BSLS members may be interested in the National Humanities Center’s project ‘On the Human’, which is an online forum for humanities scholars and scientists to ’share their ideas and research’. A number of eminent scholars in the literature and science field have published essays in the forum, including N. Katherine Hayles (‘Distributing/Disturbing the Chinese Room’) and Joseph Carroll (‘The Adaptive Function of Literature and the Other Arts’), and each is followed by substantial comments from other scholars. On 21 June, the site will publish a new essay on ‘Late Darwin and the Problem of the Human’ by the Society’s President, Professor Dame Gillian Beer.
You are currently browsing Alice Jenkins’s articles.
Call for papers
International Interdisciplinary Conference, 17-18 February 2011
Centre for the History of Medicine and Disease, Durham University, UK
Deadline for submission of abstracts: 31 July 2010
This conference will discuss the history of the relationship between aesthetics and medical understandings of the body. Today’s vogue for neurological accounts of artistic emotions has a long pedigree. Since G.S. Rousseau’s pioneering work underlined the importance of models of the nervous system in eighteenth-century aesthetics, the examination of physiological explanations in aesthetics has become a highly productive field of interdisciplinary research. Drawing on this background, the conference aims to illuminate the influence that different medical models of physiology and the nervous system have had on theories of aesthetic experience. How have aesthetic concepts (for instance, imagination or genius) be grounded medically? What effect did the shift from animal spirits to modern neurophysiology have on aesthetics?
This interdisciplinary conference brings together scholars working in a wide range of fields, including not only the history of medicine but also in subjects such as art history, languages and musicology.
Call for papers
School of History, University of Liverpool, 17 -18 June 2010
Since the publication of Paul Boyer’s seminal study By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age in 1985, the examination of nuclear culture has mainly been conducted within the context of the United States. In spite of the fact that nuclear culture in Britain was, and still is, pervasive and powerful, scholars have largely neglected the topic, and it remains unclear how the term ‘nuclear culture’ should be understood.
‘British Nuclear Culture: Themes, Approaches and Perspectives’ sets out firstly to investigate the unique nature of nuclear culture in twentieth century Britain and, secondly, to rethink the conceptualisation of nuclear culture more generally. We are seeking to explore the impact nuclear culture had on British society, and the ways in which the scientific community, political decision-makers, consumerism, works of popular science, literature, journalism and film combined to create an identifiable nuclear culture. Also, because established studies have focused predominantly on the socio-cultural and political implications of nuclear energy and weapons, our conference aims to move towards a broader conceptualisation of nuclear culture in general.
A conference on this theme will be held at Jadavpur University (Kolkata, India), from 6-8 February 2010.
Keynote speaker: Professor Dame Gillian Beer.
The scientific temper of the nineteenth century – post-Newton – is revealed in pursuits in fields as varied as astronomy and geology, which dominated the first half of the century, and evolutionary biology which posed a serious challenge to the certitudes of religion in the decades following the landmark publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859). Apart from these major ‘natural sciences’ and cosmology, the ‘social’ sciences such as anthropology, sociology and psychology also attracted much attention, as did the more whimsical fields of study like phrenology, craniology, and sexology. Such varied scientific explorations offered a rich mine for the literary imagination in terms of both themes and images, inspiring both utopic futuristic visions of human existence as well as parodic spine-chilling versions of dystopia. The Darwinian legacy also accounted for both the positive faith in progress and perfectibility as well as the impression of brooding melancholy, the emotional disquiet and spiritual crisis – fuelled by the apparently amoral randomness of the universe and thoughts of the extinction of species that invariably accompany progress to higher forms – that are so characteristic of the Victorian period.
We invite papers (of approx. 30 mins duration) which address any of the broad issues within the parameters set above or, indeed, any other related area. Titles and abstracts of papers should reach either of the conference organisers by 15 December 2009: Supriya Chaudhuri (supriya.chaudhuri@gmail.com), Shanta Dutta (shanta.dutta@gmail.com).
Application deadline: 15/11/2008
The PhD-Net “Internationalisation of Literature and Science since the Early Modern Period” is a bi-national PhD programme run collaboratively by King’s College London and the University of Stuttgart, which aims to forge interdisciplinary connections between various subjects in the Humanities (German Studies, English Studies, Comparative Literature, Philosophy, and the Histories of Medicine, Science and Technology). Partner institutions in Germany include the German Literature Archive in Marbach and the Institute for the History of Medicine of the Robert Bosch Foundation.
An international research group will support and connect projects which address both inter- and trans-national tendencies within the Humanities. Projects will develop both theoretical models for the as yet under-researched area of internationalisation within the Humanities, as well as critically assess historical case studies from the early modern period onwards, which address the role of exchange movements and networks and the transfer of topics, practices and methods in literature and science. Of particular interest is the relevance of literature(s) for the internationalisation of the sciences, alongside critical reflections on the significance of the presentation and the mediality of knowledge (language, text, image) for its circulation, communication and implementation.
For further info, including application procedure, please click here or contact Ben Schofield (benedict.schofield@kcl.ac.uk).
A symposium on Euclidean geometry in nineteenth- and early twentieth-
century British culture will be held in Cambridge, UK, 1-2 October 2009. The event will be highly interdisciplinary and easily accessible to non-
mathematicians. Speakers include Professors Dame Gillian Beer, Joan L.
Richards, Jeremy Gray, Marilyn Gaull, Linda Henderson and Robin Wilson. We aim to investigate the effects on British literature, art, and architecture of Euclidean geometry’s centrality and prestige in the education of Victorian elites, artisans and auto-didacts of both sexes.
The symposium will be held at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), and is funded by the European Research Council. Anyone interested in Victorian literature and science, education, or mathematics are very welcome to attend. The regular fee is £20; a reduced rate is available. Please contact the conference organiser, a.jenkins_at_englit.arts.gla.ac.uk, if you would like to attend.
A one-day interdisciplinary postgraduate conference exploring intersections of the natural world with nineteenth-century literature
and culture, to be held at the University of Edinburgh, Saturday, 6 February 2010.
Keynote speakers: Dr Martin Willis, University of Glamorgan, Dr Christine Ferguson, University of Glasgow, Professor Nick Daly, University College Dublin.
In the twenty-first century, environmentalism and the impacts of climate change form a nexus of intense debates about relationship between human culture and the natural world. However, the centrality of the natural world to the nineteenth century imagination has long been acknowledged by scholars, way-marked by Lynn Merrill’s The Romance of Victorian Natural History (1989) for example, while Mike Davis’s Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World (2002) demonstrates the relevance of nineteenth-century research to the modern world.
