Working Groups

The Consortium invites 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 group meets monthly. All interested scholars are welcome to participate via online video conferencing.

To join a working group, you must have an account on the Consortium website first.

  1. Log in, or create an account
  2. Click on a group below
  3. Click on the "Request Membership" link
Submit a discussion paper for one of the working groups.

Upcoming Meetings

Please set your timezone.

Wednesday, November 4, 2026, 8:00 - 9:30 am EST

Digital humanities and AI: use and limits as methodological tools.

In this session, speakers will introduce the area of digital humanities. They will also talk about the challenges of this area for doing research.

Giovanna Di Rosario (Polimi).

Wednesday, November 4, 2026, 10:30 am - 12:00 pm EST

Alina Bykova, Stanford University, 

"Svalbard is a state of mind: heroism, science and the international Arctic (1920-1939)"

Thursday, November 5, 2026, 11:00 am - 12:30 pm EST

Dr. Brad Scott, Researcher at Queen Mary University of London, and Scientific Associate at the Natural History Museum, London

Privateers, Wrecks and Curiosity: The collections of George Handisyd, surgeon, 1686-92

Thursday, November 5, 2026, 2:00 - 3:30 pm EST

Mikhail Moosa, "The Making of Racial Ecology: Sanitation, Segregation, and Housing in Johannesburg, 1900-1920"

Friday, November 6, 2026, 12:00 - 1:30 pm EST

Erin McLeary and Myles Chang Matunis, Mütter Museum and Historical Medical Library

"Drawing From the Archive: Exploring the Legacy of a Queer Medical Illustrator and her Art"

Tuesday, November 10, 2026, 3:00 - 4:30 am EST

NOTE SPECIAL TIME

Kathryn Tanaka (University of Hyogo) The Fruit of Illness: Politics, Patient Labor and Poetry in Twentieth Century Japanese Leprosaria

Wednesday, November 11, 2026, 12:00 - 1:30 pm EST

Francesca Tancini (PiCoBoo Project, Newcastle University, University of Bologna) on 'Walter Crane and Edmund Evans: the two faces of colour-printing for all'

Thursday, November 12, 2026, 12:00 - 1:30 pm EST

Joint Session with the Technology Working Group

Danielle Wallner presents a chapter from her dissertation Computing at the Periphery: Novosibirsk and the Development of Computer Science, 1960–1991

Documents to be circulated shortly.

Friday, November 13, 2026, 12:30 - 2:00 pm EST

Hamza Diman (Bundeswehr Universität Munich), "From Firewood to Charcoal: Socio-Technical Energy Transitions in Domestic Cooking Practices in Lomé, Togo"

Tuesday, November 17, 2026, 2:00 - 3:30 pm EST

Magdalena Grüner, University of Southern California, paper title TBA

Wednesday, November 18, 2026, 10:00 - 11:30 am EST

North-South knowledge exchange: critical thinking and new perspectives.

This session will explore the processes, as well as the tensions, of knowledge exchange between the Global North and Global South

 

Michael Barany (Edinburgh): Michael Barany is Senior Lecturer in History of Science at the University of Edinburgh and researches and teaches the history and culture of modern science and mathematics. https://mbarany.com.

Wednesday, November 18, 2026, 12:00 - 1:30 pm EST

Theriac: Beyond the Recipe (Roundtable)

Speakers: Danuta Raj, Barbara Splendore, and Katarzyna Pękacka-Falkowska

Description: TBA

 

Thursday, November 19, 2026, 10:00 - 11:30 am EST

Forests and/as Infrastructure

Thursday, November 19, 2026, 2:00 - 3:30 pm EST

William Deringer (MIT), TBA.

Wednesday, November 25, 2026, 10:00 - 11:30 am EST

Andrés Salas

Wednesday, November 25, 2026, 12:00 - 1:30 pm EST

Katharine Whitman presents The History, Identification and Preservation of Photographs on Glass 

Katharine is a photograph conservator at the Art Gallery of Ontario, in Toronto, Canada is writing a Getty Conservation Institute book! 

Friday, November 27, 2026, 11:00 am - 12:00 pm EST

Meeting to be rescheduled due to holiday

Tuesday, December 1, 2026, 8:00 - 9:30 am EST

Dilip K Das, "Narrating Spaces of Contagion."

Tuesday, December 1, 2026, 10:00 - 11:30 am EST

Topic: History of Astronomy and Exobiology as a guide for understanding scientific discovery (and disappointments)

 

 

Wednesday, December 2, 2026, 8:00 - 9:30 am EST

Closing ceremony and final reflections.

 

Conveners of the group.

Image
Natalie King speaking at the Rewriting the Story of Girls' Education in Stem event, held at the Wagner Free Institute of Science on March 7, 2019

Natalie King speaking at the Rewriting the Story of Girls' Education in Stem event, held at the Wagner Free Institute of Science on March 7, 2019.

Past Groups and Seminars