2013 Introductory Symposium

Location: Franklin Hall, 427 Chestnut St. The Annual Introductory Symposium open to the public and provides an introduction to a vibrant area of research in which Philadelphia has long played a special role. Philadelphia has been an epicenter in the development of American science, medicine and technology since the early 1700s, and today our libraries, universities, research centers and museums attract leading scholars from around the world who come to study here. Many of those speaking on September 20 will be newly arrived researchers drawn to Philadelphia’s remarkable historical resources in science, medicine and technology. These short presentations of new research can be fun, exciting, moving and intriguing, as scholars illuminate the history of scientific fields that shape all of our lives every day.  Come for the afternoon, or even just for 10 minutes. We bet you’ll stay to hear more and learn something new!
Program
12:30 Refreshments, registration and welcome 1:00 Session 1 A Muslim Alchemist in 14th-century Egypt: ‘Izz al-Din Aydemir al-Jildaki and the Arabic Alchemical Tradition. Nicholas Harris, University of Pennsylvania Price Fellow at Chemical Heritage Foundation Thomas Wijck’s Painted Alchemists at the Intersection of Art, Science and Practice Elisabeth Berry Drago, University of Delaware Research Fellow at PACHS and Allington Fellow at Chemical Heritage Foundation Alchemical Encryption: Music-Image-Text in the Atalanta fugiens (1618) Donna Bilak, Bard Grad Center Edelstein Fellow at Chemical Heritage Foundation The Third Dimension of Connoisseurship: X-ray of paintings in the early 20th century Evan Hepler-Smith, Princeton University Herdegen Fellow at Chemical Heritage Foundation In search of meaning: contemporary causal formulations of quantum theory Gildo M. Santos, University of Sao Paolo Ullyot Scholar at Chemical Heritage Foundation Theoretical Models, Computer Simulations, and Postwar Industry Juan-Andres Leon, Harvard University Cain Fellow at Chemical Heritage Foundation Public Diplomacy in the Space Age Teasel Muir-Harmony, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Dissertation Writing Fellow at PACHS 2:30 Session 2 The Disease of Commerce: Yellow Fever in the Atlantic World, 1793-1805 Julia Mansfield, Stanford University Dissertation Writing Fellow at PACHS The reorganisation of hospital assistance in post- Revolutionary France: the Recueil Duquesnoy (1799-1804) Mariana Saad, Queen Mary University of London H.B. du Pont Fellow at the Hagley Museum and Library Science and the Fog of War: Communicating Galvanism in the Napoleonic World Iain Watts, Princeton University Edelstein Fellow at Chemical Heritage Foundation Romantic Experimentation: Radical Science and the Politics of Disability Emily B. Stanback, CUNY Graduate Center Haas Fellow at Chemical Heritage Foundation Bumps beyond borders: phrenology and the making of a global science 1815-1850 James Poskett, Cambridge University Research Fellow at PACHS The Rise of the Scientific Journal in Britain and France Alex Csiszar, Harvard University Cain Fellow at Chemical Heritage Foundation Changing Conceptions and Experiences of the Sense of Touch in Britain, c.1870-c.1970 Simeon Koole, University of Oxford William Alexander Fleet Fellow at Princeton University Science international: ideals and realities in a fractured world Robert Fox, University of Oxford Cain Distinguished Fellow at Chemical Heritage Foundation 4:10 Session 3 Radical Empiricism: Natural Science in the Early African American Print Sphere Britt Rusert, University of Massachusetts at Amherst NEH Postdoctoral Fellow at the Library Company of Philadelphia The Lady Testifies: The Strange Career of Alice Bennett, MD, PhD Kenneth J. Weiss, University of Pennsylvania & Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia The Fruit of Their Labors: Exploring William Hamilton's Greenhouse Complex and the Rise of American Botany in Early Federal Philadelphia Sarah Chesney, College of William and Mary Research Fellow at PACHS Before Art Therapy: Understanding art in the context of mental illness Cristina Hanganu-Bresch, University of the Sciences Recipient of Franklin Research Grant at the American Philosophical Society Beyond 'The Sick-Poor and Insane': Philadelphians' Encounters with the Pennsylvania Hospital K.A. Woytonik, University of New Hampshire Research Fellow at PACHS and William T. Golden Fellow at the American Philosophical Society Transforming Reproduction: Artificial Insemination in American Medicine, Families, and Culture, 1860-Present Bridget Gurtler, Bryn Mawr College Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University 5:10 Reception