Events
August 18, 2008 - January 30, 2009
“Molecules that Matter”
Chemical Heitage Foundation | Visit site »
Time: 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Location: Hach Gallery at the Chemical Heritage Foundation
415 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia
“Molecules That Matter” showcases ten organic molecules that profoundly altered our world in the 20th century: aspirin, isooctane, penicillin, polyethylene, nylon, DNA, progestin, DDT, Prozac, and buckminsterfullerene. Each molecule is associated with one decade of the 20th century. A board of ten chemists from higher education, industry, and CHF selected the molecules, with a final review by two chemistry Nobel laureates.
This exhibit aims to stimulate our awareness of the impact molecular science has on us all, individually and as a society. All around the exhibition, models of the molecules’ chemical structures—2.5 billion times larger, but scientifically accurate—float suspended from walls and ceilings. Each molecule is surrounded with an evocative array of related cultural artifacts and artworks.
October 3, 2008
Opening of Permanent Exhibition: “Making Modernity”
Chemical Heritage Foundation | Visit site »
Time: 10:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m., M-F
Special evening hours on October 3.
Location: Chemical Heritage Foundation
Masao Horiba Exhibit Hall
415 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia
“Making Modernity” is a major new exhibition that celebrates how science shapes the modern world. Ten years in the making, it opens this fall at the Chemical Heritage Foundation’s new two-story museum hall. The exhibition is made possible by the generous support of the Beckman Foundation.
From chemistry’s origins to today, “Making Modernity” brings to life the unexpected beauty of science outside the lab. Visitors can trace scientific progress from the laboratory, to the factory, to their homes and learn how chemistry created and continues to improve the modern world.
Drawn from CHF’s world-class collections, the exhibition ranges from cosmetics to computers and includes scientific instruments and apparatus, rare books, fine art, and the personal papers of prominent scientists. Singular scientific objects and everyday items tell the stories of discoveries that shaped our lives.
For the public opening on October 3, CHF will host a First Friday open house with refreshments and activities.
June 22, 2007 - December 28, 2008
Undaunted: Five American Explorers, 1760-2007
American Philosophical Society | Visit site »
The word “exploration” usually conjures images of bold adventurers who go where no one has gone before and discover what no one else has ever found. As historian Daniel Boorstin once noted, “Every discovery is also a biography.”
But exploration entails far more than tales of adventurers scaling new heights or enduring long, lonely journeys. Exploration alters existing knowledge about the peoples, places, or things being explored, and it simultaneously unsettles them. It results in verbal descriptions, visual images, and collections of objects that embody the cultural, social, and political premises that lie behind the new discoveries. Most important, exploration never ends, as peoples, places, and things—and our ideas and questions about them—are ever-changing. In short, everything is always in flux, always ready to be explored again.
In UNDAUNTED: Five American Explorers, 1760–2007, an exhibition at the APS Museum from 22 June 2007 through 28 December 2008, the tools of exploration will be turned on exploration itself. Visitors will discover five explorers who were or are all members of the Society, and all with a Philadelphia connection: David Rittenhouse, John James Audubon, Titian Ramsay Peale, Elisha Kent Kane, and Ruth Patrick. The displays, including scientific instruments, paintings and drawings, maps, charts, photographs, and ship models, will consider these adventurers’ place in the history of American science and culture, explore their practices in the field, and reveal the various ways they documented and mapped their findings.
Self-taught astronomer and instrument maker David Rittenhouse (1732–1796) explored the heavens and the earth. The instruments he built and his meticulous observations of celestial phenomena such as the 1769 transit of Venus played important roles in accurately mapping both the solar system and the territory of colonial Pennsylvania. Known as a skilled and honest surveyor as well as astronomer, he helped establish the boundaries of his home territory, including the famous Mason-Dixon Line between Pennsylvania and Maryland. His instruments and his observations helped transform the wilderness into settled farmland, and the irregular pattern of hills, forests, and streams into the geometric shapes traced on government maps.