This conference probes the significance of nature to the long nineteenth century and to our study of its literature, history, science, art, and other media. How did the natural world influence people in the nineteenth century?and how did nineteenth-century culture shape attitudes to the natural world? Have twenty-first century questions over nature, climate, and the environment changed the way we view and study the cultural products of the nineteenth century, or offered new avenues for research, especially interdisciplinary research?
Possible topics could include but are not limited to:
Representations of nature in history, literature, drama, poetry, art, theatre Representations of, or human relationships with: oceans and the seaside, mountains and the countryside, rivers, lakes, gardens, working animals, pets Natural history, specimens, collecting, displaying Science and human or animal nature: hybridity, husbandry, eugenics; Darwinism and biology; Lyell and geology Climate change, environmentalism, eco-criticism, the ecotopia The natural world in romance, Gothic, the fantastic Natural horror, biological monstrosity and the limits of the human The (un)natural city, machine, media The (super)natural world: ghosts, spiritualism, Gothic Theoretical approaches to human and animal nature or the representation of nature.
Postgraduate and early-career researchers are invited to submit 300 word proposals for 20 minute papers or proposals for panels to natureconference@ed.ac.uk by 16 November 2009. .
Organisers: Claire McKechnie, University of Edinburgh and Dr Emily Alder, Edinburgh Napier University. Contact us at natureconference@ed.ac.uk.
We are grateful for the support of the British Association for Victorian Studies, the British Society for Literature and Science, and the Centre for Literature and Writing at Edinburgh Napier University.
DARWIN, TENNYSON and their READERS:
A Bicentenary Celebration, 1809-2009
2009 marks the bicentenary of the birth of both Charles Darwin and
Alfred Tennyson. Our one-day conference will celebrate this event
by exploring the interaction of literature and science in the Victorian
period, mining the rich vein of research opened up by Professor Dame
Gillian Beer in Darwin’s Plots (1983) and developed by Professor
George Levine in Darwin and the Novelists (1988).
Professors Beer and Levine will both present plenary papers at the
conference, outlining the latest thinking and building on the central
insight that ‘the cultural traffic ran both ways’. Short papers will
therefore explore, not only the influence of Darwin on writers as various
as George Eliot, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Thomas Hardy, but in
addition the ways in which Victorian scientists, in particular Thomas
Huxley, read and misread Tennyson and other writers, including
Darwin’s favourite novelist Charles Dickens. There will be papers on the
effect of evolutionary debates on women writers, notably Sarah Grand
and Augusta Webster.
Speakers will include David Amigoni, Gowan Dawson, Roger Ebbatson,
Matthew Rowlinson, Marion Shaw, Rebecca Stott and Clive Wilmer.
For further information contact valerie.purton _at_ anglia.ac.uk.
Poetry and Science: The Case of Humphry Davy
Applications are invited for a fully-funded PhD award to study the manuscript and published poetry of the chemist Humphry Davy, 1778–1829. This collaborative award, to be supervised jointly by experts at the University of Salford and the Royal Institution of Great Britain (www.rigb.org), will involve the student spending one year based at the Royal Institution in London, transcribing Davy’s poetry and participating in the institution’s public-facing activities.
How to apply:
Application forms can be downloaded at:
http://www.salford.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/postgraduate-research/applying/. The closing date for applications is 26 June 2009.
Enquiries should be made to Professor Sharon Ruston, s.ruston@salford.ac.uk or on 0161 295 5071.
DICKENS DAY – Dickens and Science
Saturday 10 October 2009, London
G. H. Lewes famously criticised Dickens’s failure to engage with contemporary scientific thought and proffer psychologically convincing characters, describing them as ‘frogs whose brains have been taken out for physiological purposes’. Recent work, however, has significantly challenged the truism that Dickens was indifferent or even hostile towards the scientific discoveries and discourses of his age. Dubbed a member of ‘the steam-whistle party’ by Ruskin, he was volubly enthusiastic about technological and scientific advancements and discoveries, including steam-driven modes of transport and manufacture, industrialism, geology, evolutionary biology and the mutual relations of humanity and animal life. He also had interests in mesmerism, phrenology and physiology. From his enthusiastic article ‘The Poetry of Science’ (Examiner, 9 December 1848) to Little Dorrit’s fictional locomotive Mr Pancks, who ‘snorted and sniffed and puffed and blew, like a little labouring steam-engine’ and the ‘Megalosaurus’ stalking the opening of Bleak House, Dickens’s oeuvre contains multiple traces of contemporary scientific thought.
This one-day conference seeks to explore scientific and technological ideas and metaphors in Dickens’s novels and journalism and to place his life, work and thought in the context of Victorian science. We invite proposals for 20-minute papers on any aspect of the theme and warmly encourage postgraduate students to apply.
Topics could include but are not limited to:
Darwinian and Lamarckian evolutionary theories and metaphors
Geology and palaeontology
Hereditary transmission of behaviour and the biology of character
Affect and emotion
Inventors and new technologies
Professionalisation and the emergence of science as a discipline
Criminality, detection and forensics
Physiognomy, phrenology and the science of the grotesque
Mesmerism and spiritualism
Psychology, cognition and mental illness
Gender, sexuality and the science and politics of normalisation
Energy and thermodynamics
Vivisection
Psychological (im)plausibility, melodramatic aesthetics and radical politics
The ‘dismal sciences’: economics, political economy and Utilitarianism
Please send proposals (maximum 500 words), together with details of your institutional affiliation (if any) to Holly Furneaux and Ben Winyard, at hf35@le.ac.uk and jwiny02@students.bbk.ac.uk. The deadline for paper proposals is 31 May 2009.
The SLSA-EU 2010 conference is dedicated to exploring fabrics, structures, surfaces, and interfaces in a world that has been transformed to a large extent through technoscience and networked media. This transformed world is highly textured, partly through verbal and non-verbal ‘texts’ but also by mixtures of human-made and given environments whose complexity offers resistance to symbolic readings.
The conference site is here. The deadline for paper proposals is 16 August 2009.
A one-day conference on this subject will be held at the University of Salford on Friday 4th
December 2009.
It has been 150 years since Thomas de Quincey died on the 8th December
1859. Conference papers are invited on any topic concerning his work,
Manchester, and medicine, during the period of his lifetime (1785-1859).
Plenary speaker Peter Kitson (author of Romantic Literature, Race, and
Colonial Encounter, 2008) will speak on ‘Mr De Quincey and Dr White: The
Racial Politics of Manchester Medicine’, and Grevel Lindop (author of The
Opium-Eater: A Life of Thomas De Quincey, 1981) will speak on ‘Confessions
and Case Histories: De Quincey and the Medical Sublime’. We are hoping to
show an exhibition of de Quincey books from the University of Salford’s
archives to accompany the conference.
