Vol. 39, No.3, July 2010
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News and Inquiries
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Welcome To Montréal
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Notes from the Inside
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From the HSS President
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News
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Member News
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Haskins Lecture
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“Lamarck at the Zoo”
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UTeach
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Lone Star
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Digital
Collections
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A Sampling of . . .
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Humanities Advocacy Day
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Humanities Enjoy Strong Student Demand
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Childcare Cooperative -
HSS Annual Meeting 2010
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HSS Annual Meeting 2010 Preliminary Program PDF
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University of Vienna
Announces Position
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Jobs, Conferences, Grants
ACLS Awards over $15 Million to 2009–10 Fellows and Grantees
ACLS announced the results of its 2009–10 fellowship competitions. Over $15 million was awarded to more than 380 scholars, both U.S.-based and international. This represents an increase of nearly 50% over last year’s total of $10.2 million.
Among the awardees are the first ACLS New Faculty Fellows. This program, supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, allows recent Ph.D.s in the humanities to take up two-year positions at universities and colleges across the U.S. where their particular research and teaching expertise augment departmental offerings. This initiative addresses the dire situation of newly minted Ph.D.s in the humanities and related social sciences who are now confronting an increasingly “jobless market.” Other programs offering funding to young scholars include the Luce/ACLS Dissertation Fellowships in American Art; the Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowships; and the Mellon/ACLS Recent Doctoral Recipients Fellowships.
ACLS fellowships and grants are awarded to individual scholars for research in the humanities and related social sciences. “At a time of scarce funding for the humanities, ACLS is proud to be a major source of support for humanistic scholarship in the United States,” says Nicole Stahlmann, director of ACLS fellowship programs.
ACLS fellowship programs include:
- Traditional ACLS Fellowships
- Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellowships
- ACLS Digital Innovation Fellowships
- ACLS Collaborative Research Fellowships
- American Research in the Humanities in China
- Comparative Perspectives on Chinese Culture and Society
- African Humanities Program
- East European Studies Programs
- ACLS Humanities Program in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine
Further Information: www.acls.org/fellows/new and www.acls.org/programs/comps
ACLS Fellows in the History of Science, Technology, Medicine, and Environment 2010–2011
- Karl Appuhn, (New York University), “Meat Matters: Epizootics, Science and Society in Eighteenth-Century Venice”
- Michitake Aso, (University of Wisconsin, Madison), “Forest Without Birds: Ecology and Health on the Rubber Plantations of French Colonial Vietnam, 1890–1954”
- Melissa A. Bailey, (Stanford University), “To Separate the Act from the Thing: Technologies of Value in the Ancient Mediterranean”
- Katharine Breen, (Northwestern University), “Engines of Thought: Allegory and Experimentation, 1200–1500”
- William Cavert, (Northwestern University), “Producing Pollution: Coal, Smoke and Society in Early Modern London”
- Elizabeth Anne Chiarello, “University of California, Irvine) “Pharmacists of Conscience: Ethical Decision-Making Across Legal, Political, and Organizational Environments”
- Alex Csiszar, (Harvard University), “Regulating the Scientific Machine: Print, Classification, and Community in the Natural Sciences, 1889–1920”
- Amanda Jop Goldstein, (University of California, Berkeley) “ Sweet Science’: Poetic Biologies around 1800”
- Pablo Gomez, (Vanderbilt University), “Imagining Atlantic Bodies: Health, Illness and Death in the Early Modern African-Spanish Caribbean”
- Toshihiro Higuchi, (Georgetown University), “Nuclear Fallout, the Politics of Risk, and the Making of a Global Environmental Crisis, 1945–1963”
- Brooke A. Holmes, (Princeton University), “Feeling Nature: Sympathy in Hellenistic Science, Philosophy, and Poetry”
- Nick Huggett (University of Illinois, Chicago), Chritian Wüthrich (University of California, San Diego) “Emergent Spacetime in Quantum Theories of Gravity”
- Alvan A. Ikoku, (Columbia University), “The Writing of Malaria: 1865–1935”
- Catherine Kudlick, (University of California, Davis), “Disability and the Hidden History of Smallpox in France, 1700–1900”
- Jonathan M. Livengood, (University of Pittsburgh), “On Causal Inferences in the Sciences and Humanities”
