Events for November 2009
November 2, 2009
Damon Yarnell, University of Pennsylvania and PACHS Dissertation Writing Fellow
Outside Supply: Managerial Expertise and the Rise of Scientific Purchasing, 1900-1930
Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science | Visit site »
Join scholars from the area at the Regional Colloquium in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine to reassess the development of mass production in American Industry.| Time: | 3:30 - 5:30 p.m. |
| Place: | 337 Claudia Cohen Hall University of Pennsylvania |
November 3, 2009
Evan Ragland, Indiana University
Senses of Chymistry in the Low Countries in the 17th Century
Chemical Heritage Foundation | Visit site »
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Place: 6th Floor Conference Room, Chemical Heritage Foundation
Information: 215-873-8289 or bbl@chemheritage.org
This talk will clarify and highlight the place of Franciscus Sylvius in the history of chymistry and medicine by sketching the original context, development, and legacy of his acid-alkali system. Sylvius’s education, rise to prominence in the Amsterdam medical scene, and contact with contemporary chymists provide clues to understanding his emergence as a leading medical chymist and teaching physician. Experimentation and sensory modalities were particularly important elements of chymical practice and pedagogy in the 17th century, especially at the University of Leiden, and by investigating these themes we can uncover a synthetic history of local chymical practice and theory that integrates diverse figures and historiographic approaches.
Evan Ragland is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at Indiana University. His dissertation work focuses on the history of chymistry in the Netherlands in the 17th century, especially in Amsterdam and Leiden. This work also follows select connections in the history of chemistry, medicine, and experimentation into the 18th and 19th centuries.
November 3, 2009
Jonathan Moreno, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania
Neuroscience and National Security
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Section on Medical History and Section on Medicine, Ethics, and the Law | Visit site »
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Place: The College of Physicians of Philadelphia
Reception follows program.
RSVP
Jonathan Moreno, Ph.D., is David and Lyn Silfen University Professor and Professor of Medical Ethics and of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Moreno will summarize his work as an adviser to U.S. national security agencies concerning the prospects that innovations in neuroscience present for military and counter-intelligence operations.
November 5, 2009
Anke Timmermann, Chemical Heritage Foundation
Gold, Elixirs and the Books of Secrets: A Brief History of Alchemy
The Wagner Free Institute of Science | Visit site »
Time: Lecture, 5:30 p.m.
[Note: The Wagner will be open for this program
from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m.]
Place: The Wagner Institute
What: An Illustrated Presentation
Alchemy, the ancient art of transforming matter, fueled the imagination of scholars, doctors and nobleman for hundreds of years. They believed that a truly worthy alchemist could produce the philosopher’s stone, a legendary substance that would make him wealthy, wise and near immortal. The experiments, books and events that paved the paths of alchemists throughout the ages not only make good stories, but also document a part of early science that is often misunderstood.
This talk will decipher the story of alchemy from its ancient beginnings through its medieval heyday to its eventual demise in the shadow of modern chemistry. Showing some beautiful and symbolic images from rare books, Anke Timmermann will explain how alchemists thought and worked, and why even they often had trouble figuring out what it all means.
Dr. Anke Timmermann is a historian of alchemy and the current Associate Director of the Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry at the Chemical Heritage Foundation. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. Her research interests include the history of alchemy and medicine in medieval and early modern Europe. This program is part of the Year of Science.
November 9, 2009
Mary Summers, University of Pennsylvania
‘Something for the Fellow Who Works in the Field With His Coat Off’: The Role of the Farmers’ Movement and Politics in the Establishment of the USDA as a ‘Problem-Solving’ Scientific Bureaucracy
Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Time: 3:30 - 5:30 p.m.