Please send abstracts of no more than 200 words to Sharon Ruston,
s.ruston@salford.ac.uk
This conference is sponsored by BARS, the British Association for Romantic
Studies.
The Darwin Correspondence Project will award two prizes of £1000 each for the best student essays on science and religion that use materials from Darwin’s letters. The competition is open to students from all disciplines, nationalities, and stages of education. One prize will be awarded to a university or post-graduate student; the maximum length for these submissions is 8000 words. The other prize will be awarded to a school student; the maximum length for these submissions is 3000 words. The essay must be in English. The closing date for submissions is 1 May 2009.
Sex, Ethics and Psychology: The Networks and Cultural Context of Albert Moll (1862-1939). A two-day conference examining the work of Albert Moll in the context of late Imperial and Weimar Germany medicine, culture and society and also looking at the international impact of his work.
Sponsored by the Northern Centre for the History of Medicine supported by the Wellcome Trust
Thursday 5th – Friday 6th November, 2009
Centre for the History of Medicine and Disease, Durham University, Wolfson Research Institute, Queen’s Campus, Stockton-on-Tees, TS17 6BH.
Numeracy: Historical, philosophical and educational perspectives
St Anne’s College, Oxford
Wednesday 16 to Friday 18 December 2009 (lunchtime to lunchtime).
In recent years studies of the history of mathematics have turned increasing attention to the mathematical experiences of ordinary people and to the teaching, learning and using of mathematics which takes place outside elite contexts and away from individuals who might ordinarily identify themselves as mathematicians. At the same time a focus exists in the educational world on the key skill of numeracy, its nature and its acquisition. Philosophers of mathematics have long been interested in the nature of our understanding of numbers and numerical operations and the nature of basic arithmetical knowledge.
This conference seeks to bring together these different approaches to numeracy, in order to share insights about what numeracy is, how we can recognise it (or its absence), how it relates to other cognitive capacities and other fundamental questions concerning basic numerical abilities. It will also provide a forum for the discussion of detailed case studies from the different realms of history, philosophy, and education, which will, it is hoped, prove mutually stimulating and fruitful for new interactions between these fields.
Novel and/or interdisciplinary approaches are particularly welcomed, and we can accept pertinent studies based on any historical period or geographical region.
Confirmed invited speakers:
Philosophy: Marcus Giaquinto (University College, London); Stephen Laurence (University of Sheffield)
History: Natasha Glaisyer (York University); Jane Wess (Science Museum, London); Kathryn James (Yale)
Education: Terezinha Nunes (University of Oxford); Tom Roper (University of Leeds)
The cost will be £100, and will include two nights’ B&B accommodation at St Anne’s College, and attendance at the conference dinner on the 17th (a reduced rate of £50 will apply to students and to those who do not require overnight accommodation).
To propose a paper for consideration please send the title and abstract (approximately 200 words), together with your name and affiliation, in the body of an email to the address below. The deadline for the receipt of proposals is 31 July; every effort will be made to make decisions by 15 September. Speaking slots will be of 30 minutes, including time for questions.
Non-speaking delegates are also very welcome: to reserve a place please email the address below.
Organiser:
Dr Benjamin Wardhaugh
All Souls College
Oxford OX1 4AL
UK
benjamin.wardhaugh@all-souls.ox.ac.uk
The European Science Open Forum will be held in Turin, Italy, 2-7 June 2010. It’s a large, very international meeting of scientists, journalists, policy makers and members of the public. The call for proposals emphasises interdisciplinary research and includes strands on science and language and science and culture. The deadline for proposals is June 15, 2009. You can read about the conference themes here, and the call for proposals is here.
The Arts meet Science in a series of provocative talks, where anything could happen.
The Arts-Science Encounters are a series of talks bringing together researchers from across the University´s five faculties and recognised external speakers. The topics are broad ranging, including speakers from more than twenty disciplines, ranging from Chemistry, Fashion Design, Literature and Law, to Music, Neuroscience and Physics. Guest speakers and soloists include Darwin’s great-great grand-daughter Ruth Padel, former Lindsay Quartet cellist Bernard Gregor-Smith, and renowned science writers Richard Holmes and Denis Noble. The talks are free and open to the general public and are pitched at non-specialists.
Details of the programme are available here.
Cultivating Empire: Exploration, Science and Literature
An Interdisciplinary Conference featuring the work and influence of Sir Joseph Banks
Lincoln, UK, 17-18 April 2009
Featured speakers: Richard Holmes (biographer of Shelley and Coleridge and
author of The Age of Wonder); G.S. Rousseau (historian of medicine: co-author
of Gout: the Patrician Malady); Stephen Daniels (geographer: biographer of
Humphry Repton); John Bonehill (art historian: co-author of William Hodges
1747-1797: The Art of Exploration); Anna Agnarsdottir (historian: editor of
Banks’s Iceland papers); Martin Davies (novelist: author of The Conjurer’s
Bird); David Robinson (historian of Banks and Lincolnshire); Neil Chambers
(Director of the Banks Archive and Editor of his Indian and Pacific
Correspondence).
This multidisciplinary conference will examine the intersections between the
local and the global–the English shire and the colonial shore– in the years
1750-1850. the conference has as its centre
Sir Joseph Banks but also aims more broadly to present critical work in the
following areas:
- the history of exploration and of colonial settlement (e.g. in Australiasia, the
South Pacific, Africa, India, the NW coast of America, the Poles, and in Britain
itself)
- the development of colonialism as a system (for instance, the application to a
global network of forms of administration and control pioneered on the English
country estate)
- the cultural impact of the exploration and settlement of previously-unknown
regions (e.g. in verbal and visual representations: art, theatre, poetry and
fiction, journalism, travel writing; and vis-a-vis Orientalism, Omai, Tahiti,
and India)
- natural philosophy in Britain and abroad (e.g. plant exchange, imperial botany,
geological mapping, imperial medicine, the Royal Society, Kew Gardens, Hooker)
agricultural improvement at home and in the colonies (e.g. Captain Bligh and the
breadfruit scheme, the import and export of crops and livestock, the Royal
Society of Arts)
- local history: the relationship of antiquarian study to the practice of natural
philosophy in the empire
- Sir Joseph Banks: any aspect of his life and work
archives and correspondence: the role of collections, letters and information
stores, then and now, in knowledge-production and staging empire
- the late eighteenth-century gentry as a class
- the exchange and cultural meanings of technologies and objects
- gender and sexuality in the fields of colonialism and exploration.
Submissions for 20 minute papers are invited from historians of science,
literary critics, geographers, students of local history, garden historians,
colonial critics and all others interested in the cultures of late eighteenth
and early nineteenth-century Britain. Abstracts of no more than 200 words should be sent by email to tim.fulford@ntu.ac.uk by 20 February 2009.