- Patrick McCray (University of California, Santa Barbara); Mara Mills, (University of California, Santa Barbara); Cyrus C.M. Mody, (Rice University), “Micro-Histories and Nano-Futures: The Co-Production of Miniaturization and Futurism”
- Marissa J. Moorman, Indiana University, “Tuning in to the National: Radio Technology and Politics in Angola, 1961–2002”
- Christopher J. Phillips, (Harvard University), “The Politics of the Mathematical Mind: The New Math and the Creation of the American Subject”
- Strother E. Roberts, (Northwestern University), “Harvesting the Woods, Harnessing the Waters: An Environmental History of the Colonial Connecticut Valley”
- Adam R. Rosenblatt, (Stanford University), “Last Rights: Forensic Science, Human Rights, and the Victims of Atrocity”
- Michael Rossi, (MIT), “The Rules of Perception: American Color Science 1858–1931”
- Hsiao-pei Yen (Harvard University), “Discovering China: Science, Imperialism, and Nationalism in the Chinese Frontier”
American Academy of Arts and Sciences Commemoration
Over the past 230 years, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences has accumulated a large collection of documents, records, and objects that help tell the story of the nation’s intellectual development since the latter part of the 18th century. Now the public is being offered a glimpse into that history through a new web-based feature, “From the Academy Archives”. To commemorate its founding on May 4, 1780, the Academy announced the new online resource, located on its web site.
Further Information: www.amacad.org
American Academy of Arts and Sciences Launches Humanities Indicators Prototype
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has unveiled the Humanities Indicators, a prototype set of statistical data about the humanities in the United States. The new on-line resource is available at www.HumanitiesIndicators.org.
Organized in collaboration with a consortium of national humanities organizations, the Humanities Indicators are the first effort to provide scholars, policymakers and the public with a comprehensive picture of the state of the humanities, from primary to higher education to public humanities activities. The collection of empirical data is modeled after the National Science Board’s Science and Engineering Indicators and creates reliable benchmarks to guide future analysis of the state of the humanities. Without data, it is impossible to assess the effectiveness, impact, and needs of the humanities.
Further Information: www.HumanitiesIndicators.org
The American Association for the History of Medicine Awards Recipients for 2010
Elliot Weiss received the William Osler Medal, which is awarded annually for the best unpublished essay on a medical historical topic written by a student enrolled in a school of medicine or osteopathy in the United States or Canada.
Carin Berkowitz received the Shryock Medal, which is awarded annually to a graduate student for an outstanding, unpublished essay on any topic in the history of medicine
Patrick Wallis received the J. Worth Estes Prize, which is awarded yearly for the best published paper in the history of pharmacology during the previous two years, whether appearing in a journal or a book collection of papers.
Warwick Anderson received the William H. Welch Medal, which is awarded to one or more authors of a book (excluding edited volumes) of outstanding scholarly merit in the field of medical history published during the five calendar years preceding the award.
Matthew Smith received the Pressman-Burroughs Award, which is awarded annually for outstanding work in twentieth-century history of medicine or medical science, as demonstrated by the completion of the Ph.D. and a proposal to turn the dissertation into a publishable monograph.
Charles A. Rosenberg received the Lifetime Achievement Award, which is awarded annually to a member of the Association who has retired from regular institutional affiliation or practice, with a distinguished record of support of the history of medicine over many years, and who has made continuing scholarly contributions of a distinguished nature.
Martin Pernick will give the Garrison Lecture at the 2011 meeting in Philadelphia, PA.
Arner Awarded Research Dissertation
Katherine Arner of Johns Hopkins University, was awarded a research dissertation fellowship in the Program in Early American Economy and Society at the Library Company of Philadelphia.
Arner’s topic is “Making Yellow Fever American: Disease Knowledge and the Geopolitics of Disease in the Atlantic World, 1793–1822.”
Back Issues of Ambix Now Online
The digitization of the back issues of Ambix from Volume 1 (1937) is now complete and they are now available for download for those who have access to the Ingenta Connect.
Further Information: www.ingentaconnect.com/content/maney/amb
Call for Manuscripts HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science
The editors of HOPOS invite manuscript submissions for its 2011 inaugural issue. The history of philosophy of science is broadly construed to include topics in the history of related disciplines, in all time periods and all geographical areas, using diverse methodologies. The journal does not limit submissions to members of HOPOS.