Place: Claudia Cohen Hall, University of Pennysylvania
November 10, 2009
Annalisa Salonius, Chemical Heritage Foundation
Social Organization of Work in Academic Labs in the Biochemical Sciences in Canada: Sociohistorical Dynamics and the Influence of Research Funding
Chemical Heritage Foundation | Visit site »
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Place: 6th Floor Conference Room, Chemical Heritage Foundation
Information: 215-873-8289 or bbl@chemheritage.org
Significant change in the structure of academic labs in the biomedical sciences in Canada and the United States has occurred over the past few decades. A typical lab in the 1960s consisted of a professor and perhaps a technician or a graduate student or two, but many labs now have 20 or more members, most of which are graduate students and postdocs. This talk will describe major changes in the social organization of work in labs in the biomedical sciences in Canadian universities since the 1970s, and that the major influence bringing about these changes was dynamic research funding and its institutional integration by universities.
Annalisa Salonius is currently the 2009 Gordon Cain Postdoctoral Fellow at CHF. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from McGill University and a B.Sc. in biochemistry from the University of Toronto. Prior to coming to CHF, she was an FQRSC postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University. Her research focuses on the social organization of research labs and postgraduate studies in the biomedical sciences in Canada and the United States, and how and why their organization has changed since the 1960s.
November 10, 2009
Susan M. Reverby, Wellesley College
Examining the ‘Tuskegee’ Syphilis Study: What More Can a Historian Say?
Department of History, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Time: 4:30 p.m.
Place: College Hall 209, University of Pennsylvania
The Richard Shryock Lecture in American History.
Information: 215-898-8452
Susan M. Reverby is Marion Butler McLean Professor of History and Women’s and Gender Studies at Wellesley College. She has been a pioneer in U.S. women’s history, and has written extensively on the history of nursing, health care, and medical ethics. Her publications include Ordered to Care: The Dilemma of American Nursing (l987), Gendered Domains: Beyond the Public and Private in Women’s History (1992), Health Care in America: Essays in Social History (1979), and America’s Working Women: a Documentary History (1976). An edited collection of articles and documents entitled Tuskegee’s Truths: Rethinking the Tuskegee Syphilis Study appeared in 2000. Her latest book is Examining Tuskegee: The Infamous Syphilis Study and Legacy, published in fall 2009 by the University of North Carolina Press
November 10, 2009
Nathaniel Comfort, the Johns Hopkins University
Human Genetics in the Atomic Age; Or, How We Learned to Start Worrying and Love Mutation
Department of History and Program in History of Science, Princeton University | Visit site »
Time: 4:30 p.m.
Place: 211 Dickinson Hall, Princeton University
Abstract. The second world war gave academic human genetics a reason for being. When the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, mutation, long an area of active research in animal and plant genetics, suddenly acquired political and cultural valence. The figurehead in this was Hermann Joseph Muller. The 1946 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to Muller in recognition of his 1927 proof of X ray induced mutation. The following year, Herluf Strandskov, a young but rather old-school twin geneticist from the University of Chicago, easily induced Muller to help establish a professional society for human genetics. In 1948, the American Society of Human Genetics held its first meeting; Muller was elected the first president and figurehead-in-chief; the officers (and subsequent presidents) were all sympathetic to or active in the genetic improvement of mankind. Muller’s presidential address was “Our load of mutations.” The eugenic message of this article has been noted, by Diane Paul among others. What Comfort does in this paper is “connect the dots,” showing how his forum for this paper rose out of Cold War fears of mutation; illustrating how appropriate it was that Muller used the leadership of the ASHG as a bully pulpit; and suggesting that this legacy strongly colored the formative years of the society.
Nathaniel Comfort is Associate Professor in the Program in the History of Science, Medicine and Technology at the Johns Hopkins University.
November 11, 2009
Ellery Foutch, University of Pennsylvania
Temporality, Metamorphosis, and Perfection in Nineteenth-Century Art and Natural History
The McNeil Center for Early American Studies | Visit site »
Time: 12:30 - 1:15 p.m.
Place: Seminar Room 105, McNeil Center, 3355 Woodland Walk (34th and Sansom), campus of the University of Pennsylvania
Papers are circulated in advance. For copies, please contact the McNeil Center office, mceas@ccat.sas.upenn.edu.
