Working Groups

First Meeting of the year! Join us for a social introductory meeting.

Rado, Mei Mei. The Empire’s New Cloth : Cross-Cultural Textiles at the Qing Court. Yale University Press, 2025, Introduction and Chapter Four.
 

At this first gathering, we plan on discussing the larger goals of the group, the tentative schedule of working group topics for the year, and take some initial steps on our archiving project. In anticipation of all of this, we wrote up a short “prompt” for you to think with. Attached!

Book presentation of 

“Beauty: the Body as Artefact. Historical Sources from Cicero to Goya”, ed. by Romana Sammern and Julia Saviello (Routledge 2026, OA, DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003464846) and 

“Selling Pharmaka, buying health in ancient Greece and Rome: retail therapy”, ed. by Laurence Totelin (Routledge 2026)

Ian Stewart (EHESS), "There are no such things as Barbarous Languages: Humboldt, Du Ponceau, and the Languages of the World"

Abstract

Meeting Topic:  We will discuss "Iridescence in Early Modern Natural History Drawings: Butterflies, Beetles, and some Birds" a work-in-progress by Giulia Simonini with initial comments and contextualization from Anne-Valérie Dulac.

                     Download the extended abstract and complete biographies.

Nuance provided by Nicole Liao, "Synthetic Color and Early Experiments in Biological Staining."

Jason Terry (Freie University Berlin) and Pamina Herrmann (Freie University Berlin): Sensing the Unknown: Worlds of Knowledge and Natural Histories in England and the English Empire (17th/18th Century)

Island Tinkerers: Innovation and Transformation in the Making of Taiwan's Computing Industry

At our inaugural meeting, Honghong Tinn will be presenting her recent book Island Tinkerers (MIT Press, 2025) with a focus on Chapter 10. It will be followed by a commentary from Chen-Pang Yeang, and then general discussion and Q&A.

Required reading: Chapter 10 and/or the introduction. Recommended reading: the entire book.

Introductory session: 

a) Meet the conveners and the participants

b) Discuss the working group's orientation to the launch of a new journal, Psychedelic Cultures

c) Discuss plan for the year

Ali Glassie, Northeastern University, Syllabus Assessment Workshop: "Ocean Literacies" 

In this session, we will read and discuss Andrew Williams's working paper, “The ILET Seminar of 1977 and the Entanglement of Academic and Political Networks in the Era of NWICO.“

Welcome Back and New Issue of HoPP* - Community Pharmacy Issue

Hosts/Speakers: Professors Kelly O'Donnell & Lucas Richert 

In this meeting, the editors of HoPP will discuss Pharmacist-Historian Collaborations and reflect on the challenges and surprises of cross-disciplinary work. 

Reviel Netz (Stanford University), discussing Archimedes' The Method

More details TBA

Speaker
Robert Wegner
Researcher, Casa de Oswaldo Cruz (COC/Fiocruz)
Professor, Graduate Program in History of Sciences and Health, Fiocruz

Presentation
Title and abstract will be announced soon.

About Robert

Robert Wegner holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and is a researcher at the Department of Research in History of Sciences and Health at Casa de Oswaldo Cruz (COC/Fiocruz), where he also teaches in the Graduate Program in History of Sciences and Health.

Richard Luke Fallon and Grace Exley, University of Cambridge 

Introduction to Science Studies and the Long Eighteenth Century

This introductory session will set the foundation for the year to come. Participants will have the opportunity to meet new colleagues, learn about new research, and contribute ideas for meeting topics.

Agenda:

First meeting of the Engineering Book and Journal Club.

We'll discuss the book, Vleuten, Erik van der, Ruth Oldenziel, and Mila Davids. Engineering the Future, Understanding the Past: A Social History of Technology. Amsterdam University Press, 2018.

Opening ceremony: roundtable on DHST activities and its comissions.

In this session, representatives of different DHST Commissions will speak about the role and activities DHST is carrying out.

Fernando Amador II, "Street Showers: A Spatial & Environmental History of the American Fire Hydrant"

Geoff Belknap, National Museum of Scotland