Further Information: www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/hopos/current
CFP for KronoScope: Journal for the Study of Time
Edited by an international board of scholars and representing the interdisciplinary investigation of all subjects related to time and temporality, KronoScope invites critical contributions from all disciplines; submissions are accepted on a continuous basis. As well, KronoScope is planning a Special Topics issue on the theme of SLOW TIME\FAST TIME, broadly interpreted to provoke discussion on the widest spectrum of the subject, including but not restricted to “deceleration” and “resistance” to both speed and acceleration, as well as forms of awareness-building, etc.
Further Information: www.brill.nl/kron and www.studyoftime.org/
Database Bibliografía Histórica sobre la Ciencia y la Técnica en España Updated
The Bibliografía Histórica sobre la Ciencia y la Técnica en España (Historical Bibliography on Science and Technology in Spain) has been updated under the direction of María Luz López Terrada and Julia Osca Lluch. The update of this database, developed by the Instituto de Historia de la Medicina y de la Ciencia López Piñero (López Piñero Institute for the History of Medicine and Science), has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.
The database brings together the largest number of works in the history of science and technology published in Spain or by Spanish authors all over the world. One of its main aims is to facilitate access to the information produced in Spain on the history of science and technology, as most of this research is local or regional and, therefore, it is not always present in national and international bibliographical databases.
Access to the new database is provided on-line for free. The new version includes significant improvements, such as a wider coverage, more fields for every bibliographic record, different search options, and new possibilities to export and download data in a personalized way and in different formats (TXT, Word, PDF or Excel).
Further Information: www.ihmc.uv-csic.es/buscador.php
Exhibit Opening-The Art of Science: Exploring and Documenting the Natural World
The collaborative work of three pioneering scientists, who joined the Owen/Maclure community in 1826, will be the subject of Historic New Harmony’s 2010 exhibition, open 10 April through 30 December. The Art of Science will feature original art, insect specimens, 19th-century scientific equipment and rare books borrowed from the collections of Historic New Harmony, the Working Men’s Institute, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Museum d’Histoire Naturelle du Havre, and other institutions. Local, state and international presenters, addressing a variety of related topics, will be featured in the companion programming offered in New Harmony throughout the nine-month show.
Further Information: www.usi.edu/hnh/science.asp lsspradley@usi.edu
History of Medicine Website, Science Museum London
The new history of medicine website of the Science Museum London has now been completed. In all it now presents 4000 new images of artifacts from the collections linked to 16 specialized themes on medicine across time, written by staff and other professional historians of medicine. Each theme is associated with bibliographies and interactives suitable for teaching at several levels.
The themes are: Belief and medicine; Birth and death; Controversies and medicine; Diagnosis; Diseases and epidemics, Hospitals; Mental health and illness; Practising medicine; Public health; Science and medicine; Surgery; Technology and medicine; Medical traditions; Treatments and cures; Understanding the body; War and medicine.
Further Information: www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife
History of Scientific Ideas Journal Almagest
Announcing the first issue of Almagest, the new international journal for the history of scientific ideas diffused by Brepols publishers. Please find a description of the journal and details for subscriptions at http://www.brepols.net/Pages/Home.aspx
Further Information: www.brepols.net/Pages/Home.aspx
IHPST Newsletter
The latest newsletter of the International History, Philosophy, and Science Teaching group is available online.
Further Information: www.ihpst.org/newsletters.html
In Memoriam: Edward Stewart Kennedy (1912–2009)
by Christoph J. Scriba
Edward Stewart Kennedy was the world’s leading scholar in the history of Islamic astronomy and mathematics in the second half of the 20th century. Ted, as he was known to his friends, was born in Mexico on 3 January 1912. His numerous books and articles set the standard and provided the inspiration for several generations of students. Among his most noteworthy publications are his Survey of Islamic Astronomical Tables, featuring 125 such works, which appeared in 1956; several books on the astronomy and mathematical geography of Islam’s greatest scientist al-Biruni; the 1983 volume Studies in the Exact Islamic Sciences and his 1998 Variorum volume Astronomy and Astrology in the Medieval Islamic World. One of his most remarkable discoveries was that the solar, lunar and planetary models of Ibn al-Shatir ca. 1350 were identical to those of Copernicus 150 years later.