John James Audubon (1785–1851) described himself as an “American Woodsman” with a passion for birds that “border[ed] on Phrenzy.” Beginning in the 1820s, when most of the continent was still unknown to Euro-Americans, he tramped thousands of miles to collect specimens, take notes, and make drawings. The Birds of America, the resulting double-elephant folio book, was a scientific, artistic, and publishing landmark that catapulted him to instant fame. The 435 exquisite hand-colored plates depict the birds life-size, often in their natural habitats, presenting a “map” of North American nature from the chilly shores of Newfoundland and Labrador to the swamps of Florida and the mountains of the far West. Audubon’s artistic talent was undeniable, but some doubted his scientific ability. At the time, naturalists who primarily worked in the field, as he did, had a lower status than the theoreticians who created grand schemes of classification. Thus he had to struggle for official recognition, even in the United States where the scientific establishment was still quite young.
When he sailed as a naturalist with the United States Exploring Expedition in 1838, Philadelphia artist, naturalist, and museum curator Titian Ramsay Peale (1799–1885) was known as a gifted collector of natural history specimens and a crack shot. The “US Ex Ex,” or “Wilkes Expedition,” as it was also known, was the first and largest sea-going exploring expedition launched by the young but rapidly expanding United States. Its round-the-world voyage lasted four years, and two of the squadron of six ships were lost. But the expedition made important discoveries in Antarctica and brought back nearly 40 tons of scientific specimens, which prompted the founding of America’s first national museum. Yet its discoveries in Antarctica were hotly contested, and the nation’s still-developing scientific institutions were overwhelmed by the amount of data collected. Personal and political conflicts stymied preparation of the expedition’s scientific publications, severely limiting their potential impact. The story of Peale and the US Ex Ex is one of grand ambition and heroic daring, but also of petty disputes and inadequate scientific resources.
Despite a weak heart, physician Elisha Kent Kane (1820–1857) survived two long, cold winters marooned in the ice of the upper Arctic, where he had ventured on a second voyage in search of earlier lost explorers and the mythical “Open Polar Sea.” Kane’s undergraduate coursework in geology had trained him to observe and describe his surroundings. His accounts of glaciers and their movements would soon provide support for the Ice Age theory, a new and radical notion at the time. He also charted portions of the basin now bearing his name and learned essential survival skills from the Inuit. In the mid-19th century, when tales of travel to exotic lands were popular, the icy landscape, unfamiliar peoples, and strange animals of the Arctic had a strong grip on the public imagination. Kane’s triumphant return from his ordeal in 1855, after fending off starvation, disease, and mutinous crew members, caused an international sensation. Thousands of Americans mourned when he died prematurely in 1857 at age 37.
The final section of the show will demonstrate the importance of scientific exploration in the 20th century. It focuses on the accomplishments of Ruth Patrick (born 1907), a scientist-explorer who turns 100 this year. Beginning in the late 1940s, when science was closed to most women, Patrick traced thousands of miles of American rivers for her pioneering studies of freshwater ecology. In 1947, she founded the Limnology Department at The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. Combining fieldwork with laboratory science, she proved that diatoms—small, single-celled algae with beautiful microscopic structures—are an essential part of the web connecting all organisms in river ecosystems. As one of the first researchers to use plant life and animal species to track and chart pollution in rivers and streams, Patrick has contributed greatly to our understanding of the environment.
September 6, 2007
Franklin Institute Lecture: “Recent Discoveries at the Pyramids and the Valley of the Kings”
The Franklin Institute | Visit site »
Speaker: Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence at The Franklin Institute
Location: Irvine Auditorium at the University of Pennsylvania, 3401 Spruce Street
Time: 7:00 - 8:00 p.m
September 10, 2007
Matthew Eddy, Durham University
Fall 2007 Workshop: “Reading Practices and Natural History Texts in Enlightenment Edinburgh”
Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Speaker: Matthew Eddy, Durham University
Time: 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Place: 337 Logan Hall
September 12, 2007
Susanne Kreutzer, Ph.D., Institute of Sociology, Leibniz University of Hanover, Germany
History of Nursing Seminar Series: “Christian Charity Service and the Professionalization of Nursinng: A Comparison Between West Germany and the United States”
Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Speaker: Susanne Kreutzer, Ph.D., Institute of Sociology, Leibniz University of Hanover, Germany;
2007 Bates Center Fisher Fellow
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Place: 3R Conference Room, Claire Fagin Hall
September 14, 2007
Solomon H. Katz, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania
Lecture: “Origins of Agriculture, the Rise of Civilization and the Evolution of Cuisine”
American Philosophical Society | Visit site »
Speaker: Solomon H. Katz, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, and Director of Penn’s Krogman Center for Childhood Growth and Development
Time: 5:30 - 7:00 p.m
Location: American Philosophical Society (Benjamin Franklin Hall, 477 Chestnut Street)
RSVP: E-mail sduffy@amphilsoc.org or call 215-440-3400.