Organisers: Neil Chambers, Sir Joseph Banks Archive, Nottingham Trent
University; Tim Fulford, Dept ELH, Nottingham Trent University; Ian Packer,
School of Humanities and Performing Arts, University of Lincoln; The Sir
Joseph Banks Society.
BSLS members and readers of this website may be interested in SciTalk, a website facility run by Dr Ann Lingard and designed to offer “a way for scientists to communicate their expertise and their enthusiasm to writers, and a way for writers to find out about science and how scientists ‘work’ — through personal contact and meeting face-to-face, not just by email or phone.”
On 7 May 1959, C. P. Snow delivered the Rede Lecture in Cambridge. His influential and controversial address on the subject of ‘The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution’ critiqued an increasing fissure between ‘literary intellectuals’ and ‘natural scientists’.
The London Consortium is bringing together the Science Museum, Tate Modern and Birkbeck, University of London, in a three-day conference to mark fifty years of the two cultures. Divided into two more specialised academic events and a more public occasion, the conference will consider whether Snow’s critique has been addressed by the increase in multi-disciplinary work and research and the emergence of new cultural forms. Or have the distinctions between and within the two cultures become further entrenched? How have the terms of the debate changed?
Thursday 22nd January, Birkbeck, University of London. Room B01, Clore Management Centre, Torrington Square, London. 9.30am-5.30pm.
A day of academic papers from leading and emerging scholars in the field.
Keynote address: Professor Patricia Waugh (University of Durham).
Please contact Laura Salisbury to book a place: l.salisbury@bbk.ac.uk
Friday 23rd January, Dana Centre, Science Museum, Exhibition Rd, London. 9.30am-5.30pm.
A day of academic papers from leading and emerging scholars in the field.
Plenary papers:
Professor George Rousseau (Oxford University)
Dr Robert Bud (Science Museum)
Professor John Dupré (Exeter University)
To book a place, go to:
http://www.danacentre.org.uk/events/2009/01/23/460
Saturday 24th January, Tate Modern, Bankside, London. 10.30am-5.30pm.
A day of public lectures from renowned figures in the field.
Gillian Beer
Ben Goldacre
Anthony Grayling
Jonathan Miller
Alan Sokal
Book tickets at:
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/eventseducation/symposia/16580.htm
Booking for the Darwin Festival in Cambridge, 5-10 July 2009, is now open. Among events that may be of interest to BSLS members:
Wednesday July 8th
A.S. Byatt in conversation with Professor Gillian Beer
and
Ian McEwan in conversation with Professor David Amigoni
Wednesday July 8th and Thursday July 9th
Sessions on Darwin on stage, in poetry, in the visual arts, and in music
‘The making of Mr Gray’s Anatomy’, a talk by Ruth Richardson
Tuesday 4 November 2008, 7.00pm-8.30pm
The Veins of the Exterior of the Head and Face
Gray’s Anatomy is probably one of the most iconic scientific books ever published: an illustrated textbook of anatomy that is still a household name 150 years since its first edition, known for its rigorously scientific text, and masterful illustrations as beautiful as they are detailed. This event will tell the story of the creation of this remarkable book, and the individuals who made it happen: Henry Gray, the bright and ambitious physiologist, poised for medical fame and fortune, who was the book’s author; Carter, the brilliant young illustrator, lacking Gray’s social advantages, shy and inclined to religious introspection; and the publishers – Parkers, father and son, the father eager to employ new technology, the son part of a lively circle of intellectuals. It is the story of changing attitudes in the mid-19th century; of the social impact of science, the changing status of medicine; of poverty and class; of craftsmanship and technology. And it all unfolds in the atmospheric milieu of Victorian London – taking you from the smart townhouses of Belgravia, to the dissection room of St George’s Hospital, and to the workhouses and mortuaries where we meet the friendless poor who would ultimately be immortalised in Carter’s engravings.
Alongside the story of the making of the book itself, Ruth Richardson reflects on what made Gray’s Anatomy such a unique intellectual, artistic, and cultural achievement – how it represented a summation of a long half century’s blossoming of anatomical knowledge and exploration, and how it appeared just at the right time to become the ‘Doctor’s Bible’ for generations of medics to follow.
Tickets cost £8 standard, £6 concessions and £4 Ri members.
See http://www.rigb.org/contentControl?action=displayContent&id=2429
Tags: Lecture, Related Events
The BSHS Annual Conference will take place at Stamford Hall, University of Leicester from 2 – 5 July 2009. The Programme Committee invites papers or sessions from historians of science, technology and medicine and their colleagues in the wider scholarly community on any theme, topic or period.
The Programme Committee welcomes proposals for sessions or individual papers from researchers of all nationalities at all stages of their careers. Participation is in no way limited to members of the Society although members will receive a discount on the registration fee.
Session proposals should normally consist of three or four papers, with or without a commentator. Sessions will be 90 minutes to 2 hours long. If you wish to depart from this rule or wish to submit a session of a different type, eg. round-table, witness seminar please discuss this with us in advance of the Call for Papers deadline.
Proposals for individual papers should include an abstract of no more than 250 words with no footnotes and comprehensible to a non-specialist audience.
Full details on how to submit your session proposal or individual abstract are available on the BSHS website.
The deadline for submitting a session or abstract is 23 January 2009.
Enquiries concerning this conference should be directed to bshsLeicester2009@bshs.org.uk
People Power for the Third Millennium:Technology, Democracy and Human Rights
BioCentre is pleased to announce the fourth symposium of the series:
Arts & Technology: The Role of the Arts in Democratic Policy Making, Tuesday 14th October 2008 at the National Theatre, Southbank, 2-5pm, followed by drinks reception.
When it comes to developments in science and technology, public perceptions on these issues are influenced largely by the various sources in the public square including the media and the arts. When it comes to the particular issue of emerging technologies, developments in this field have been at best met with caution, at worst with a negative response. Yet where has the real conversation concerning these issues taken place?
Speakers include:
Paul Meade
Director and joint artistic director of Gúna Nua Theatre Company, Dublin and winner of the Irish
Council on Bioethics arts competition
Speaking on: ‘Begotten Not Made’
Dr. Andy Miah
Reader in New Media & Bioethics, University of the West of Scotland.
Speaking on: ‘Art in an Age of Uncertainty’
Dr. Chamu Kuppuswamy
Lecturer in Law, University of Sheffield and co‐ordinator of the Arts and Bioethics Network
Speaking on: ‘Bioethics policy making‐ Is there a role for the Arts?’
Justina Robson
UK science fiction writer
“…one of the very best of the new British hard SF writers.” – The Guardian newspaper
Speaking on: ‘The Good, The Bad and The Indifferent: ethical explorations in Science Fiction’.
