Vol. 39, No.4, October 2010
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News and Inquiries
Quick Links....
Zhu Kezhen and His Contributions to the History of Science in China
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Notes from the Inside
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News and Inquiries
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Member News
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Cold War Transformed Science: A Report on the Francis Bacon Conference at Cal Tech
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Conversing in a Cyberspace Community: The Growth of
HPS Blogging
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Multiple Ways to Salvation: Tenure and Teaching-Intensive Appointments
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Jobs, Conferences, Grants
HSS Early Renewal Discount
The University of Chicago Press has announced a promotion whereby you can renew your HSS membership with a 15% discount. This offer is valid until 31 October 2010, and will be honored whether you renew online, by e-mail, or by phone (Go to The Isis Subscription page and enter promotion HSS11 (email: subscriptions@press.uchicago.edu) or order by phone Monday through Friday, 8 am to 5 pm Central Time by calling (773) 753-3347 or toll-free in U.S. and Canada (877) 705-1878—mention the promotion when you phone). If you have already renewed your membership just prior to this offer, you will be receiving a refund equal to 15% of your subscription. Thank you for your support of the History of Science Society.
Greg Macklem: HSS’s New Society Coordinator
In conjunction with the move to Notre Dame, the HSS now has a new coordinator, who succeeds Ms. Virginia Hessels. He is Gregory Macklem, an alumnus of the University of Michigan. Greg, as he likes to be called, earned his bachelor of science in mathematics and biology (a double major) in 1993, followed by his teacher certification a year later, also at Michigan. From 1994 to 2002 he taught mathematics and biology to secondary school students, while also serving as a coach, both for the Academic Decathlon team and for the volleyball team (the type of coaching for which one must master the art of back-and-forth—excellent preparation for the Executive Office). He won numerous awards as a teacher, including the Milken National Educator Award in 2001. He entered the graduate program in the history and philosophy of science at Notre Dame in 2002 and from 2006 to 2010, he served as the acting director of the undergraduate program in Science, Technology and Values at Notre Dame, performing those duties, as one faculty member described it, in “simply spectacular” fashion. Greg not only brings to his work a keen interest in the profession, he also possesses the tools to help the office run efficiently. And because he remains passionate about education, Greg will help us to reach out to the wider community, and I plan to involve him in our Committee on Education. You will see Greg at the annual meeting—please pause and offer him a hearty welcome to the Executive Office (and then inform him that we are out of coffee).
Newton’s Principia First Edition (1687) Census
A new census of extant copies of the first edition of Isaac Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687) is being prepared. This census is seeking any information on copies that are/were either owned by private collectors or located in obscure places (e.g. little known libraries not integrated into Worldcat, ESTC, KVK, etc). Contacts: Mordechai Feingold (California Institute of Technology) feingold@hss.caltech.edu and Andrej Svorencik (University of Amsterdam) a.svorencik@uva.nl
Joel Hewett Appointment
Joel Hewett, the Kranzberg Graduate Fellow in the School of History, Technology and Society at Georgia Tech, has been appointed to work as a researcher in the division of Policy and Research for President Obama’s National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling.
Lijing Jiang awarded FHSAsia Travel Prize
Congratulations to Lijing Jiang of Arizona State University, who has received a Travel Prize from the Forum for the History of Science in Asia (FHSAsia) —a newly forming interest group in the HSS. Well done!
Further Information: www.history.ubc.ca/fhsa/
FHSAsia
The Forum for the History of Science in Asia (FHSAsia) will hold its inaugural brownbag meeting at HSS Montréal. Everyone interested in the history of science in Asia, broadly construed, is invited to join us on Friday, November 5, 2010, 12:00 to 1:15 in the Été des Indiens Room.
As a newly formed interest group within HSS, FHSAsia aims to connect scholars of Asia and to highlight relevant papers and events at annual meetings. In the near future we hope to sponsor sessions, to host distinguished lectures, to organize roundtables on issues of professional development, and to recognize publicly the exciting new work our members are producing. We encourage broad participation and extend a special invitation to international presenters, junior scholars, and historians who want to “think with” science in Asia but have not yet ventured into the field.