Ellery Foutch is a doctoral candidate in the history of art at the University of Pennsylvania. She holds a Dissertation Research Fellowship from the Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science (PACHS).
November 11, 2009
James Colgrove, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
The Coorcive Hand, the Beneficent Hand: What the History of Compulsory Vaccination Can Tell Us About HPV Vaccine Mandates
Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Place: 2U Conference Room, Room 2019, Claire Fagin Hall
University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing
The licensure of a vaccine against human papillomavirus in June of 2006 set off a flurry of legislative activity as states around the country took steps to maximize the benefits of the product among their populations. One of the most controversial policy questions has been whether states should make the vaccine mandatory for girls entering middle school. This presentation will situate the deliberations about HPV vaccine mandates within the context of two centuries of legally enforced vaccination. James Colgrove, PhD, MPH, is Associate Professor, Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health
Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
November 13, 2009
Lisa Rosner, Ph.D., Richard Stockton College of New Jersey
The Anatomy Murders
The F. C. Wood Institute for the History of Medicine and the Mütter Museum at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia | Visit site »
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Place: The College of Physicians of Philadelphia
A book signing and reception follow the program.
RSVP
On Halloween night 1828, in the West Port district of Edinburgh, Scotland, a woman sometimes known as Madgy Docherty was last seen in the company of William Burke and William Hare. Days later, police discovered her remains in the surgery of the prominent anatomist Dr. Robert Knox. Docherty was the final victim of the most atrocious murder spree of the century, outflanking even Jack the Ripper’s. Together with their accomplices, Burke and Hare would be accused of killing sixteen people over the course of twelve months in order to sell their corpses as “subjects” for dissection. The ensuing criminal investigation into the “Anatomy Murders” raised troubling questions about the common practices by which medical men obtained cadavers, the lives of the poor in Edinburgh’s back alleys, and the ability of the police to protect the public from cold-blooded murder.
Famous among true crime aficionados, Burke and Hare were the first serial killers to capture media attention. Yet The Anatomy Murders is the first book to situate their story against the social and cultural forces that were bringing early 19th-century Britain into modernity. In Lisa Rosner’s deft treatment, each of the murder victims, from the beautiful, doomed Mary Paterson to the unfortunate “Daft Jamie,” opens a window on a different aspect of this world in transition. Tapping into a wealth of unpublished materials, Rosner meticulously recounts the aspirations of doctors and anatomists, the makeshift lifestyles of the so-called dangerous classes, the rudimentary police apparatus, and the half-fiction, half-journalism of the popular press.
The Anatomy Murders resurrects a tale of murder and medicine in a city whose grand Georgian squares and crescents stood beside a maze of slums, a place in which a dead body was far more valuable than a living laborer.
Lisa Rosner is Professor of History at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. During the summer of 2009 she was a Fellow at the Chemical Heritage Foundation.
November 16, 2009
Jim Endersby, Sussex University
Mutant Socialists and Unamerican Primroses: Evolving Racial Purity in America
Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Time: 3:30 - 5:30 p.m.
Place: Claudia Cohen Hall, University of Pennysylvania
November 17, 2009
Benjamin Gross, Princeton University and Chemical Heritage Foundation
‘Like a Picture on a Wall…’: Early Flat-Panel Display Research at RCA, 1951-1966
Chemical Heritage Foundation | Visit site »
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Place: 6th Floor Conference Room, Chemical Heritage Foundation
Information: 215-873-8289 or bbl@chemheritage.org
Although flat-panel liquid-crystal displays have only recently begun to outsell traditional models, the challenges associated with the construction of a flat television screen have captivated engineers for decades. In a 1956 speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of his tenure at the Radio Corporation of America, company chairman David Sarnoff predicted that technology would soon advance to the point where bulky cathode-ray tubes would be replaced by devices so thin they could hang on the wall like a painting. As this talk will demonstrate, by the time Sarnoff made his prediction, scientists at his namesake research center in Princeton had already begun pursuing that objective. Between 1951 and 1966 RCA scientists considered a wide range of technological approaches in their efforts to develop a functional flat-panel television, including displays based on cathodoluminescence, electroluminescence, light-emitting diodes, and ionized gases. While none of these projects proved entirely successful, an examination of these alternatives provides broader insights into the dynamics of American industrial research during the cold war.