Chairing the panel Q&A session will be Dr. Rob La Frenais, curator of The Arts Catalyst—the science art agency. The Art of Bioethics II Exhibition convened by the Arts Bioethics Network, will be on display throughout the symposium. RSVPs are required. Please include your name and the organisation that you represent in your response. There is no charge for the event. To RSVP: e: info@bioethics.ac.uk / t: 0207 227 4706 / w: www. bioethics.ac.uk
Science Museum and Tate Modern, London, 23-24 January 2009
On 7 May 1959, C. P. Snow delivered the Rede Lecture in Cambridge on the subject of The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. A failed scientist and a moderately successful novelist, C. P. Snow drew on his experience as a Civil Service Commissioner to consider what seemed to him to be an increasing fissure between ‘literary intellectuals’ and ‘natural scientists’. In part an attack on the perceived insularity, decadence and political sterility of the London literary scene, in part a complaint about the poverty of a humanities education and a demand for curriculum reform in schools and universities, the lecture was, most fundamentally, a critique of the lack of mutually intelligible exchange between the two cultures. As the 1950s drew to a close, Snow believed that only a national culture as aware of the importance of knowing the second law of thermodynamics as of knowing the plays of Shakespeare, would be fit to offer developing countries the scientific and technological solutions to poverty and deprivation that were so urgently required.
The London Consortium is bringing together the Science Museum and Tate Modern in a two-day conference to mark fifty years of the two cultures. Divided into a more specialised academic event and a more public occasion, it will consider the history of this debate, asking whether Snow’s critique has been addressed by the increase in multi-disciplinary research, alongside the expansion of educational curricula and provision within science and the humanities. But in a world of increasing disciplinary specialisation in which there has been exponential growth of sub-disciplines in both science and the humanities, it will also ask whether the distinctions between and indeed within the two cultures might have become further entrenched. The most fundamental question this celebration of 50 years since Snow’s lecture will ask, though, is how the terms of the debate may have changed.
We invite papers for a conference at the Science Museum on 23rd January 2009, that consider questions such as the following: How have new technologies such as the internet and new resources like Wikipedia reconfigured our sense of disciplinary boundaries, hierarchies of knowledge and the places where cultural capital is held? Has the new dominance within general culture of ideas drawn from the ‘life sciences’ ? molecular biology, genetics and biochemistry, ecology, epidemiology ? and their unpredictable pressings upon fundamental questions of how and why humans and other organisms should find themselves and their relationships defined in particular ways, led to an ever more complex and porous boundary between science and the humanities? How are Snow’s notions of disciplinary and national cultures to be rethought through the paradigms and politics of globalisation?
Please send 200-word abstracts for papers (20 minutes maximum) by November 1st to Dr. Laura Salisbury, School of English and Humanities, Birkbeck, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX or l.salisbury@bbk.ac.uk.
Tags: CFP
The following statement is being printed in the editorial pages of many of the major journals in science studies:
Journals under Threat: A Joint Response from History of Science, Technology and Medicine Editors
We live in an age of metrics. All around us, things are being standardized, quantified, measured. Scholars concerned with the work of science and technology must regard this as a fascinating and crucial practical, cultural and intellectual phenomenon. Analysis of the roots and meaning
of metrics and metrology has been a preoccupation of much of the best work in our field for the past quarter century at least. As practitioners of the interconnected disciplines that make up the field of science studies we understand how significant, contingent and uncertain can be the process of rendering nature and society in grades, classes and numbers. We now confront a situation in which our own research work is being subjected to putatively precise accountancy by arbitrary and unaccountable agencies. Some may already be aware of the proposed European Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH), an initiative originating with the European Science Foundation. The ERIH is an attempt to grade journals in the humanities – including “history and philosophy of science”. The initiative proposes a league table of academic journals, with premier, second and third divisions. According to the European Science Foundation, ERIH “aims initially to identify, and gain more visibility for, top-quality European Humanities research published in academic journals in, potentially, all European languages”. It is hoped “that ERIH will form the backbone of a fully-fledged research information system for the Humanities”. What is meant, however, is that ERIH will provide funding bodies and other agencies in Europe and elsewhere with an allegedly exact measure of research quality. In short, if research is published in a premier league journal it will be recognized as first rate; if it appears somewhere in the lower divisions, it will be rated (and not funded) accordingly. This initiative is entirely defective in conception and execution. Consider the major issues of accountability and transparency. The process of producing the graded list of journals in science studies was overseen by a committee of four (panel member’s details). This committee cannot be considered representative. It was not
selected in consultation with any of the various disciplinary organizations that currently represent our field such as the European Association for the History of Medicine and Health, the Society for the Social History of Medicine, the British Society for the History of Science, the History of Science Society, the Philosophy of Science Association, the Society for the History of Technology or the Society for Social Studies of Science. Journal editors were only belatedly informed of the process and its relevant criteria or asked to provide any information regarding their publications.
No indication hgiven of the means through which the list was compiled; nor how it might be maintained in the future. The ERIH depends on a fundamental misunderstanding of conduct and publication of research in our field, and in the humanities in general. Journals’ quality cannot be
separated from their contents and their review processes. Great research may be published anywhere and in any language. Truly ground-breaking work may be more likely to appear from marginal, dissident or unexpected sources, rather than from a well-established and entrenched mainstream. Our journals are various, heterogeneous and distinct. Some are aimed at a broad, general and international readership, others are more specialized in their content and implied audience. Their scope and readership say nothing about the quality of their intellectual content. The ERIH, on the other hand, confuses internationality with quality in a way that is particularly prejudicial to specialist and non-English language journals. In a recent report, the British Academy, with judicious understatement, concludes that “the European Reference Index for the Humanities as presently conceived does not represent a reliable way in which metrics of peer-reviewed publications can be constructed” (Peer Review: the Challenges for the Humanities and Social Sciences, September 2007: http://www.britac.ac.uk/reports/peer-review). Such exercises as ERIH can become self- fulfilling prophecies. If such measures as ERIH are adopted as metrics by funding and other agencies, then many in our field will conclude that they have little choice other than to limit their publications to journals in the premier division. We will sustain fewer journals, much less diversity and impoverish our discipline. Along with many others in our field, this Journal has concluded that we want no part of this dangerous and misguided exercise. This joint Editorial is being published in journals across the fields of history of science and science studies as an expression of our collective dissent and our refusal to allow our field to be managed and appraised in this fashion. We have asked the compilers of the ERIH to remove our journals’ titles from their lists.