Come meet like-minded scholars, exchange ideas and resources, and help us plan future activities. We will be explaining new features of our website, introducing our officers, and establishing our agenda for the coming year. In the meantime, please register at http://www.history.ubc.ca/fhsa/ for the latest FHSAsia updates, announcements, and discussions. See you in Montréal!
Social History of Medicine Seeks New Book Reviews Editor
Social History of Medicine seeks a new book reviews editor to join Graham Mooney and Pratik Chakrabarti (co-editors) and Ruth Biddiss (assistant editor), starting January 2011. The new book reviews editor will succeed Anna Crozier, who is relocating to China. Social History of Medicine has a lively review section with about 90 reviews per year. Standard reviews run at about 700 words, focus reviews and reviews of edited collections at about 1000. We are looking for an experienced, efficient and well-established medical historian who can work as part of a team and who will ensure editorial cohesion. Experts in all areas of history of medicine and/or time-periods will be considered. Applicants are asked to send a C.V. and a statement of interest to the Chair of the Society, Dr. Lutz Sauerteig, Centre for the History of Medicine and Disease, Wolfson Research Institute, Durham University, Queen’s Campus, Stockton-on-Tees TS17 6BH, UK (email: l.d.sauerteig@durham.ac.uk).
Deutsches Museum in Munich: Scholar-in-Residence Program
The Deutsches Museum in Munich solicits applications to its Scholar-in-Residence program, for periods of either 6 or 12 months, with an application deadline of 17 October 2010. This program is international and interdisciplinary, and welcomes applications from scholars at all stages of their careers, from pre-doctoral to senior scholars. The Deutsches Museum is one of the world’s premier museums of science and technology and has extensive library, archives, and collections resources. It operates its own Research Institute and has close ties to the history of science and technology programs in the three universities in Munich (Munich Center for the History of Science and Technology).
Further information: www.deutsches-museum.de/en/research/scholar-in-residence/
PACHS Fellowships
The Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science offers Dissertation Research Fellowships (one month, with a $2,000 stipend) and Dissertation Writing Fellowships (nine months, with a $23,000 stipend) for doctoral candidates whose projects are concerned with the history of science, technology or medicine. The one-month fellowships are intended for students wishing to use the collections of two or more of the Center’s member institutions, which include some of the premier repositories of primary source materials in the United States, and the nine-month fellowships for students wishing to participate in our interdisciplinary community of scholars while completing research and writing their dissertations. Applications must be submitted online by 10 January 2011. For more information on the Center’s fellowships, resources for research, events and activities, see www.pachs.net.
National Library of Medicine Announces “History of Medicine Finding Aids Consortium”
The History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) is pleased to announce the release of its prototype History of Medicine Finding Aids Consortium (www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/consortium/index.html), a search-and-discovery tool for archival resources in the health sciences that are described by finding aids and held by various institutions throughout the United States. A finding aid is a tool created by archivists to provide contextual information about collections, oftentimes with detailed inventories to help researchers locate relevant materials.
NLM is the world’s largest medical library and a component of the National Institutes of Health. The resource crawls existing web content managed by several partner institutions, provides keyword search functionality, and provides results organized by holding institution. Links point to the holding institution’s websites. Formats indexed consist of HTML, PDF, and Encoded Archival Description XML. The project does not include content held in bibliographic utilities or other database-type information. Crawls are conducted monthly to ensure that the information is current and to capture new content as it is released.
NLM’s History of Medicine Division invites libraries, archives and museums possessing archival materials related to the history of medicine and health sciences in their collections to join this consortium. For more information about the project or requests to join the Consortium, please contact John P. Rees, Archivist and Digital Resources Manager, NLM, at reesj@nlm.nih.gov.