Benjamin Gross is a Ph.D. candidate in the history of science program at Princeton University and the 2009–2010 Charles C. Price Dissertation Fellow in Polymer History at the Chemical Heritage Foundation. His dissertation focuses on the development of the first liquid-crystal displays at RCA Labs during the 1960s. Before applying to graduate school he taught Philadelphia public high-school students chemistry, physics, and physical science as a member of Teach for America.
November 17, 2009
Andrew Berns, University of Pennsylvania
’Perché sia chiamata santa:’ Ulisse Aldrovandi and the Hebrew Language
Consutate General of Italy in Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Time: 5:00 p.m.
Place: Cherpack Lounge, 543 Williams Hall, 255 S. 36th Street
Jointly sponsored by the Consulate General of Italy in Philadelphia, the Center for Italian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and Penn’s Department of Romance Languages
Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522 - 1605) was an Italian naturalist, the moving force behind Bologna’s botanical garden, one of the first in Europe. Carolus Linnaeus and the Comte de Buffon considered him to be the father of natural history studies.
Andrew Berns is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History, University of Pennsylvania. He holds a one-month Dissertation Research Fellowship from PACHS for his work on “The Natural Science of the Biblical World in Late Renaissance Italy.”
November 18, 2009
Jim Endersby, Sussex University
Lecture, ‘Darwin, Hooker, and Empire,’ and Guided Tour of APS Exhibition, ‘Dialogues With Darwin’
Penn Humanities Forum, University of Pennsylvania, and American Philosophical Society | Visit site »
Tour: 3:30 - 4:30 p.m., American Philosophical Society’s Philosophical Hall, 427 Chestnut Street
Lecture: 5:00 - 6:30 p.m., American Philosophical Society’s Benjamin Franklin Hall, 104 South Fifth Street
The tour of the APS exhibition, ”Dialogues With Darwin,” will be led by APS Museum Director and exhibit curator Sue Ann Prince. Tour spaces are limited; please register early.
Jim Endersby will discuss the correspondence between Charles Darwin and botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker. Darwin established an astonishing global network of correspondents. The 1300 letters he exchanged with Hooker reveal the surprising links between science and empire and show us how the private lives of these two men affected their public work, even shaping the language and philosophy of Origin of Species. Endersby is Senior Lecturer, Department of History, University of Sussex. He is the prize-winning author of Imperial Nature: Joseph Hooker and the practices of Victorian Science, A Guinea Pig’s History of Biology, and editor of a new scholarly edition of On the Origin of Species, published by Cambridge University Press.
November 18, 2009
Susan E. Hawkins, Kingston University
Deconstructing Victorian Nurses: Using Prosopography to Uncover the Lives of 19th Century Nurses
Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Place: 2U Conference Room, Room 2019, Claire Fagin Hall
University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing
The seminar will discuss a methodology for investigating the changing structure and profile of nursing in 19th century England. It will focus on a study of St George’s Hospital, London, in the period 1850-1900, the results of which have contributed new understanding to the changes which were engulfing nursing during this period. Susan E. Hawkins, PhD, is Project Manager of the Historic Hospital Admission Records Project, Centre for Local History Studies, Kingston University.
November 19, 2009
Keith Wailoo, Rutgers University
How Cancer Crossed the Color Line: Race and Disease in America
Drexel University School of Public Health | Visit site »
Time: 4:30 p.m.