September 18, 2007
Jacqueline Wernimont, Brown University
“Margaret Cavendish’s Literary Mathematics”
Chemical Heritage Foundation, Brown Bag Lecture | Visit site »
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Place: 6th floor conference room, 315 Chestnut Street
September 19, 2007
Emily Abel, Ph.D., Health Services and Women's Studies, UCLA School of Public Health
History of Nursing Seminar Series: “Tuberculosis and the Politics of Exclusion: A History of Public Health and Migration to Los Angeles”
Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Speaker: Emily Abel, Ph.D., Professor, Health Services and Women’s Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, School of Public Health
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Place: 3R Conference Room, Claire Fagin Hall
September 20, 2007
Thomas L. Bartlow, Villanova University, and David E. Zitarelli, Temple University
“Who Was Miss Mullikin?”
Philadelphia Area Seminar on the History of Mathematics (PASHoM) | Visit site »
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Place: Villanova University
September 20, 2007
Steven J. Peitzman, M.D., F.A.C.P., Drexel University College of Medicine
Section on Medical History Lecture: “I Am Their Physician: Dr. Owen J. Wister of Germantown and His Patients”
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia | Visit site »
Speaker: Steven J. Peitzman, M.D., F.A.C.P., Professor of Medicine, Drexel University College of Medicine
Time: 6:15 p.m.
Place: The College of Physicians of Philadelphia
Registration form: http://www.collphyphil.org/pdf/progreg.pdf
September 20, 2007
Robert Kanigel, Professor of Science Writing & Director of the Graduate Program in Science Writing, MIT
Fall Lecture Series: “Faux Real: Genuine Leather and Two Hundred Years of Inspired Fakes”
Hagley Museum and Library | Visit site »
Speaker: Robert Kanigel, Professor of Science Writing and Director of the Graduate Program in Science Writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Time: 7:00 p.m.
September 24, 2007
Simon Cole, University of California, Irvine
Fall 2007 Workshop: “Crime, Privacy, and Identity in the Age of Genetics and Information Technology”
Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Speaker: Simon Cole, University of California, Irvine
Time: 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Place: 337 Logan Hall
September 25, 2007
Speaker: Audra Wolfe, Chemical Heritage Foundation
“Learning from Lysenko”
Chemical Heritage Foundation, Brown Bag Lecture | Visit site »
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Place: 6th floor conference room, 315 Chestnut Street
September 26, 2007
Jean Whelan, Ph.D., R.N., School of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania
History of Nursing Seminar Series: “Necessary Yet Unaffordable: The Disconnect Between Private Duty Nurses Fees and Patient Ability to Pay, 1900-1940”
Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Speaker: Jean Whelan, Ph.D., R.N., Adjunct Assistant Professor of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Place: 3R Conference Room, Claire Fagin Hall
September 28, 2007
MCEAS Conference Presentation: “The Communication Commonly Call’d ‘Inoculation of the Small-Pox’: Print, Medicine, and the Politics of Scientific Knowledge in the Boston Inoculation Controversy”
The McNeil Center for Early American Studies | Visit site »
Speaker: Kelly Wisecup, University of Maryland
Session time: 2:00 - 3:00 p.m.
Place: Franklin Hall, American Philosophical Society, 427 Chestnut Street
This presentation is part of the MCEAS Biennial Graduate Student Conference on “Conflict & Community in Early America,” session on Bodies of Knowledge. For more information or to register, visit the conference website at http://www.mceas.org/gradconference07/reg2007.htm or call 215-898-9251.
September 28, 2007
Kathryn A. Ostrofsky, University of Pennsylvania
MCEAS Conference Presentation: “ ‘All Things Righted’: Race and the Haitian Revolution During Philadelphia’s 1793 Yellow Fever Epidemic”
The McNeil Center for Early American Studies | Visit site »
Speaker: Kathryn A. Ostrofsky, University of Pennsylvania
Session time: 2:00 - 3:00 p.m.