Hanne Andersen (Centaurus)
Roger Ariew & Moti Feingold (Perspectives on Science)
A. K. Bag (Indian Journal of History of Science)
June Barrow-Green & Benno van Dalen (Historia mathematica)
Keith Benson (History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences)
Marco Beretta (Nuncius)
Michel Blay (Revue d’Histoire des Sciences)
Cornelius Borck (Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte)
Geof Bowker and Susan Leigh Star (Science, Technology and Human Values)
Massimo Bucciantini & Michele Camerota (Galilaeana: Journal of Galilean
Studies)
Jed Buchwald and Jeremy Gray (Archive for History of Exacft Sciences)
Vincenzo Cappelletti & Guido Cimino (Physis)
Roger Cline (International Journal for the History of Engineering &
Technology)
Stephen Clucas & Stephen Gaukroger (Intellectual History Review)
Hal Cook & Anne Hardy (Medical History)
Leo Corry, Alexandre Métraux & Jürgen Renn (Science in Context)
D.Diecks & J.Uffink (Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics)
Brian Dolan & Bill Luckin (Social History of Medicine)
Hilmar Duerbeck & Wayne Orchiston (Journal of Astronomical History &
Heritage)
Moritz Epple, Mikael Hård, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger & Volker Roelcke (NTM:
Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin)
Steven French (Metascience)
Willem Hackmann (Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society)
Bosse Holmqvist (Lychnos) Paul Farber (Journal of the History of Biology)
Mary Fissell & Randall Packard (Bulletin of the History of Medicine)
Robert Fox (Notes & Records of the Royal Society)
Jim Good (History of the Human Sciences)
Michael Hoskin (Journal for the History of Astronomy)
Ian Inkster (History of Technology)
Marina Frasca Spada (Studies in History and Philosophy of Science)
Nick Jardine (Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical
Sciences)
Trevor Levere (Annals of Science)
Bernard Lightman (Isis)
Christoph Lüthy (Early Science and Medicine)
Michael Lynch (Social Studies of Science)
Stephen McCluskey & Clive Ruggles (Archaeostronomy: the Journal of
Astronomy in Culture)
Peter Morris (Ambix)
E. Charles Nelson (Archives of Natural History)
Ian Nicholson (Journal of the History of the Behavioural Sciences)
Iwan Rhys Morus (History of Science)
John Rigden & Roger H Stuewer (Physics in Perspective)
Simon Schaffer (British Journal for the History of Science)
Paul Unschuld (Sudhoffs Archiv)
Peter Weingart (Minerva)
Stefan Zamecki (Kwartalnik Historii Nauki i Techniki)
Tags: News
King’s College London / University of Stuttgart
PhD-Net “Internationalisation of Literature and Science since the Early Modern Period”
Application deadline: 15/11/2008
The PhD-Net “Internationalisation of Literature and Science since the Early Modern Period” is a bi-national PhD programme run collaboratively by King’s College London and the University of Stuttgart, which aims to forge interdisciplinary connections between various subjects in the Humanities (German Studies, English Studies, Comparative Literature, Philosophy, and the Histories of Medicine, Science and Technology). Partner institutions in Germany include the German Literature Archive in Marbach and the Institute for the History of Medicine of the Robert Bosch Foundation.
An international research group will support and connect projects which address both inter- and trans-national tendencies within the Humanities. Projects will develop both theoretical models for the as yet under-researched area of internationalisation within the Humanities, as well as critically assess historical case studies from the early modern period onwards, which address the role of exchange movements and networks and the transfer of topics, practices and methods in literature and science.
Of particular interest is the relevance of literature(s) for the internationalisation of the sciences, alongside critical reflections on the significance of the presentation and the mediality of knowledge (language, text, image) for its circulation, communication and implementation.
Applicants from all disciplines are welcome to apply to the programme – both those who are already registered as PhD candidates at King’s or Stuttgart, and those who are planning to undertake a PhD at either institution. Up to 15 PhD students will be supported in England and in Germany each year. Support covers travel costs, book grants, assistance in obtaining further PhD funding, and partial fee waivers.
The PhD programme lasts three years, and students registered at King’s will spend their second year at the partner university in Stuttgart. The programme is bilingual, and as such some knowledge of German is desirable for English speaking applicants.
All applications received by the 15/11/2008 will be considered. Applications should include:
- a CV
- a brief project outline (max. 2,000 words) including the topic, thesis, state of research, methods and a plan of work
- a cover letter (max. 600 words) explaining your interest in the programme and the thematic connections between your research project and your previous academic experience
Please address all applications and enquiries to:
Ben Schofield
Department of German
King’s College London
Strand
London UK-WC2R 2LS
benedict.schofield@kcl.ac.uk
Tags: Graduate Students news
Friday 12 December 2008 at 9:00am
Location: Royal Society, Kohn Centre
A one-day conference organised in conjunction with the Centre for Life Writing Research, King’s College London.
Dr Thomas Beddoes (1760-1808) was one of the most remarkable figures in the history of British medicine. Part of a group of radical physicians friendly with Erasmus Darwin and the Lunar Circle in the early 1790s, he set up the Pneumatic Institution near Bristol where he attempted cures using newly-discovered combinations of gases. The then-unknown Humphry Davy superintended trials, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge was among his patients.
This conference marks the bicentenary of Beddoes’s death. Speakers will include Trevor Levere, Larry Stewart, Mike Jay, George Rousseau, Giuliano Pancaldi, Iwan Morus, Neil Vickers and Jane Darcy. For further information, contact Neil Vickers (neil.vickers@kcl.ac.uk).
Tags: CFP
Technology and Humanity
The following is a call for articles for a forthcoming themed issue of eSharp, an established peer-reviewed journal publishing high-quality research by postgraduate students. eSharp is pleased to support new and early-career authors, and has actively encouraged emerging academic talent since 2002.
The twelfth issue of eSharp will consider the cultural and personal consequences of scientific and mechanistic innovation. We welcome articles which examine and engage with the effects, influences or application of technology in any area of the arts, humanities, social sciences and education, and we encourage submissions from postgraduate students at any stage of their research.
In keeping with the interdisciplinary nature of the journal the ideas of technology, innovation and culture can be interpreted as broadly as authors wish, and may consider, but are by no means limited to, themes such as:
* cyberspace and identity
* politics, surveillance and privacy
* the history, art and literature of the industrial and digital revolutions
* digital media and technologies of exhibition
* new technologies and the law
* cybernetics, gender and the body
* the movable type revolution
* digital narratives and virtual worlds
* education and innovation
* dystopias, dyschronias and utopias
* forensic and corpus linguistics
Submissions must be based on original research and should be between 4,000 and 6,000 words in length. Please accompany your article with an abstract of 200 to 250 words and a list of three to five keywords to indicate the subject area of your article. For more information, a full list of guidelines and our style sheet, please visit www.glasgow.ac.uk/esharp.
Please email submissions and any enquiries you may have to submissions@esharp.org.uk.
The deadline for submission of articles is Friday 12 September 2008.
