CfP: Science and Society in the Age of Revolutions," September 25-26, 2025
As the upcoming 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence drives increased interest in the founding of the United States, this conference, co-hosted by the American Philosophical Society’s Library & Museum and the Science History Institute aims to widen the scope of such conversations. Inspired in part by the APS’s 2025 exhibition, Philadelphia: The Revolutionary City and “America’s Scientific Revolutionaries,” a multiyear project funded by the Lounsbery Foundation we invite proposals from scholars from all disciplines whose research illuminates the intersections of science and society in the Atlantic World between 1764 and 1804. Potential topics include (but are not limited to):
- Everyday scientific practices, especially those that shed light on less prominent individuals and their networks,Social aspects of scientific societies;
- Impacts of disease on society;
- Timely innovations in sciences like astronomy, anatomy, electricity, evolution, botany, and others;
- Intersections between medical interventions and political ideologies;
- Advancements in medicine and technology, especially as they relate to war;
- Contributions of scientific knowledge and expertise from historically underrepresented communities;
- New directions in histories of early modern science that engage with interdisciplinary methodologies including (but not limited to) disability studies, medical humanities, environmental humanities, digital humanities, research creation, animal studies, etc.;
- The afterlives of scientific developments with origins in the revolutionary era.
Applicants should submit a title and a 250-word proposal along with a C.V. by March 3, 2025 via Interfolio (https://apply.interfolio.com/161651).
Thomas Johns
Brenna Holland