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“Risk and Fortune” Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies   During the academic years 2016/17 and 2017/18, the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies will focus on the topic of “Risk and Fortune.” Notions of risk have been important to human societies for centuries. Soothsaying, insurance, medical prognostication, financial investment, and gambling all contend with—or try to contain—possible losses. Conversely, good fortune has had its talismans and theorists throughout history. How have different cultures tried to tame chance, or comprehend its whims? To what degree have the practices of commerce relied upon, or alternatively reified, risk? Do technological systems generate hazards they are not capable of controlling? This two-year seminar will bring together scholars working on risk and fortune in historical societies around the world in all time periods, on topics including (but not restricted to) economics, science, religion, industry, statistics, a...

SAHMS Sixteenth Annual Meeting, Las Vegas, Nevada, March 17-19, 2016 Call for Papers  The Southern Association for the History of Medicine and Science (SAHMS) will hold its sixteenth annual meeting on March 17-19, 2016, at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas School of Law.  SAHMS welcomes papers for this meeting that discuss the history of medicine and science.  This is broadly construed to encompass all fields and subfields historical, literary, anthropological, philosophical and sociological related to the historical understanding of any aspect of medicine, health care, and science, as well as closely related topics, including, race, disabilities, sustainability, environment, technology and gender studies. Participants may propose individual papers or panels of several papers on a particular theme.   Each presenter is limited to 20 minutes, with additional time for questions and discussion when possible. Please do not submit papers that have alr...

International Communities of Invention and Innovation IFIP Working Group 9.7 Conference NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering, Brooklyn, NY  25-29 May 2016 Analog and digital computers were developed by individuals aware of an international scientific community. Likewise, although sometimes thought of as solely national projects, the first computer networks were built in an age of growing interconnectivity among nations. This meeting of IFIP Working Group 9.7 in New York City gathers historians and other professionals to reflect on histories that foreground the international community. Participants with an interest in this historical context for computers and computer networks may present academic papers or join in roundtable discussions. In accordance with this theme, we hope to blur the dichotomy between core and periphery and complicate simplistic notions of linear technological progress. Far from a deterministic view that computers and computer networks were developed...

The continuation of the special issue #39 "Knowledge Spheres: Borderlines and Intersections of Expertise and Knowing in China, Song to Qing" of the J ournal of EAST ASIAN SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE   is published and available online at   www.eastm.org Table of Contents The Censor’s Stele: Religion, Salt-Production and Labour in the Temple of the God of the Salt Lake in Southern Shanxi Province by Andreas Janousch Walls and Gates, Windows and Mirrors: Urban Defences, Cultural Memory, and Security Theatre in Song Kaifeng by Ari Daniel Levine                                                                  Reviews Andrew Edmund Goble,   Co...

Dear colleagues,   we are very happy to announce that we now have a final conference programme to present for our event on science, research and popular culture in September in Klagenfurt, Austria.   You find the programme and the abstracts on this (very basic) homepage (PDF versions at the bottom of the page):   https://sciencetechnologysociety.wordpress.com/2015/08/12/conference-programme/   https://sciencetechnologysociety.wordpress.com/2015/08/12/conference-abstracts/   The good news: The attendance of the conference is free of charge, but we would appreciate a short note as registration (send to:   joachim.allgaier@aau.at ).   Please disseminate the invitation to the event through your networks.   Everybody is very warmly invited to attend.   Thanks and best wishes   Joachim  and  Hauke     -- Joachim Allgaier, Dipl.Soz., PhD Senior Scientist Institute of Scienc...

CFP – CJH/ACH Special Issue: The Early Modern Military-Medical Complex Call for Submissions for a thematic issue of the Canadian Journal of History/Annales canadiennes d’histoire, slated for publication in December 2016. In 1961, U.S. President Eisenhower famously warned about the dangers of the “military-industrial complex.” This thematic issue of the Canadian Journal of History takes Eisenhower’s rhetoric as a springboard for thinking about the complex relationships between the military, the state, and healthcare. During the early modern period military medicine became an integral part of military planning as well as an attractive area of practice for early modern surgeons and physicians. Since the 1990s, historians of medicine have shown an increased interest in military medicine from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. They have also pointed to the dynamic effects of a growing early modern military bureaucracy. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, European armies ...

Dear colleagues,   may I brought your attention to the Master programme we run in Marseilles, entitled "Recherches comparatives in anthropology, history and sociology" - part of the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales Master programmes?   Meant for any student open to interdisciplinary research, in a city where making a living (as French lectors or within the schooling system) and supporting the cost of higher education are feasible for students keen about developing their skills in French, the programme aimed at introducing students to a large literature in social sciences - in French and English mostly - and to the Ehess tradition of research that combines empirical inquiry with theoretical discussion.   I take the liberty to advertise this within the HPS discussion lists as we are developing two new specific dimensions within the programme - history and sociology of the social sciences - interdisciplinary studies of health and medicine which might...

Uroscopy - the diagnosis of disease by visual examination of the urine - played a very prominent role in early modern medical practice and in the lives of ordinary people. Based on a wide range of textual and visual sources, such as autobiographies, court records, medical treatises and genre painting, this book offers the first comprehensive study of the place of uroscopy in early modern medicine, culture and society and of the - gradually changing - ways in which medical practitioners, lay persons and, last but not least, artists perceived and used it.   For further details, please click here   http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409450153

The Reynolds-Finley Associates, in conjunction with the Historical Collections (HC) unit of UAB Libraries, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), are pleased to announce the availability of short-term awards of up to   $2,500   to individual researchers studying one or more aspects of the history of the health sciences during the 2016 calendar year. Intended to support research using the HC unit as a historical resource, the fellowship requires the on-site use of at least one of the unit’s three components, which are the Alabama Museum of the Health Sciences, Reynolds-Finley Historical Library and UAB Archives. For details go to: http://www.uab.edu/reynolds/fellow . Contact Info:  Michael A. Flannery Asst. Dean for Historical and Special Collections LHL 301-UAB 1720 Second Avenue S. Birmingham, AL 35394-0013 Contact Email:  flannery@uab.edu URL:  http://www.uab.edu/reynolds/fellow

Professor/associate professor in science studies The Centre for Science Studies at Aarhus University invites applications for the position of full professor or associate professor (depending on the qualifications of the successful candidate) in science studies with an expected starting date of February 2016. We seek applicants with academic expertise in either one or several of the following areas: history of science, technology, or mathematics, philosophy of science, science communication, or related areas. The Centre seeks to strengthen its research by attracting excellent researchers. The successful candidate is expected to take an active interest in developing the research profile of the Centre in collaboration with the other staff members. The Centre teaches philosophy of science courses to almost all bachelor students at the Faculty of Science and Technology. The appointee is expected to take responsibility for one or more of these courses. The Centre also has its own Master’s Pr...