Place: Franklin Hall, American Philosophical Society, 427 Chestnut Street
This presentation is part of the MCEAS Biennial Graduate Student Conference on “Conflict & Community in Early America,” session on Bodies of Knowledge. For more information or to register, visit the conference website at http://www.mceas.org/gradconference07/reg2007.htm or call 215-898-9251.
September 28, 2007
Eric Otremba, University of Minnesota
MCEAS Conference Presentation: “Representations of Sugar Production in the Atlantic World”
The McNeil Center for Early American Studies | Visit site »
Speaker: Eric Otremba, University of Minnesota
Session time: 2:00 - 3:30 p.m.
Place: Franklin Hall, American Philosophical Society, 427 Chestnut Street
This presentation is part of the MCEAS Biennial Graduate Student Conference on “Conflict & Community in Early America,” session on Bodies of Knowledge. For more information or to register, visit the conference website at http://www.mceas.org/gradconference07/reg2007.htm or call 215-898-9251.
October 1, 2007
Anne Marie Rafferty, Ph.D., Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery, Kings College, London
History of Nursing Seminar Series: Anne Marie Rafferty, Title to be announced
Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Speaker: Anne Marie Rafferty, Ph.D., Professor, Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery, Kings College, London
Time: 10:30 a.m.
Place: Life Building, 4508 Chestnut Street, Rm 481 [Note change in location.]
October 1, 2007
Babak Ashrafi, Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science
Fall 2007 Workshop: “Born’s Bad Bet”
Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Speaker: Babak Ashrafi, Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science
Time: 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Place: 337 Logan Hall
October 2, 2007
Augustin Cerveaux, Université Louis Pasteur; 2007 Glenn E. and Barbara Hodson Ullyot Scholar, CHF
“Nanotechnology’s History: The Missing Link”
Chemical Heritage Foundation, Brown Bag Lecture | Visit site »
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Place: 6th floor conference room, 315 Chestnut Street
October 3, 2007
Barbara Savage, Ph.D., Department of History, University of Pennsylvania
History of Nursing Seminar Series: “The Social Science of Black Religion”
Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Speaker: Barbara Savage, Ph.D., Geraldiine R. Segal Professor of American Thought and Professor of History, Department of History, University of Pennsylvania
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Place: 3R Conference Room, Claire Fagin Hall
October 4, 2007
Sara E. Wermeil, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“Norcross, Fuller, and the Rise of the General Contractor in Nineteenth Century America”
Hagley Museum and Library, Research Seminar | Visit site »
Time: 6:30 p.m.
To respond and request paper, email clockman@hagley.org.
Sponsored by the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society
October 5, 2007
Yvonne Fabella, SUNY-Stony Brook
McNeil Center Seminar: “Creolizing the Enlightenment: Print Culture, Science and Education in Late-Colonial Saint Domingue”
The McNeil Center for Early American Studies | Visit site »
Speaker: Yvonne Fabella, SUNY-Stony Brook and 2006-2007 MCEAS Consortium Dissertation Fellow
Time: 3:00 - 5:00 p.m.
Place: Campus Center--West AB Conference Room, Rutgers University—Camden
October 8, 2007
Bruno Strasser, Yale University
Fall 2007 Workshop: “Banking Biology: Property, Privacy and Priority in Late 20th Century Databases”
Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Speaker: Bruno Strasser, Yale University
Time: 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Place: 337 Logan Hall
October 9, 2007
Regina Blaszczyk, Writer and Independent Scholar
“Chemistry Meets the Creative Economy: DuPont and Postwar Interior Design”
Chemical Heritage Foundation, Brown Bag Lecture | Visit site »
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Place: 6th floor conference room, 315 Chestnut Street
October 10, 2007
Medical History Society of New Jersey, Annual Fall Meeting
Medical History Society of New Jersey | Visit site »
Talks by Alan Lippman, M.D., Wolfgang Jochle, D.V.M., Ph.D., William Campbell, Ph.D., Victor Parsonnet, M.D.,and Karen Reeds, Ph.D.
Dinner and University of Medicine and Dentistry of N.J. Foundation Lecture by Janet Golden, Ph.D., Department of History, Rutgers University, Camden: “Message in a Bottle: The Making of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome”
Time: 3:30 - 8:45 p.m.
Place: The Nassau Club of Princeton
Registration required; fee.