A graduate in electrical engineering, after four years of teaching at Alborz College in Tehran, where he learned Persian, Kennedy obtained a doctoral degree in mathematics at Lehigh University in Bethlehem PA and taught at the University of Alabama. He returned to Tehran with the US Army in 1941, studied Arabic at Harvard after the war and in 1946 joined the faculty of the American University of Beirut. Every fourth year he spent in the US where he worked, especially with Otto Neugebauer at Brown University and Princeton. In 1976 Ted began an association with the newly-founded Institute for the History of Arabic Science at the University of Aleppo, assumed the editorship of the new journal published there, and together with his wife Mary-Helen neé Scanlon was responsible for the excellence of the first few issues of their journal.
The Kennedys were forced to leave their home in 1984 when staying in Lebanon became too dangerous. Eventually they moved to Princeton in 1988 and finally settled in Doylestown PA in 1999, where Ted died on 4 May 2009.
The International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 2010 Meeting
Please note that the program for the 2010 Meeting of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science (HOPOS), which was held June 24–27 in Budapest, Hungary, is posted on the conference website.
Further Information: www.hopos2010.ceu.hu/node/2777 and www.hopos2010.ceu.hu/
Lloyd Library Announces New Online Exhibit
The Lloyd Library and Museum is pleased to announce its newest online exhibit “In Search of Birds at the Lloyd.” While the Lloyd is well-known for its remarkable collection of botanical and pharmaceutical resources, perhaps only a handful of people know that its collection also includes significant holdings on diverse biological subjects. This exhibit opens a window onto our vast resources of zoological materials with a spotlight on ornithology.
Further Information: www.lloydlibrary.org/exhibits/birds/index.html
New Journal: Philosophy & Technology
The range of coverage is very broad and interdisciplinary. It includes classic problems in philosophy of technology and original approaches to them, theories of technology, methods and concepts in technology, as well as theoretical topics and topics dealing with practical problems concerning the nature, the development and the implications of technologies. Particular attention is paid to new areas of philosophical interest—such as nanotechnologies, medical, genetic and biotechnologies, neurotechnologies, information and communication technologies, AI and robotics, or the philosophy of engineering—and the philosophical discussion of issues such as environmental risks, globalization, security, or biological enhancements.
Announcing a Doctoral Program in Cultural Astronomy and Archaeoastronomy at Ilia State University
Submitted by Irakli Simonia
The title of this new, four year program is “Cultural Astronomy and Archaeoastronomy.” The program begins in October of this year and is free of charge. It also has no age restrictions. All of the exams are held in English and will focus on specialties (such as astronomy). In order to be considered active in the program participants must spend three months in Georgia per year. The rest of the year can be completed elsewhere. However, participants may also spend up to 8 months per year in Georgia if they so desire. Additionally, the university will assist participants by providing inexpensive accommodations.
The program’s courses include cultural astronomy and archaeoastronomy, landscape archaeology, a special course in astronomy and history of the ancient world. Possible subjects of research available include, but are not limited to megalithic culture and astronomy, antique temples—cultural and astronomical significance, ethnoastronomy—folk traditions, oral stories, relict legends, medieval astronomy—observatories and manuscripts, from sun observatories to calendar, astronomical thinking in Europe and Asia at Bronze Age, ancient constellations in the Caucasus, Europe, Asia, America. Upon completion of the four-year program participants will obtain a normal academic degree Ph.D. along with an Ilia State University diploma.
PSA Election 2009 Election Results
Governing Board
Stephan Hartmann of Tilburg University, Roberta Millstein of the University of California-Davis, Nancy Nersessian of the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Andrea Woody of the University of Washington were elected to the Governing Board for the PSA, where each will serve a two-year term from January 1, 2010 through December 31, 2011. The Officers of the PSA congratulate Professors Hartmann and Millstein, and congratulate and welcome back Professors Nersessian and Woody for their second terms on the PSA Board.
The Officers also offer deep appreciation and thanks to Craig Callender of the University of California-San Diego and Alan Hájek of the Australian National Research University, both of whom are stepping down from the Board after serving two consecutive two-year terms.