Tags: CFP, Graduate Students news
International Conference: Institute for Germanic and Romance Studies, London, Thurs 2 – Fri 3 July 2009.
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: Jacques Testart, Honorary Research Director of I.N.S.E.R.M;Fay Brauer, College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales.
Difference, whether between individuals, whole populations or discrete organic species, has always been a source of fascination for mankind. The works of nineteenth-century pioneers such as Gregor Mendel and Hugo de Vries provided the basis for the modern science of genetics, which has sought not only to explain variation through projects such as the mapping of the human genome, but also to control it through the application of the techniques of eugenics and, latterly, of genetic engineering. This conference will aim to explore the impact and influence of genetic theories and related technologies in French and francophone intellectual and cultural life, with particular though not exclusive emphasis on literary and visual culture (including bande dessinée, plastic arts, cinema, TV, advertising) from the late nineteenth century to the present day, reflecting on some of the most controversial scientific and ethical questions in a corpus that embraces both the mainstream and the marginal. Suggested themes may include, but are not limited to:
· Transmission of hereditary illnesses / traits
· Cloning
· Hybridisation
· The creation of new species
· Mutants and mutation
· Teratology / dysmorphology
· Perfecting the individual / species
· Eugenics – public / private
· Genetic engineering and designer babies
· Biological utopias / dystopias
· Doctor / scientist as creator / author
· French philosophers and cultural historians and the life sciences (e.g. Henri Bergson, Georges Canguilhem, Michel Foucault)
· French genetic scientists and their engagement with culture (e.g. Jean Rostand, François Jacob, Jacques Testart)
· DNA technologies and theories of identity
The above list is in no way intended to be exhaustive, and proposals on the conference theme are invited in English or in French. Comparative perspectives are welcomed, though emphasis should be on the study of French-language sources.
Proposals (300 words maximum) for 20-minute papers should be sent to the conference organisers, Dr Douglas Morrey (d.j.morrey@warwick.ac.uk) and Dr Louise Lyle (l.lyle@sheffield.ac.uk ) by 31 January 2009.
Tags: CFP
2009 is both the bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th
anniversary of The Origin of Species. Victorian Studies will mark
the occasion with a special issue on “Darwin and the Evolution of
Victorian Studies.”
Since the publication of VS’s first Darwin issue in 1959, the study of
Darwin and the relationship of his life and work to Victorian culture
has become an industry. In the past twenty-five years alone we have
witnessed the publication of the first fifteen volumes of the Darwin
correspondence, Darwin’s 1836-1844 notebooks, major Darwin biographies
by Janet Browne and Adrian Desmond and James Moore, and important books
by such scholars as Gillian Beer, Bert Bender, Peter Bowler, Sandra
Herbert, George Levine, Ronald Numbers, Robert Richards, Rebecca Stott,
and Robert Young. In recent years, the study of Darwin has begun to take
new directions through examinations of Darwin’s writings beyond the
Origin and the Journal of Researches, investigations of Darwin’s
impact on previously overlooked areas (e.g., art and visual culture,
psychology and the emotions), and new approaches to Darwinism’s impact
on Victorian attitudes to gender and courtship, race and empire,
literature and publishing. The fact that Darwin’s complete writings and
5,000 pieces of his correspondence have been made available in
searchable online databases promises to open up Darwin scholarship even
further.
Where is the study of Darwin and Darwinism in Victorian culture heading?
This special issue will attempt to showcase work that pursues these new
approaches or offers even newer ones. I invite essays on all aspects of
Darwin and Darwin studies in the Victorian period from scholars working
in a range of areas, including history and history of science, literary
and cultural criticism, art history, and history of the book.
The deadline for submissions is July 15, 2008. Essays of not more than
8,000 words (including endnotes) should be prepared in MLA Style.
Submissions and inquiries should be sent directly to the issue’s guest
editor:
Jonathan Smith
Humanities Department
University of Michigan-Dearborn
4901 Evergreen Road
Dearborn, MI 48128
jonsmith@umich.edu
Tags: CFP
University of Manchester, UK
Today the sciences are linked to society through many different channels of
communication. The public interfaces with science during controversies that
involve scientists as well as journalists, politicians and the citizenry as
a whole. This interdisciplinary conference brings together diverse strands
of academia in order to consider science, technology and medicine as they
intersect with non-professional cultures in both contemporary and historical
settings.
The deadline for registration is Saturday 14 June.
For registration details and further information, see the conference
website, or email scienceandpublic@googlemail.com
Tags: CFP, Public Understanding
Report by Stella Pratt-Smith
The third annual conference of the British Society of Literature and Science was hosted at Keele University and organised by Sharon Ruston and her team with just the right combination of exceptional efficiency and friendliness. Within the gold and gilt Victorian splendour of Keele Hall’s Salvin Room, Helen Small (Pembroke College, Oxford) launched the conference with a discussion of ‘The Function of Antagonism’. Addressing the question of what impact science might have on the ‘unlovely combination of triviality and self-aggrandisement’ perceived in today’s humanities studies, she stressed the vital role of science, its methodology and certainty, with the humanising effects of the arts in evaluating everyday truth and values. In doing so, she set a tone of philosophical yet relevant and urgent enquiry for the subsequent panels and questions.
With an ambitious twenty panels taking place in less than three days, the range of topics, authors and perspectives presented was truly extraordinary. On the first day alone, in Panel 2, Jason Hall (University of Exeter) led a panel on mechanised versification, by which programmers and computers have probed fundamental poetic forms and processes. He was followed by Heidi Kunz (Randolph College, Lynchburg, VA) who publicized the hilariously purple prose of ground-breaking, American author Augusta Jane Evans and the ways in which she borrowed scientific rhetoric to promote new depictions of nineteenth-century womanhood. The interrelationship of nineteenth-century science and poetry was pursued further by Gregory Tate (Linacre College, Oxford), who explored Tennyson’s view of the mind’s basis as physiological, ‘a random arrow from the brain’, and how this outlook emerges ultimately as an argument for an unchanging soul.
Tags: BSLS 2008, Conference Reviews
Report by Melanie Keene and Jane Darcy
In late March, delegates gathered for the third annual conference of the British Society for Literature and Science in the magnificent surroundings of Keele Hall. Following previous successful meetings in Glasgow and Birmingham, over sixty participants, including plenary speakers, PhD students, professors, and poets, joined together to hear presentations on topics from computer-generated poetry to ‘lice-men and logarithms’, earthquakes and fairy-land.