October 10, 2007
Robert McCracken Peck, The Academy of Natural Sciences
Weeknights at the Wagner: “Exploring Alaska: The Harriman Expedition Retraced”
The Wager Free Institute of Science | Visit site »
Speaker: Robert McCracken Peck, Librarian and Senior Fellow, The Academy of Natural Sciences
Time: 4:00 - 7:00 p.m.; Lecture at 5:30 p.m.
Place: 1700 Montgomery Avenue
October 12, 2007
Paul Dickson, author and journalist
Lecture & Booksigning: “Sputnik: The Shock of the Century”
American Philosophical Society | Visit site »
Speaker: Paul Dickson, author and journalist
Location: American Philosophical Society (Benjamin Franklin Hall, 477 Chestnut Street)
Time: 5:30 - 7:00 p.m.
RSVP: E-mail to sduffy@amphilsoc.org or call 215-440-3400.
October 13, 2007
7th Annual New Sweden History Conference: “Carl Linnaeus, Pehr Kalm & the Early American Scientific
The Swedish Colonial Society | Visit site »
Time: 9:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Place: Trinity Episcopal Church, Swedesboro, New Jersey
Conference commemorating the tercentenary of Linnaeus’s birth and focusing on the role of his “apostle” in America, Pehr Kalm, in the development of the early North American scientific community during the mid-18th century. Program features talks, tours, nature walks. See conference website for complete program and to register.
October 16, 2007
Charles Falco, The University of Arizona
Keynote Lecture for Imaging Symposium: “The Science of Optics; The History of Imaging”
University of Pennsylvania, School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Chemistry | Visit site »
Speaker: Charles Falco, Professor of Optical Sciences, The University of Arizona
Time: 8:00 p.m.
Place: Room 102, Chemistry Department, University of Pennsylvania
231 S. 34th Street
Registration: http://imaging.chem.upenn.edu/registration.html
October 16, 2007
Mary Ellen Bowden, Senior Research Fellow, Chemical Heritage Foundation
“Messages from Dye Sample Books in the CHF Collections”
Chemical Heritage Foundation, Brown Bag Lecture | Visit site »
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Place: 6th Floor Conference Room, 315 Chestnut Street
October 16, 2007
Peter Galison, Harvard University, and others.
Symposium on “Advances in Scientific Imaging: Molecules, Brain, Universe”
University of Pennsylvania, School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Chemistry | Visit site »
Speakers include:
Peter Galison, Professor of the History of Science and of Physics, Harvard University, on “Images and the Making of Scientific Objectivity”
Time: 8:00 a.m. - 5:15 p.m.
Place: Department of Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania
Registration: http://imaging.chem.upenn.edu/registration.html
October 16, 2007
Peter Galison, Harvard University
Fall 2007 Workshop: “ ‘SECRECY’: Communicating Scholarship Through Film”
Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Speaker: Peter Galison, Professor of the History of Science and of Physics, Harvard University
Time: 3:00 - 6:00 p.m
Place: 402 Logan Hall
Film Screening and Discussion
October 17, 2007
Sandy Lewenson, Ph.D., Lienhard School of Nursing, Pace University
History of Nursing Seminar Series: “Transformation of Nursing Education: The Phasing Out of the Bellevue and Mills Schools of Nursing and the Expansion of Hunter College, 1967”
Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Speaker: Sandy Lewenson, Ph.D., Professor of Nursing, Lienhard School of Nursing, Pace University
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Place: 3R Conference Room, Claire Fagin Hall
October 18, 2007
Edward Hogan, East Stroudsburg University
“Benjamin Peirce as Head of the Coast Survey”
Philadelphia Area Seminar on the History of Mathematics (PASHoM) | Visit site »
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Place: Villanova University
October 18, 2007
Robert McCracken Peck, The Academy of Natural Sciences
“Paul DuChaillu and the ‘Discovery’ of the Gorilla, or The Science Behind ‘King Kong‘“
Friends of the Library, Princeton University | Visit site »
Speaker: Robert McCracken Peck, Librarian and Senior Fellow, The Academy of Natural Sciences
Time: 5:00 p.m.
Place: 010 East Pyne Hall, Princeton University
October 18, 2007
John J. Downes, M.D., Children's Hospital of Philadlephia
Section on Medical History: “Pediatric Critical Care Medicine—Why, When and How It Developed”
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia | Visit site »
The Samuel X. Radbill Lecture
Speaker: John J. Downes, M.D., Attending Intensivist, Critical Care Medicine, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Time: 6:15 p.m.