Place: Drexel University, Center City, Hahnemann Campus
New College Building, Geary A, Auditorium
245 N. 15th Street, Philadelphia
This talk is part of the Drexel-Health Partners Public Health Grant Rounds Lecture Series. For information, call 215-762-4110
Keith Wailoo, a leading figure in the history of disease, health, and medicine, has written award-winning books and accepted prestigious recognition for his work on such topics as sickle cell disease, race, science, and medicine; the history of technology and disease; and the problem of inequality in American health and medical care. Wailoo is Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of History at Rutgers, the State University of New Jesey, where he is jointly appointed int he Department of History and in the Institute for Health, Health CAre Policy, and Aging Research. He is also Founding Director of the Center for Race and Ethnicity at Rutgers. He received his Ph.D. in 1992 from the University of Pennsylvania in the History and Sociology of Science.
November 19, 2009
Jim Endersby, Sussex University
Darwinian Myths: Re-Reading the “Origin of Species”
University of Pennsylvania, Penn's "Year of Evolution"
Time: 4:00 - 5:00 p.m.
Place: Stiteler Hall B26, University of Pennsylvania
Information: goldfinh@mail.med.upenn.edu
One hundred and fifty years after it was written, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species continues to sell, to be discussed, attacked and defended. Among the many myths that surrounds Darwin’s book is the idea that it caused a war between science and the church. Jim Endersby will demolish this and some of the other myths that surround the Origin, by looking at exactly what Darwin did and didn’t say and examining how his contemporaries reacted to the book.
Jim Endersby, Senior Lecturer, Department of History, University of Sussex, is the prize-winning author of Imperial Nature: Joseph Hooker and the practices of Victorian Science, A Guinea Pig’s History of Biology, and editor of a new scholarly edition of On the Origin of Species, published by Cambridge University Press.
November 19, 2009
Shelly Costa, Independent Scholar
Throwing the Book at Mathematical Talent
Philadelphia Area Seminar on the History of Mathematics, Villanova University | Visit site »
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Place: Room 103, Mendel Science Center, Villanova University
Abstract. This paper contrasts the careers of late-17th- mid-18th-century mathematical authors Guillaume de I’Hôpital (1661-1704), Emilie du Châtelet (1706-1749), and Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718-1799). The basic aim is to assess the impact of social factors such as class, gender, and economic status on contemporary perceptions of mathematical talent and originality. Costa will recount her recent attempts to do so through a material approach--that is, through a close inspection of the physical features of relevant primary sources.
November 23, 2009
Jerry Jacobs, University of Pennsylvania
American Studies: A Case Study of Interdisciplinarity
Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Time: 3:30 - 5:30 p.m.
Place: Claudia Cohen Hall, University of Pennysylvania
November 23, 2009
Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, and George Levine, Rutgers University
Trollope, Eliot…Darwin? Charles Darwin as a Victorian Writer
American Philosophical Society Museum | Visit site »
Times:
4:00 - 5:45 p.m.
View the “Dialogues with Darwin” Exhibit at the APS Museum
6:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Adam Gopnik, in conversation with George Levine,
Benjamin Franklin Hall
Locations:
APS Museum, 104 S. 5th Street
Benjamin Franklin Hall, 427 Chestnut Street
The APS Museum celebrates the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s seminal On the Origin of Species with an unconventional look at Darwin—not as a scientist—but as a writer. Both Adam Gopnik, the author of Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln and Modern Life, and George Levine have written of Darwin’s literary approach to nature. Their conversation will focus on Darwin’s qualities as a patient observer, as a lucid writer engaged with the world, and as a modern man.
Adam Gopnik is an award-winning journalist and best-selling author. His essays in The New Yorker range from historical topics and art history to comic personal stories of life in Paris and New York.
George Levine is professor emeritus of English at Rutgers University. A respected literary critic, his primary scholarly interest is Victorian literature with a particular interest in science and literature. Among his many books is Darwin Loves You: Natural Selection and the Re-enchantment of the World.
November 30, 2009
Lauren Minsky, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
The Hospital as Healing Shrine: Rethinking the Social Context of Therapeutic Practice in Colonial India
Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Time: 3:30 - 5:30 p.m.
Place: Claudia Cohen Hall, University of Pennysylvania