Nominating Committee
Margaret Morrison of the University of Toronto, C. Kenneth Waters of the University of Minnesota, and Alison Wylie of Cambridge University/University of Washington were elected to serve as the new Nominating Committee for the PSA, where each will serve a two year term beginning January 1, 2009 and ending December 31, 2011. Along with a congratulations to the new Nominating Committee, the Officers of the PSA warmly thank the PSA’s previous Nominating Committee, comprised of its chair, James Joyce of the University of Michigan, Rachel Ankeny of the University of Adelaide, and Roman Frigg of the London School of Economics and Political Science. The proposed amendment to the PSA’s By-Laws passed, 244–15. That means that in the upcoming 2010 PSA Election new Governing Board members will be elected to serve a single term of four years, and also limited to serving one consecutive term. The revised version of the PSA By-Laws will be posted shortly on the website.
Of the 755 Full Members of the PSA eligible to vote at the election’s start, 267, or slightly more than 35%, voted electronically in response to email solicitations. This is a slight drop from the 38% turnout for 2008, possibly to be attributed to this being an odd-numbered, and thus non-Presidential, PSA Election.
Further Information: www.philsci.org/about/bylaws.html
Appointments
The Yale Program in History of Science and Medicine is pleased to announce the appointment of William Rankin as Assistant Professor of History effective July 1, 2011. Rankin is completing a joint doctorate at Harvard in the History of Science and the History of Architecture.
The Chemical Heritage Foundation is pleased to announce the appointments of the Beckman Center Fellows for the academic year 2010-2011. CHF will welcome 6 long-term fellows and 10 short-term fellows. Below are the fellows, their affiliations, and the title of their research topics.
Long-Term Postdoctoral Fellows
- Tayra Maria Carmen Lanuza-Navarro (University of Valencia, Spain), Edelstein Fellow: “Alchemy, Astrology and Books of Secrets: Ideas and Practices before the Spanish Inquisition”
- Donna Messner (University of Pennsylvania), Cain Fellow: “The Origins of Medical Foods and their Regulation”
- Cesare Pastorino (Indiana University), Cain Fellow: “’Minerall Tryalls’: Metal Assaying and Experiment in Early Modern England”
- Nasser Zakariya (Harvard University), Haas Fellow: “The Matter of Life: The Role of Chemistry in the Scientific Epic”
Long-Term Dissertation Fellows
- Melanie Kiechle (Rutgers University), Haas Fellow: “’The Air We Breathe’: Nineteenth-Century Americans and the Search for Fresh Air”
- Christine Nawa (Universität Regensburg, Germany), Price Fellow: “Robert Wilhelm Bunsen’s Research Style and His Teaching”
Short-Term Fellows
- José Ramón Bertomeu-Sánchez (University of Valencia, Spain), Doan Fellow, 1 month: “Between Science and Crime: Mateu Orfila and Nineteenth-Century Toxicology”
- Matthew Crawford (Kent State University), Herdegen Fellow, 3 months: “Chemistry in the Eighteenth-Century Spanish Atlantic: An Under appreciated Imperial Science?”
- William Goodwin (Rowan University), Allington Fellow, 2 months: “Resolving a Controversy: The Non-Classical Ion Debate”
- Catherine (Cai) Guise-Richardson (Mississippi State University), Ullyot Scholar, 2 months: “Mind and Matter: the Development and Marketing of Thorazine and Stelazine at Smith, Kline & French”
- Vangelis Koutalis (University of Ioannina, Greece), Allington Fellow, 3 months: “The Historical Significance of Chemistry as a Philosophical Inquiry”
- Jordi Mora Casanova (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain), CHF Fellow, 3 months: “Alchemical Reminiscences of Modern Chemists in 19th Century”
- Alexander Pechenkin (Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia), Allington Fellow, 2 months: “The Social History of Quantum Chemistry in the USSR (1950-1991)”
- Linda Richards (Oregon State University), Doan Fellow, 3 months: “Disrupting Hozho: A Comparative History of Nuclear Science and Radiation Safety in University Research and Uranium Mining”
- John Stewart (University of Oklahoma), Allington Fellow, 2 months: “Beyond Chemistry: Affinity as a Unifying Principle in Science at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century”
- Brigitte Van Tiggelen (Mémosciences / Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium), Société de Chimie Industrielle (American Section) Fellow, 3 months: “The Chemists’ Blues: The History of Prussian Blue and Modern Chemistry”