The History of Science Society

Vol. 39, No. 1, January 2010
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Michael J. Crowe Awarded the 2010 LeRoy E. Doggett Prize

The Historical Astronomy Division of the American Astronomical Society is pleased to announce that Dr. Michael J. Crowe will be the seventh recipient of the LeRoy E. Doggett Prize for Historical Astronomy. The Prize is awarded biennially to an individual whose long-term efforts and lifetime achievements have had significant impact on the field of the history of astronomy. The 2010 LeRoy E. Doggett Prize is presented to Professor Crowe in recognition of his research, teaching, and outreach.

Michael J. Crowe is the Reverend John J. Cavanaugh Professor Emeritus in the Humanities in the Program of Liberal Studies and Graduate Program in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Notre Dame. Professor Crowe earned a B.A. in the Program of Liberal Studies and a B.S. in Science from the University of Notre Dame in 1958. He earned a Ph.D. in the History of Science with minors in Physics and Intellectual History from the University of Wisconsin in 1965.

Professor Crowe's first book, A History of Vector Analysis (University of Notre Dame Press, 1967, revised Dover editions, 1985, 1994), was followed by The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, 1750-1900: The Idea of a Plurality of Worlds from Kant to Lowell (Cambridge University Press, 1986, revised 1988, and Dover, 1999). This magisterial and ambitious work opened up a new and rich field for scholarship and made the history of beliefs in alien life a legitimate field for discussion. It is an indispensable resource that is unlikely to be surpassed for a long time to come. A companion source book, The Extraterrestrial Life Debate: Antiquity to 1915, was published in 2008 (University of Notre Dame Press).

Crowe's other main research interest has been the work of William and John Herschel. Here he has offered new interpretations of their careers. For example, Crowe has made a very strong case for the importance of William Herschel's belief in extraterrestrial life as a guiding principal in his construction and use of large reflecting telescopes. The Calendar of the Correspondence of Sir John Herschel (Cambridge University Press, 1998), edited by Crowe, is an unparalleled resource for Herschel scholarship and many topics in 19th century science.

Professor Crowe has done much to advance the discipline of the history of astronomy through his teaching. He was the founding chair of Notre Dame’s Graduate Program in History and Philosophy of Science and has also served as chair of the university’s Program of Liberal Studies. He has taught for close to 50 years at Notre Dame. His Theories of the World from Antiquity to the Copernican Revolution (Dover, 1990, revised 2001), Modern Theories of the Universe from Herschel to Hubble (Dover, 1994), and Mechanics: From Aristotle to Einstein (Green Lion, 2007) started out as course readers. As published, they have become foundational texts widely used in college courses throughout North America and independently by newcomers to the history of astronomy.

Students and colleagues describe Michael Crowe as compassionate, inspiring, and generous in sharing results. He has been called a cultivator of scholars as well as scholarship.

His welcoming nature is best exemplified by his central role in establishing in 1993 the Biennial Notre Dame Workshops for the History of Astronomy. These workshops have become the premier gathering of historians of astronomy and done much to establish a sense of community among them. Crowe created a space in which scholars of all ages and backgrounds could rub shoulders and share in convivial discussions of history-of-astronomy topics without regard to seniority or hierarchy. Indeed, many historians in the field have attributed their successful launch to the welcome, encouragement, and mutual support that they first received at one of these forums. It has been said that if Mike Crowe had done nothing else for the profession, his organization and hosting of the Notre Dame Workshops is a contribution to the field of history of astronomy that is worthy of recognition by the LeRoy E. Doggett Prize.

Further Information: http://www.aas.org/had/doggett/2010doggett2crowe.html

Jim Fleming was invited to speak before the US House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment of the Committee on Science and Technology 5 Nov 2009 on the topic history of weather and climate control and its governance. He was asked to address geoengineering’s unique governance needs, potential first steps for establishing international consensus, and related topics.

The HSS Executive Committee has selected Michael Gordin & Matthew Jones as Program Co-Chairs for the 2011 HSS Conference in Cleveland, OH. Dr. Gordin is a professor of history and director of the program in Russian and Eurasian studies at Princeton University. Dr. Jones is an associate professor of history at Columbia University.

Jeremy Greene, Harvard University, was awarded the Rachel Carson Prize from the Society for the Social Study of Science at its 2009 annual meeting for his book, Prescribing by Numbers: Drugs and the Definition of Disease (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007). The prize is awarded annually for a book-length work of social or political relevance in the area of science and technology studies. Past winners have included Joseph Masco's The Nuclear Borderlands: The Manhattan Project in Post-Cold War New Mexico, Charis Thompson's Making Parents: The Ontological Choreography of Reproductive Technologies, and Joseph Dumit's Picturing Personhood: Brain Scans and Biomedical Identity.

In Memoriam: Elizabeth Paris

Elizabeth Paris, wife of Jay Barnet Ress and mother of Zachary and Elysha. Cherished friend, mother, and wife. September 4, 1968 – November 28, 2009.

Active in Nashville’s Hillsboro Neighborhood Association, La Leche League, Attachment Parenting International, and Ronald MacDonald House. Stanford University graduate, PhD in History and Philosophy of Science and Technology.

Born in Cincinnati, traveled extensively, taught at a private high school in Los Angeles and in the Harvard University History of Science Department. Dibner fellow. Argonne National Lab Historian.

In lieu of flowers, please make a donation in Elizabeth’s name to the ACLU.

