This transdisciplinary international conference seeks to explore how illness in the shape of the images of the sick girls in the 19th century was addressed in visual art, literature, science, and popular culture. In relation to how the sick girl is depicted one of the conference aims  is to look at connections and differences between visual art, literature, medical science and popular culture.

The conference language is English and we welcome 20-minute proposals for papers. Possible paper topics may include, but are not limited to: 

• Representations of ”the sick girl” in different art forms like 19th century visual art, literature, and popular culture
• The history of the motif ”sick girl” in visual art, literature, popular culture and/or medical illustrations
• A comparison between the depictions of sick girls/young women in 17th century Dutch art and 19th century European art
• A discussion of how the motif "sick girl" refers to the art historical tradition of images of disease in visual art
• Comparative studies of descriptions of female illness in medical handbooks, patient journals, literature, and visual art
• Examination of the difference between male and female illness in literature, visual art, and/or popular culture in the 19th century
• Investigation of how degeneration affects literature and visual arts in the 19th century
• Comparison of the conncetions and/or differences between the depictions of sick girls and the vitalistic figure at the end of the 19th century
• Analysis of the sick room both in terms of interior design and furniture but also figuratively – how does illness affect the (sick) room and how does the (sick) room affect the sick girls?
• Examination of depictions of physical and mental illness with focus on the female figure

La Cervantes dedica un portal al Sanatorio de Fontilles y su historia

La Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes presenta un portal dedicado al Sanatorio San Francisco de Borja, más conocido como Sanatorio de Fontilles, que fue inaugurado a comienzos de 1909 en el municipio de Vall de Laguar (Alicante) para alojar a personas afectadas por la enfermedad de la lepra.

Dirigido por Antonio García Belmar (Universidad de Alicante) y coordinado por Eduardo de Miguel (Fundación Fontilles), este nuevo espacio web de la Cervantes es fruto de la colaboración entre las citadas entidades y del apoyo de la Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation, institución con sede en Tokyo que aportó los fondos necesarios para recuperar, digitalizar y editar la amplia muestra de revistas, obras, imágenes, testimonios, documentos y objetos del patrimonio histórico del sanatorio.

El catálogo bibliográfico de este nuevo portal recoge una muestra de las obras conservadas en la Biblioteca Médica de Fontilles, escritas por autores vinculados al centro o seleccionadas por su relevancia para la historia de la lepra en España. En la sección de hemeroteca pueden consultarse las dos revistas publicadas por el sanatorio: la Revista de Leprología, que, desde su aparición en 1944, ha sido, y sigue siendo, un importante canal de difusión de las investigaciones sobre la lepra, especialmente en el ámbito hispanohablante; y la revista Fontilles, publicada desde 1905 –inicialmente con el título La Lepra– para dar a conocer las actividades del sanatorio y servir como instrumento para la recaudación de fondos.

El portal cuenta asimismo con un banco de imágenes que contiene una pequeña selección, compuesta en estos momentos por más de 500 fotos, de las miles conservadas en el Archivo Fotográfico de Fontilles, elegidas para este proyecto por su calidad técnica y artística, la información que aportan o su valor representativo dentro de grupos de imágenes similares, siempre cuidando la preservación de la identidad de las personas ingresadas en el sanatorio. Se incluyen asimismo mapas y gráficos con los que se trató de comprender y explicar las diferentes formas de la enfermedad, su distribución geográfica o su evolución epidemiológica, así como una selección de los planos y proyectos arquitectónicos de los edificios del centro.

En fases posteriores del desarrollo del portal está prevista la realización de una fonoteca que incluirá una selección de cortes de voz de las dieciocho personas que todavía residen en el Sanatorio de Fontilles y que aceptaron compartir el testimonio de sus vidas.

Fundación Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes

La Fundación Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes se constituyó en el año 2000 y su Patronato está presidido por Mario Vargas Llosa (Premio Nobel de Literatura en 2010). La entidad gestiona la Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, la Cátedra Vargas Llosa y el Centro de Competencia en Digitalización IMPACT. La Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes (www.cervantesvirtual.com) fue inaugurada en 1999 por iniciativa de la Universidad de Alicante, Banco Santander –a través de Santander Universidades– y la Fundación Botín. En 2013 obtuvo el prestigioso Premio Stanford para la Innovación en Bibliotecas de Investigación, y en 2017, el 2.º Premio Aporta, promovido por el Gobierno de España a través de la Secretaría de Estado para la Sociedad de la Información y la Agenda Digital, la Entidad Pública Empresarial Red.es y la Secretaría General de Administración Digital.