Workshop: History of Scientific Publication, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 3-4 December 2015

On 3-4 December 2015 an international workshop on the history of scientific publication will be held at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The workshop will explore the norms and practices of scientific publication 1760-2010. The main emphasis is on the nineteenth century and the rise of print media, particularly scientific journals.

The workshop is organised as part of the research programme “Science and Modernization in Sweden: An Institutional Approach to Historicizing the Knowledge Society”, funded by Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg’s foundation and hosted by the Center for the History of Science at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
The workshop will take place at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and includes lunch and dinner at the Academy on December 3, and lunch on December 4. The full program can be downloaded here.

Besides invited speakers and participants, there are still a few seats available. If you would like to attend, or have any questions, please contact Jenny Beckman (jenny.beckman@idehist.uu.se) as soon as possible.

Autumn meeting with the SMS-program

The SMS-program recently had its autumn meeting at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. On the meeting agenda were, among other things, the planning for upcoming workshops. The ambition is for the program to organize at least one workshop per year over a five year spann, the first of those planned for April next year. The theme for the upcoming workshop will be something in the line of “science and modernization”, and the program will give room to both invited speakers and researchers from the program. An invitation with further details will be circulated shortly.

Workshop University of Oslo: Engaging Environments — Analyzing lay knowledge and popular action on nature, the environment and climate change

[From Workshop homepage]

This international workshop seeks to stage a wider discussion of environmental knowledge, politics, participation, and democracy.

In 2014, Norway celebrates a dual anniversary: that of Norway’s oldest environmental organization Naturvernforbundet (Friends of the Earth Norway), founded 1914, and of the Norwegian constitution, drafted 1814.

These centennials will serve as the point of departure for the international workshop “Engaging Environments”, which seeks to stage a wider discussion of environmental knowledge, politics, participation, and democracy.

Key questions are:

• How do people know, relate to, and act upon nature and the environment? How have people’s relations to nature changed during the past century?
• How do lay people organize to show and promote their support for nature? How do environmental organizations work, and how have they worked in the past? In what ways do they speak for or speak to the general population?
• How do lay people and NGOs bring about and circulate knowledge? How do they seek to intervene in politics, and what is the impact of their interventions?
• How does public participation in the environmental field compare to other sectors in society? How do the Norwegian experiences, traditions, and institutions compare to those of other Nordic nations, and internationally?

The workshop seeks to combine analytical approaches from History, Sociology, and Anthropology and contrasts the Norwegian case with empirical examples from Britain, Germany and the Nordic countries.

The workshop program will include short lectures and conversations with invited keynotes. Participants will take part in subsequent joint discussions of workshop topics, grouped into short presentations of their own research work and interests. The program will be finalized when all participants are confirmed.

Keynote speakers:

• Professor Kristin Asdal, TIK, UiO
• Professor Alan Irwin, Copenhagen Business School
• Professor Steven Yearley, University of Edinburgh
• Professor Brian Wynne, Lancaster University and TIK,UiO
• Professor Sverker Sörlin, KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Practical information:

Time: 22-23 May, 2013

Place: Center for Technology, Innovation and Culture (TIK), University of Oslo, Norway

Participation: Limited number of places. There is no call for papers. Please submit a short presentation (max. 250 words) of your research interests and how they relate to the workshop topics to Beate Trandem (beate.trandem@ilos.uio.no) by April 21, 2013. Acceptance notification by April 23.

Participation is free. Lunch both days and dinner in downtown Oslo on the first day will be covered.

The workshop is hosted by Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture (TIK) and the interfaculty research program Kultrans (Cultural Transformations in the Age of Globalisation), both at the University of Oslo.

Organizers: Ann-Sofie Kall and Hilde Reinertsen (TIK, UiO).

Call for papers: History of medicine in practice

March 26-28, 2014, Uppsala University, Sweden

The aim of the conference “History of Medicine in Practice” is to stimulate a discussion about the place of history of medicine in a rapidly changing academic landscape, where discipline-based research and education are being challenged by demands for cross-disciplinary integration and extra-academic “impact.”

Increasingly over the past decades, historians of medicine have been asked to articulate and demonstrate the practical value and relevance of their work to pressing contemporary concerns; this development is currently accelerating. For example, it has been suggested that the history of medicine should display its utility as an instrument for evaluating decisions concerning bioethics and health care policy, as a resource for supporting the public engagement in medicine, and as an educational tool for integrating the humanities with medicine. The emergence of “medical humanities” is one example of this trend. At the same time historians of medicine have debated whether the burgeoning of methods and sources within the field has been productive. While many have considered the methodological perspectives and analytical techniques offered by, for instance, anthropology, sociology, feminist theory, and Science and Technology Studies as enriching and energising for their work, others have blamed these developments and trends for the indistinct disciplinary boundaries of the history of medicine and its uncertain institutional framework. At all events, it could be argued that this ambiguous status has enlarged the potential audience and impact of the field.

Although these questions have been addressed in various forums over time, they have less often been brought together for dialogue and debate. This conference, therefore, hopes to gather historians of medicine as well as professionals from the medical community and other sectors to discuss and reflect on, in particular, two topics: first the relevance and uses of the history of medicine, and second, the increasingly methodological and empirical complexity of the field. It will comprise thematic sessions with papers, two keynote lectures, and a concluding general discussion.

Keynote speakers are:
Professor Ludmilla Jordanova, King’s College, London
Professor Lene Koch, University of Copenhagen

The scientific committee of the conference invites proposals for papers on the following themes, though other topics within the broad framework of the conference are also encouraged:

• The relevance and uses of the history of medicine in politics, policy-making, ethical debates, and controversies within medicine
• The role of the history of medicine in medical education
• Methodological opportunities and challenges of cross-disciplinary research and collaboration
• Public history and public engagement of medicine

Abstracts for papers of 200-300 words should be submitted no later than October 1, 2013 to David Thorsén, david.thorsen@idehist.uu.se. Please provide full name, institutional affiliation, and contact details. The format of the conference (two parallel sessions) will not allow for more than c. 30 papers. By November 1, 2013 applicants will be notified if their papers have been accepted or not.

The conference, including lunches and conference dinner, is free of charge. There may be possibilities, in particular for junior participants (also PhD candidates), to obtain economic support for attendance. Please indicate in the application if such support is requisite for attendance and what level of support is needed (travel, accommodation, or both). More information about this will be publicised at a later date.

The conference will be two full days, i.e. morning to late afternoon March 27-28, 2014. Late afternoon/evening March 26 is reserved for registration, reception, and possibly one keynote lecture.

The conference language is English.

It is possible to apply for participation as attendant without giving a paper. The deadline for such applications is also October 1. For those interested, please indicate the motivation to take part in the conference. No economic support will be given to attendees who do not present papers.

Selected papers from the conference will be considered for publication.

The conference is organised by the Department of History of Science and Ideas, Uppsala University, a leading centre of research and education in the history of medicine in Sweden.

Welcome!

Annika Berg, Uppsala University/Stockholm University
Maria Björk, Uppsala University
Maria Björkman, Uppsala University
Karin Johannisson, Uppsala University
Solveig Jülich, Stockholm University
David Thorsén, Uppsala University
Sven Widmalm, Uppsala University