Call for Papers: The Journal of Microbiology and Antimicrobials (JMA)
JMA will cover all areas of gene expression and regulation, signaling and communication, stress responses, secretion, differentiation and development, cell cycles, ultrastructure microbial ecology, non-pathogenic plant-microbe interactions, population genetics, community structures and interactions, biodegradation and bioremediation, biodiversity and evolution (systems biology, genomics and proteomics, metabolomics, metagenomics, synthetic microbiology, bioinformatics, gene transfer, chromosomes and extrachromosomal DNA), mechanisms of human, animal and plant pathogenesis, virulence and virulence factors, cellular microbiology, infections and immunity, antibiotic-resistance mechanisms, metabolic pathways and their regulation, bioenergetics and transport, synthesis of macromolecules, microbiology and antimicrobials. The journal welcomes the submission of manuscripts that meet the general criteria of significance and scientific excellence in this subject area, and will publish:
- Original articles in basic and applied research
- Case studies
- Critical reviews, surveys, opinions, commentaries and essays
We invite you to submit your manuscript(s) to papers.jma@gmail.com for publication. Our objective is to inform authors of the decision regarding their manuscript(s) within four weeks of submission. Following acceptance, a paper will normally be published in the next issue. Instruction for authors and other details are available on our website: www.academicjournals.org/JMA/Instruction.htm. JMA is an Open Access Journal. One key request of researchers across the world is unrestricted access to research publications.
Call for Papers: The Journal of Medical Genetics and Genomics (JMGG)
JMGG will cover all areas of genetics and genomics. The journal welcomes the submission of manuscripts that meet the general criteria of significance and scientific excellence in this subject area, and will publish:
- Original articles in basic and applied research
- Case studies
- Critical reviews, surveys, opinions, commentaries and essays
We invite you to submit your manuscript(s) to jmgg.manuscripts@gmail.com for publication. Our objective is to inform authors of the decision on their manuscript(s) within four weeks of submission. Following acceptance, a paper will normally be published in the next issue. Instruction for authors and other details are available on our website: www.academicjournals.org/JMGG/Instruction.htm. JMGG is an Open Access Journal.
New Publication: The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics
Eugenic thought and practice swept the world from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century in a remarkable transnational phenomenon. Eugenics informed social and scientific policy across the political spectrum, from liberal welfare measures in emerging social-democratic states to feminist ambitions for birth control, from public health campaigns to totalitarian dreams of the “perfectibility of man.” This book dispels for uninitiated readers the automatic and apparently exclusive link between eugenics and the Holocaust. It is the first world history of eugenics and an indispensable core text for both teaching and research. Eugenics accumulated generations of interest as experts attempted to connect biology, human capacity, and policy. Eugenics has addressed and continues to address questions of race, class, gender and sex, evolution, governance, nationalism, disability, and the social implications of science. In the current climate, in which the human genome project, stem cell research, and new reproductive technologies have proven so controversial, the history of eugenics has much to teach us about the relationships among scientific research, technology, and human ethical decision-making.
About the Author(s): Alison Bashford is Professor of Modern History at the University of Sydney. She has published widely on the modern history of science and medicine, including Purity and Pollution and Imperial Hygiene, and has co-edited Contagion, Isolation, and Medicine at the Border. Philippa Levine is the Mary Helen Thompson Centennial Professor in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin. Her books include Prostitution, Race and Politics: Policing Venereal Disease in the British Empire, and The British Empire, Sunrise to Sunset.
The Metropolitan New York Section Lectures for 2010–2011
The Metropolitan Section Lectures for 2010–2011 will be:
- Oct 27, 2010: Ruth Schwartz Cowan, “Climbing Up the Slippery Slope: Mandated Genetic Screening on the Island of Cyprus”
- Dec 1, 2010: Peder Anker, “History of Spaceship Earth Science”
- Jan 26, 2011: Marwa Elshakry, “Golden Ages in the History of Science: Arabic Sciences in Question”
- Feb 23, 2011: Spencer Weart, “The Evolution of Nuclear Fear, 1900–2010”
- Mar 30, 2011: Gideon Manning, “Descartes the Medical Philosopher”
- Apr 27, 2011: Giora Hon, “The history of the concept of symmetry: A case of evolution or revolution?”
- May 19, 2011: Will Andrewes, “MAKING TIME: Astronomy, cartography, and the art and science of finding time”
Locations are TBA. Updates will be posted on http://nychistoryofscience.org/
Latest Batch of Recent Doctoral Dissertations from Dissertation Abstracts
The latest batches of recent worldwide doctoral dissertations pertaining to the broad scope of the history of science and the medical humanities are available at: www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/histmed/researchresources/dissertations/index_html.