Place: The College of Physicians of Philadelphia
Registration form: http://www.collphyphil.org/pdf/progreg.pdf
October 20, 2007
Babak Ashrafi, Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science
PACHS Reception & Information Session, at SHOT Annual Meeting
Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science, Technology and Medicine | Visit site »
Speaker: Babak Ashrafi, Executive Director, Philadelphia Area Center for Science
Time: 2:00 - 4:00 p.m.
Place: Massachusetts Room, Capital Hilton, Washington, D.C.
Annual Meeting of the Society for the History of Technology
October 23, 2007
S. Elizabeth Bird, University of South Florida
Annenberg Scholars Program, Lecture: “Museums as Popular Culture: The Body of Evidence in Controversy”
Annenberg School for Communications, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Speaker: S. Elizabeth Bird, Professor and Chair/Department of Anthropology at the University of South Florida
Time: 5:00 - 7:30 p.m.; Lecture at 6:15 p.m.
Place: Annenberg School for Communication, Room 109
October 23, 2007
Sanford Moskowitz, College of St. Benedict/Saint John’s University
“Jockeying for Position—Global Technology and Economic Power in the U.S. and E.U.: The Case of International Advanced Materials “
Chemical Heritage Foundation, Brown Bag Lecture | Visit site »
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Place: 6th floor conference room, 315 Chestnut Street
October 23, 2007
Alison Winter, University of Chicago
History of Science Colloquium: “ ‘No! No! Not the Comfy Chair!’ The Power of the Experimental Situation in Social Psychology”
History of Science Program, Princeton University | Visit site »
Speaker: Alison Winter, Associate Professor of History, University of Chicago
Time: 4:30 p.m.
Place: 211 Dickinson Hall
October 24, 2007
Jane Schultz, Ph.D., English, American Studies & Women's Studies, Indiana University-Purdue University
History of Nursing Seminar Series: Jane Schultz, “What’s In a Nurse?: The Civil War Diary of Harriet Eaton”
Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Speaker: Jane Schultz, Ph.D., Professor of English and Adjunct Professor of American Studies and Women’s Studies, Indiana University-Purdue University
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Place: 3R Conference Room, Claire Fagin Hall
October 24, 2007
Doron Swade, Computer History Museum
Delaware Valley Distinguished Lectureship Series in Computer Science: “Charles Babbage and His Legacy”
Jointly hosted by the Computing Departments of Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges and Villanova University | Visit site »
Speaker: Dr. Doron D. Swade, Computer History Museum
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Place: Swarthmore College Science Center, Room 101
October 25, 2007
Darin Hayton, Haverford College
Great Works Symposium: “Xenophobia and Moral Condemnation in Plague, Epidemics from Ancient Greece
Drexel University | Visit site »
Speaker: Darin Hayton, Assistant Professor of History, Haverford College
Time: 3:30 - 4:50 p.m.
Place: Nesbitt Hall, Rm. 125, Drexel University
October 26, 2007
John Beatty, University of British Columbia
Fall 2007 Workshop: “Karl Popper, Darwinism, and Totalitarianism”
Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Speaker: John Beatty, University of British Columbia
Time: 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Place: To be announced
Joint workshop with the Philosophy Department, University of Pennsylvania
October 29, 2007
Julia Schikore, Indiana University
Fall 2007 Workshop: “Early 19th Century Microscopy”
Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Speaker: Julia Schikore, Indiana University
Time: 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Place: 337 Logan Hall
October 30, 2007
Ronald Smeltzer
“Illustration for the Scientific Text”
Chemical Heritage Foundation, Brown Bag Lecture | Visit site »
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Place: 6th floor conference room, 315 Chestnut Street
October 31, 2007
Anette Forss, Ph.D., Division of Nursing, Karolinska Institutet, Huddinge, Sweden
History of Nursing Seminar Series: “At the Margins of Health and Normality: Women’s Encounters with Biomedical Technology in the Realm of Cervical Cancer Screening”
Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Speaker: Anette Forss, Ph.D., Division of Nursing, Karolinska Institutet, Huddinge, Sweden
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Place: 3R Conference Room, Claire Fagin Hall
November 2, 2007
Babak Ashrafi, Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science
PACHS Reception & Information Session, at HSS Annual Meeting
Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science | Visit site »
Speaker: Babak Ashrafi, Executive Director, Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science
Time: 12:00 - 1:15 p.m.
