Working Groups
Active Groups
The Consortium invites area scholars to join our topical working groups for challenging and collegial discussion of interesting publications in their fields and of each others’ works-in-progress.
Each groups meets monthly. All interested scholars are welcome, either in person at the Consortium's offices in Philadelphia, or online via web conferencing software.
Working groups and their regularly scheduled meeting days are listed below. To join a group, click on that group's name, then the "Request group membership" link.
Upcoming Meetings
Please set your timezone.
We will discuss a new article that was awarded the Rainger prize (for early career scholarship in the earth and environmental sciences) at the recent History of Science Society virtual meeting:
Emily M. Kern, "Archaeology Enters the 'Atomic Age': A Short History of Radiocarbon, 1946-1960," British Journal for the History of Science 53, no. 2 (June 2020).
During our gathering, we will also hold the annual meeting of the Earth and Environment Forum of the History of Science Society, which has the same topical purview as this working group.
Adrianna Link, American Philosophical Society: "Cultural Diplomacy, Conservation, and Computers: Designing an International Center in the Smithsonian Quadrangle"
Session 2: "Race in American anthropology"
Kelly O’Donnell, NEH Postdoctoral Fellow, CHSTM, “‘Public Relations in Action’: Doctors’ Wives and the Fight Against Socialized Medicine, 1924–1965.” Commentary by Naomi Rogers, Yale University.
Sietske Fransen will present her WIP titled "Publishing Science in the Seventeenth Century: The cases of Father and Son Van Helmont."
The paper abstract and pre-circulated paper will be available under the "Readings" tab closer to the event. The session will take place over Zoom, which you can access on the date through the "Participate" tab on this page.
If you have any questions leading up to the event, please do not hesitate to reach out to either coordinator.
Epstein, The Ant Trap
Ch. 5-9
Flap Anatomies
By Margaret Carlyle and Marcia D. Nichols
Professors Carlyle and Nichols will lead the group through a discussion of interactive anatomies, particularly those relating to the "science of women."
Margaret Carlyle is an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia Okanagan, where she teaches in the history of science and technology. Margaret is working on two book projects: one on the history of Enlightenment anatomy and the other on the history of midwifery technologies.
- Time Buddy
- Continuing the program from the previous session
Tamara Fernando, University of Cambridge, "Seeing like the Sea: a Multi-Species History of Labour, Capital and Science Underwater at the Pearl Fishery of Ceylon 1800-1925"
William Vogel, University of Minnesota. "Negotiating Cultures of Concealment: Scientists, the Military, and Biological Weapons"
Claude-Olivier Doron, Université Paris Diderot, Precisa de título (title forthcoming)
Emilie Skulberg, "A negative of a black hole: Jean-Pierre Luminet and perspective in black hole imaging, c. 1978-2019" (work in progress).
Everyday Use, Repair & Maintenance in Latin American History
Lukas Rieppel, Brown University: Talk Title TBA
We will discuss selections from two related and recently published books in the history of food, agriculture, environment, and science:
Benjamin R. Cohen, Pure Adulteration: Cheating on Nature in the Age of Manufactured Food (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020), prologue and chapter 4.
Stuart McCook, Coffee Is Not Forever: A Global History of the Coffee Leaf Rust (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2019), introduction and chapter 5.
The two authors will open the discussion with comments on each other's books.
Session 3: "Race, slavery, ethnography"
Main readings:
Arnaud Zimmern will present his WIP titled "Bacon on Boldness, or How to Promise the Prolongation of Life."
You can find the paper abstract under the "Readings" tab, and the pre-circulated will be available in the same place closer to the event. The session will take place over Zoom, which you can access on the date through the "Participate" tab on this page.
If you have any questions leading up to the event, please do not hesitate to reach out to either coordinator.
Epstein, The Ant Trap
TBA, selections from Ch. 10-16
- Time Buddy
- Presenter: Dominik Wujastyk, University of Alberta
- Topic: Readings from the anatomy of Caraka: Carakasaṃhitā, Śārīrasthāna 1
- Bibliography
Session 4: "Antiblackness and indigeneity"
Main readings:
- Time-Buddy
- Presenter: Dominik Wujastyk, University of Alberta
- Topic: Readings from Sanskrit alchemical literature. The Rasendramaṅgala of Nāgārjuna Siddha
- Bibliography
Emily Hutcheson, University of Wisconsin-Madison, "Making Mutually Beneficial Ties: Anna Weber-van Bosse, Symbiosis and the Beginnings of the Self-organized Algological Network, 1880-1904"
Session 5: "Racism in science"
Main readings:
- Time-Buddy
- Presenter: Dominik Wujastyk, University of Alberta
- Topic: Early Modern Eristic: Readings from the medical polemic Rogārogavāda by Vīreśvara
- Bibliography
Leonelli, Data-Centric Biology
TBA, selections
Katharina Steiner, University of Wisconsin-Madison, chapter from her book manuscript Visualizing Marine Biology: Wilhelm Giesbrecht and the Naples Zoological Stations 1880-1913
Johan Gärdebo, Thematic Studies in Environmental Change, Linköping University. "Following the verbs: How 'Observing the Earth' eventuall became the Earth observation satellite SPOT, 1975-1995."
Session 6: "Policing in applied/public anthropology"
Main Readings
Leonelli, Data-Centric Biology
TBA, selections
- Time-Buddy.
- Presenter: Dagmar Wujastyk, University of Alberta
- Topic: Readings from the Kalyāṇakāraka of Ugrāditya (fl. ca. 800 CE), a Jain work on medicine and alchemy.
- Bibliography
Samm Newton, University of Wisconsin-Madison, "Pteropods Realized: From Bio-indication to Bio-inspiration"
Session 7: "Visualization"
Main Readings
Leonelli, Data-Centric Biology
TBA, selections
- Time-buddy
- Presenter: Andrey Klebanov
- Topic: Readings from the anonymous *Suśrutavyākhyā
- Link to the Suśrutavyākhyā at PanditProject.
Larrie Ferreiro, George Mason University, "The Technology of Armed Oceangoing Ships and the Rise of Overseas Empires"
Judy Johns Schloegel, Independent Scholar, "Instituting Biology in the Great Lakes: Scientific Survey Work and Inland Seas Maritime Culture, 1893-1903"