Announcing The Bubble Chamber: Where History and Philosophy of Science Meets Society and Public Policy
“The Bubble Chamber,” is a new blog where historians and philosophers of science will discuss contemporary issues of science and society through the lenses of historical context and critical analysis. Founded by the University of Toronto’s Science Policy Working Group, “The Bubble Chamber” is for those interested in a critical assessment of science in society and its development, regulation, and trajectory: www.thebubblechamber.org.
The 2010 Balzan Prizewinners
At the Corriere della Sera Foundation in Milan, Dr. Salvatore Veca, Chairman of the Balzan General Prize Committee, together with the President of the Balzan “Prize” Foundation, Ambassador Bruno Bottai, announced the names of the 2010 Balzan Prizewinners: Carlo Ginzburg (Italy), Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, for European History, 1400–1700 (including the British Isles), Manfred Brauneck (Germany), University of Hamburg, for the History of Theatre in All Its Aspects, Shinya Yamanaka (Japan/USA), Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences at Kyoto University, for Stem Cells: Biology and Potential Applications, and Jacob Palis (Brazil), Instituto de Matemática Pura e Aplicada (IMPA), Rio de Janeiro for Mathematics (Pure or Applied). This year’s prize was one million Swiss Francs (approx. €760,000, $980,000, £638,000) for each of the four subjects.
Professor Veca, who is also President of the General Prize Committee, announced that the 2011 Balzan Prizes will be in the following fields: Ancient History (The Græco-Roman World), Enlightenment Studies, Theoretical Biology and Bioinformatics, and The Early Universe (from Planck-time to the first galaxies). The amount of each of the four 2011 Balzan Prizes will be 750.000 Swiss Francs (approx. €577,000, $740,000, £470,000). The award fields vary each year and can relate to either a specific or an interdisciplinary field, and look to go beyond the traditional subjects both in the humanities (literature, the moral sciences and the arts) and in the sciences (medicine and the physical, mathematical and natural sciences), so as to give priority to innovative research. Half of the amount received by the winner of each of the four prizes must be destined for research work, preferably involving young scholars and researchers.
The public announcement, under the auspices of the City of Milan, was followed by a lecture by Paolo Rossi Monti, 2009 Balzan Prize for the History of Science, entitled “La scienza e la sua storia” (science and its history). The International Balzan Foundation, founded in 1957, operates through two different institutions. The International Balzan Foundation (chaired in Milan by Ambassador Bruno Bottai) selects the subjects to be awarded and the candidates through its General Prize Committee. The Balzan Foundation “Fund” (chaired in Zurich by Achille Casanova) administers the estate left by Eugenio Balzan. Further information and pictures of the Prizewinners are available on www.balzan.org.
One Woman’s Labor: Judith Leavitt’s Academic Contributions and Influence on the Profession—A Conference Celebrating Her Life and Legacy
A conference in honor of Judy Leavitt was held at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, on 1–2 October 2010. The following description touches on her contributions to the history of science and medicine.
In the last three decades, Professor Judy Leavitt has pursued an ambitious and far-reaching research program on the social history of childbirth, fatherhood, and Typhoid Mary. Her book, Brought to Bed: Childbearing in America, 1750-1950, transformed the history of childbirth. Hailed as “the most authoritative medical historical text on the subject in America” and as “a book for men as well as women,” this volume sensitively and elegantly explores the trade-offs and decisions that informed the movement of birth from the home to the hospital. Her next book, Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public’s Health, received similar accolades, as has her most recent monograph, Make Room for Daddy: the Journey from the Waiting Room to the Birthing Room. Using fathers’ first-hand accounts from letters, journals, and personal interviews, Judy charts the changing experiences and expectations of expectant fathers from the 1940s to the 1980s. Sensitive to both power and privilege, she explores the increasing involvement of fathers as well as the medical inequalities and the impact(s) of race and class. Even the reviewer for the Wall Street Journal (no friend to the women and gender studies movement) praised the book as “illuminating, engaging, and fascinating.” Above all, Dr. Leavitt has inspired generations of undergraduate, graduate, and medical students as a teacher, as a mentor, and as a role model. Her commitment to evidence, her investment in clarity of expression and argument and her sense of the human dimensions of historical events and actors have all influenced her students and colleagues.