“all manner of things”

Catch-all

Elections to the BSLS Executive Committee

February 25, 2009 in "all manner of things", Society information by Michael Whitworth | Permalink

At the next BSLS conference, all five of the posts on the Executive Committee will be due for re-election, as the present incumbents have now served a three-year term of office. Any member of the society wishing to stand for election to the posts should let me know by 16 March 2009, and should also ask a nominator and seconder to email me to make the nomination. The present incumbents are eligible to stand for re-election. If there is more than one nomination for any given post, there will be an election held at the BSLS conference; should this be the case, I will ask candidates to provide a statement of no more than 200 words for circulation to members.

Further details of the posts are given below in the relevant extracts from the constitution. The constitution also makes provision for 3 member-at-large posts, at presently unfilled, and nominations for them would also be welcome. If you would like to make inquiries about the scope of any role please contact me or the current officer.

Michael Whitworth (Secretary)
Email: michael.whitworth@merton.ox.ac.uk

[FROM THE CONSTITUTION]
4. OFFICERS
4.1 There shall be an Honorary President, whose appointment is for an unlimited period.
4.2 There shall be an executive committee, consisting of: Chair; Secretary; Treasurer; Membership Secretary; Communications Officer; and not more than three Members at Large.

4.2.1 The role of the Chair is to oversee the fulfilment of the Society’s aims.
4.2.2 The role of the Secretary is to document meetings and other aspects of the Society’s activities, particularly to prepare minutes of Committee meetings and General Meetings, and to put them forward for approval.
4.2.3 The role of the Treasurer is to be signatory to the Society’s bank account(s); to present accounts for approval at the AGM.
4.2.4 The role of the Membership Secretary is to receive and process membership applications, to obtain fees from existing members, to pass on money to the Treasurer, and to maintain a membership database.
4.2.5 The role of the Communications Officer is to develop electronic resources; to manage and maintain an e-mail list, and to liaise with the Membership Secretary in relation to membership of the list.

4.3 Where it proves impossible to fill posts, one member may hold two, but no more than two posts.
4.4 Signatories for the society’s bank account(s) shall be the Treasurer and any other committee member.
4.5 The membership of the Executive Committee shall be determined by elections held at the annual general meeting of the society. Members wishing to stand for election should be nominated by two members of the society before the start of the AGM. Where there is more than one candidate for any post, election shall be held by a ballot on the basis of a single transferable vote.
4.6 Members of the Executive Committee shall serve three-year terms of office.

Sci-Talk: website for connecting writers with scientists

December 29, 2008 in "all manner of things" by Alice Jenkins | 0

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.”

CFP: British Society for the History of Science Annual Conference, 2009

October 22, 2008 in "all manner of things" by Alice Jenkins | 0

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

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Biocentre: Arts & Technology symposium

October 10, 2008 in "all manner of things" by Alice Jenkins | 0

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

CFP: Art and Science Now: The Two Cultures in Question

October 5, 2008 in "all manner of things" by Alice Jenkins | 0

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.

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Metrics and journals in the history of science, technology and medicine

October 2, 2008 in "all manner of things" by Alice Jenkins | 0

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)

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PhD opportunity in literature and science

September 30, 2008 in "all manner of things" by Alice Jenkins | 0

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

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Conference: Thomas Beddoes, Doctor of Enlightenment

September 25, 2008 in "all manner of things" by Alice Jenkins | 0

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).

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LAUNCH OF THE JOURNAL OF LITERATURE AND SCIENCE

August 11, 2008 in "all manner of things" by Martin Willis | 0

UNIVERSITY OF GLAMORGAN, CARDIFF, SEPTEMBER 12

THE JLS

The Journal of Literature and Science is a new, peer-reviewed, online journal hosted by Glamorgan’s Research Centre for Literature, Arts and Science, founded in 2006. The Centre directors are Professors Andrew Smith & Jeff Wallace, and Dr Martin Willis, who is also the Journal of Literature and Science’s Editor. The Journal’s online home can be found at: http://literatureandscience.research.glam.ac.uk/journal

JLS AIMS

The JLS is dedicated to the publication of academic essays on the subject of literature and science, broadly defined. Essays on the major forms of literary and artistic endeavour are welcome (the novel, short fiction, poetry, drama, periodical literature, visual art, sculpture, radio, film and television). The journal encourages submissions from all periods of literary and artistic history since the Scientific Revolution. The journal also encourages a broad definition of ‘science’: encapsulating both the history and philosophy of science and those sciences regarded as either mainstream or marginal within their own, or our, historical moment.

REVIEW FOR THE JLS

The JLS uniquely focuses its reviews section on published journal articles in the fields of literature and science and the cultural history of science. If you would like to review a recent article for the JLS please contact the editor. See Issue 1 on the JLS Web for examples.

THE LAUNCH

The journal launch will end a day of seminar activities dedicated to the study of literature and science and organised around the theme of Romantic Science. The seminar welcomes Professor Anne Janowitz as its plenary speaker, who will lecture on the plurality of worlds in debate in Romantic astronomy. Other speakers include Dr Sharon Ruston (author of Shelley and Vitality) and Dr Rachel Hewitt (author of the forthcoming Map of a Nation: A Biography of the Ordnance Survey). The seminar will begin at 10am and will conclude with a wine reception and the Journal launch at 5.30pm. Further details of the day can be found on the Research Centre website at: http://literatureandscience.research.glam.ac.uk/events/romsci

The event will take place in central Cardiff, at Glamorgan University’s new campus, the Atrium. For travel and location details please see http://cci.glam.ac.uk

You are very welcome to attend either the full day seminar, or the launch of the JLS. Please RSVP: Dr Martin Willis by email at mwillis@glam.ac.uk, or in writing to Journal of Literature and Science, Department of English, University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, CF37 1DL.

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CFP: Graduate journal issue on Technology and Humanity

July 17, 2008 in "all manner of things" by Alice Jenkins | 0

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.

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