International Colloquium Held at Queen's University Belfast (QUB)

The colloquium entitled "The Monist Century,1845-1945: Science, Secularism and Worldview,” held October 2-3, 2009, explored the history of natural scientific monism from the materialists to Haeckel and beyond. In addition it tested the thesis implied in the workshop title, namely that monism tells us something significant about the framing questions of intellectual, political and religious debate in this time period.

Participants in Oct 2009 International Colloquium in Belfast

Seated (left to right): Sander Gliboff (Indiana), Peter Bowler (QUB), Igor Polianski (Ulm), Todd Weir (QUB), Gauri Viswanathan (Columbia, NYC).
Standing (left to right): Tracie Matysik (U Texas), Bernhard Kleeberg (Constance), Caroline Sumpter (QUB), Nicolaas Rupke (Göttingen), Sabine Wichert (QUB), Fred Gregory (Florida), Paul Ziche (Utrecht), David Livingstone (QUB), Robert Bud (London), Heiko Weber (Jena), Eve-Marie Engels (Tübingen).
Not pictured: Mark Bevir (UC Berkeley)

2009 Forum for History of Human Science Awards

2009 FHHS Article Award

Kasper Risbjerg Eskildsen, "Leopold Ranke's Archival Turn: Location and Evidence in Modern Historiography," Modern Intellectual History 5 (2008): 425-453.
2009 Article Award committee: Michael Pettit (chair), Kathy Cooke, Hunter Heyck

Kasper Risbjerg Eskildsen’s “Leopold Ranke’s Archival Turn” offers a brilliant interpretation of the emergence of the archive as the most important site in the production of historical knowledge. In a wonderfully symmetrical and reflexive fashion, he examines how the archive came to serve as the privileged site for history’s production of truth, analogous to the laboratory, clinic, or field-site in other disciplines. By attending to the spaces of historical research, he offers a novel perspective on the character of “scientific history.” Furthermore, he does an excellent job of illustrating how the reorganization of the structure of the European state made Ranke’s investigative practices possible, thereby artfully connecting changes in political culture with those within the human sciences. He also brilliantly illuminates the interplay between the political and the professional dimensions of Ranke’s vision. With great care, Eskildsen connects Ranke’s personal career ambitions and his conservative politics to his conception of history and the role of the archive. The committee also commends Eskildsen for the high qualityof his prose, which made his article a particularly engaging read.

2009 John C. Burnham Award

The 2009 John C. Burnham Award Committee is delighted to award this year's prize to Stéphanie Dupouy for her essay “Darwin, Observer of Expressions.” In her persuasive, original, and clearly argued essay she presents a nuanced picture of Darwin’s strategy in his 1872 The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, challenging the received wisdom that Darwin’s book constitutes an evolutional ‘break’ in the study of emotional expression. Dupouy notes that this conventional interpretation is not only complicated by Darwin’s lack of discussion of natural selection, but more pointedly argues that Darwin’s originality lies in his rejection of a sentimentalist account of expression. This sentimentalist view, common to much nineteenth century scientific writing on the emotions, understood expression as the privileged and uniquely human manifestation of the interior or intimate self. For Darwin, however, sublime or elevated human emotions were either not conveyed in expressive gestures, or were, as Dupouy puts it, “ironic remnants of our animal origins.” Dupouy also sees Darwin’s treatise as marking a methodological break from his forebears in his reliance on particular observations for study, his use of photographic evidence, and his rejection of imagination, memory, and sympathy for the scientific study of emotions. Dupouy reads Darwin’s private notebooks in concert with the published text of the Expression of the Emotions, and places Darwin’s work within the rich context of early nineteenth century scientific and aesthetic writings on the expression of the emotions, including the work of anatomists Louis-Jacques Moreau de la Sarthe, Charles Bell, and Louis-Pierre Gratiolet. Dupouy’s close reading, comprehensive engagement with the historiography, and compelling presentation of her analysis made this essay a pleasure to read.

Thank You Volunteers

A big THANK YOU to our volunteers whose terms expired in 2009. I have a deep appreciation for the time and effort that our volunteers devote to the HSS, time and effort that could be spent on so many other tasks. I humbly and gratefully offer my thanks to each one.

-Jay Malone, HSS Executive Director

Jane Maienschein, President
Joan Cadden, Past President
Rachel Ankeny, Treasurer
Council: John Beatty, David Kaiser, Pamela O. Long, Karen Rader and Spencer Weart
Committee on Education: Robert DeKosky, chair; Jessica Wang
Committee on Honors and Prizes: Audra Wolfe, chair; Nancy Siraisi
Committee on Meetings and Programs: Marc Rothenberg, chair; Pamela O. Long; Don Howard; Marsha Richmond; Anita Guerrini; Ted Porter; Ken Alder
Committee on Publications: Karen Parshall, chair; Paul Farber
Committee on Research and the Profession: Amy Crumpton, chair; Ron Rainger
Prize Committees: Derek Price
- Rod Webster Prize: Sachiko Kusukawa, chair
- Nathan Reingold Prize: Marcos Cueto, chair
- Margaret W. Rossiter Prize: Ida Stamhuis, chair
- Pfizer Award: Susan Lindee, chair
- Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize: Roger Stuewer, chair
- Joseph H. Hazen Prize: Graeme Gooday, chair
Nominating Committee: David Kaiser, chair; M. Norton Wise; Pamela Smith; Katharine Anderson; Thomas Söderqvist
Women’s Caucus: Gwen Kay, co chair
HSS/NASA Space Fellowship Committee: Pamela Mack, Liba Taub

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