In the opening plenary, Helen Small (Pembroke College, Oxford) went to the heart of the matter, setting the agenda for the rest of the conference: are the humanities and sciences still distinctly two cultures? The problem in the humanities, she pointed out, is its perceived irrelevance: could the answer lie in a coherent methodology which equated truthfulness with sincerity and accuracy? She asked whether literature is capable of giving a systematic account of science, exploring the question with revealing readings of poems by the immunologist, Miroslav Holub, and Nobel chemist Roald Hoffman.
The speakers in panel 4 explored ways in which eighteenth-century discoveries in natural philosophy shaped a number of literary texts. Darren Wagner (Saskatchewan) explored notions of pre-formation in Gulliver’s Travels. Greg Lynall (Liverpool) put a persuasive case for Richard Bentley’s 1693 ‘physico-logical’ sermons attacking atheism as the motor for Swift’s satire in A Tale of a Tub. Sam George (Hertfordshire) considered the writings of women botanists that tempered the account of botanical promiscuity in Erasmus Darwin’s Loves of the Plants.
Tags: BSLS 2008, Conference Reviews
The committee of the BSLS is delighted to announce that Ralph O’Connor’s book The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802-1856 (U of Chicago P, 2007) has been awarded the Society’s first book prize. The book is a deeply-researched, ambitious and elegant account of early nineteenth-century literary and scientific writing on geology. It is likely to prove long-lasting and to be informative and stimulating to specialist scholars as well as to a wider readership.
The prize citation for The Earth on Show was written by the President of the BSLS, Professor Dame Gillian Beer:
“Ralph O’Connor’s The Earth on Show is at once spectacular and judicious. He demonstrates the ways earth science declared itself to broad audiences during the Victorian period. He does so by exploring the immense variety of visual display, from panoramas to museums to illustrated books and cartoons. Alongside these examples he analyses how writing also can be made to perform discoveries. These two sources of evidence come together in a
richly argued, very readable, and innovative account that shows a new science making itself by making itself known. Chicago University Press has done a brilliant job, and so has the author.”
The shortlist for the book prize (see below) was extremely strong: the six books addressed very different topics, demonstrating some of the breadth of this field, but were all based on detailed, wideranging and original research. Congratulations to all six authors, and above all to Ralph O’Connor.
Tags: Book Prize
The committee of the BSLS is delighted to announce the shortlist for the Society’s annual prize for the best book on literature and science published the previous calendar year. The prize is awarded for the first time this year, and the winner will be announced at the conference in Keele at the end of March.
Jonathan Adams, Interference Patterns: Literary Study, Scientific Knowledge, and Disciplinary Autonomy (Bucknell University Press)
Gowan Dawson, Darwin, Literature, and Victorian Respectability (Cambridge University Press)
Mark Francis, Herbert Spencer and the Invention of Modern Life (Acumen Publishing)
Elizabeth Leane, Reading Popular Physics: Disciplinary Skirmishes and Textual Strategies (Ashgate Publishing)
James Mussell, Science, Time and Space in the Late Nineteenth-Century Periodical Press: Movable Types (Ashgate Publishing)
Ralph O’Connor, The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802-1856 (University of Chicago Press)
Tags: Book Prize
2009 is both the bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of The Origin of Species. Victorian Studies will mark the occasion with a special issue on “Darwin and the Evolution of Victorian Studies.�?
The study of Darwin and the relationship of his life and work to Victorian culture has become an industry. In the past twenty-five years alone we have witnessed the publication of the first fifteen volumes of the Darwin correspondence, Darwin’s 1836-1844 notebooks, major Darwin biographies by Janet Browne and Adrian Desmond and James Moore, and important books by such scholars as Gillian Beer, Bert Bender, Peter Bowler, Sandra Herbert, George Levine, Ronald Numbers, Robert Richards, Rebecca Stott, and Robert Young. In recent years, the study of Darwin has begun to take new directions through examinations of Darwin’s writings beyond the Origin and the Journal of Researches, investigations of Darwin’s impact on previously overlooked areas (e.g., art and visual culture, psychology and the emotions), and new approaches to Darwinism’s impact on Victorian attitudes to gender and courtship, race and empire, literature and publishing. The fact that Darwin’s complete writings and 5,000 pieces of his correspondence have been made available in searchable online databases promises to open up Darwin scholarship even further.
Where is the study of Darwin and Darwinism in Victorian culture heading? This special issue will attempt to showcase work that pursues these new approaches or offers even newer ones. I invite essays on all aspects of Darwin and Darwin studies in the Victorian period from scholars working in a range of areas, including history and history of science, literary and cultural criticism, art history, and history of the book.
The deadline for submissions is July 15, 2008. Essays of not more than 8,000 words (including endnotes) should be prepared in MLA Style. Submissions and inquiries should be sent directly to the issue’s guest editor:
Jonathan Smith
Humanities Department
University of Michigan-Dearborn
4901 Evergreen Road
Dearborn, MI 48128
jonsmith@umich.edu
Tags: CFP, publishing
BEFORE DEPRESSION:
THE REPRESENTATION AND CULTURE OF DEPRESSION IN BRITAIN AND EUROPE, 1660-1800
A three-day conference
at The University of Northumbria at Newcastle and the University of Sunderland
June 19th to 21st, 2008
Plenary Speakers:
MADELEINE DESCARGUES-GRANT (Université de Valenciennes)
ELAINE HOBBY (University of Loughborough)
PETER SABOR (McGill University)
Call for papers
This conference seeks to explore further the phenomenon of depression ‘before depression’, and the problems that such an apparently retrospective construction might entail. The conference committee invites proposals on any aspects of the culture and representation of depression (however construed) in the period 1660-1800. Papers are acceptable in English or French.
Papers selected from the conference will be revised and published in The European Spectator/ Le spectateur européen.
Proposals of 200-300 words are invited, to be sent no later than Jan 31st, 2008, to Dr Clark Lawlor, Division of English, School of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Northumbria at Newcastle Upon Tyne,
Newcastle, NE1 8ST, United Kingdom
Proposals for papers in French should be sent to Valérie Maffre at the Université Paul-Valéry, Montpellier:
email valerie.maffre@univ-montp3.fr
For further information, please contact clark.lawlor@unn.ac.uk
Tags: CFP
The British Society for Literature and Science is delighted to announce the launch of the first annual BSLS Book Prize.
The prize will be awarded to the best book published in 2007 in the field of literature and science. We therefore invite nominations, including self-nominations, for books to be considered. Monographs, edited volumes, editions, and books of creative writing are all eligible for consideration. The book must be in English and must have ‘2007′ as its publication date. Please send nominations, including author, title and publisher to bsls@arts.gla.ac.uk by 31 December. The winning book will be announced and the prize awarded at the BSLS’s conference in Keele in March 2008.
Tags: Book Prize, News
The inaugural conference of the society was held in March at the University of Glasgow and began with a plenary by Professor David Amigoni. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: BSLS 2006