Place: Salon H, Crystal Gateway Marriott, Arlington, VA
Annual Meeting of the History of Science Society
November 5, 2007
John Pickstone, University of Manchester
Book Discussion: “Surgeons, Manufacturers and Patients: A Transatlantic History of Total Hip Replace
Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Speaker: John Pickstone, Wellcome Research Professor, Faculty of Life Sciences and Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine (CHSTM), University of Manchester
Time: 2:00 p.m.
Place: Lounge, 3rd Floor of Logan Hall, 249 S. 36th Street
Prof. Pickstone will discuss his forthcoming book (co-authored with J. Anderson and F. Neary) on total hip replacement (THR), which transformed orthopaedics and became the basis of a global industry.
November 5, 2007
Wendy Kline, University of Cincinnati
Fall 2007 Workshop: “Bodies of Evidence: Activists, Patients, and the FDA Regulation of Depo Provera”
Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Speaker: Wendy Kline, Associate Professor, History, University of Cincinnati
Time: 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Place: 337 Logan Hall
November 6, 2007
David Schleifer, New York University
“Where Did All the Trans Fats Come From?”
Chemical Heritage Foundation, Brown Bag Lecture | Visit site »
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Place: 6th floor conference room, 315 Chestnut Street
November 7, 2007
Manuel De Landa, Columbia University
Penn Humanities Forum on Origins: “Origin of Artificial Intelligence”
Penn Humanities Forum, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Speaker: Manuel De Landa, Professor, Graduate School of Architecture, Columbia University
Time: 5:00 - 6:30 p.m.
Place: Rainey Auditorium, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
November 8, 2007
APS Autumn General Meeting
American Philosophical Society | Visit site »
Thursday, 8 November, 1:15 - 3:30 p.m.
Friday, 9 November, 9:15 - 11:30 a.m. and 1:15 - 3:30 p.m.
Saturday, 10 November, 9:15 - 11:30 a.m.
Registration: westcott@amphilsoc.org
Live webcast: http://www.amphilsoc.org/meetings/webcast.htm (available only at time of meeting)
November 8, 2007
David S. Barnes, University of Pennsylvania
Great Works Symposium: “Thinking with Epidemics, from Yellow Fever to Bird Flu”
Drexel University | Visit site »
Speaker: David S. Barnes, Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania
Time: 3:30 - 4:50 p.m.
Place: Nesbitt Hall, Rm 125, Drexel University
November 12, 2007
Gabriella Petrick, New York University
Fall 2007 Workshop: “Industrializing Taste: Using Science and Technology to Historicize Our Sense of Taste”
Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Speaker: Gabriella Petrick, Assistant Professor of Nutrition and Food Studies, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York University
Time: 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Place: 337 Logan Hall
November 13, 2007
John Theibault, Chemical Heritage Foundation
“Lazarus Ercker and the Spread of German Metallurgy in the 16th and 17th Centuries”
Chemical Heritage Foundation, Brown Bag Lecture | Visit site »
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Place: 6th floor conference room, 315 Chestnut Street
November 14, 2007
McNeil Center Brown Bag Seminar: “God’s Book of Nature: Popular Science and Christianity in the Early Republic”
The McNeil Center for Early American Studies | Visit site »
Speaker: Lily Santoro, Doctoral Candidate in History, University of Delaware
Time: 12:30 - 1:45 p.m.
Place: Seminar Room 105, McNeil Center, 3355 Woodland Walk
November 14, 2007
Amy Hiller, Ph.D., School of Design, University of Pennsylvania
History of Nursing Seminar Series: “Mapping the DuBois Philadelphia Negro”
Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Speaker: Amy Hillier, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, School of Design, University of Pennsylvania
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Place: 3R Conference Room, Claire Fagin Hall
November 14, 2007
Scott Rawlins, Arcadia University
Weeknights at the Wagner: “Aesthetics and Attitudes in the Golden Age of Natural Science Illustration”
The Wagner Free Institute of Science | Visit site »
Speaker: Scott Rawlins, Associate Professor, Fine Arts Department, Arcadia University
Time: 4:00 - 7:00 p.m.; Lecture at 5:30 p.m.
Place: The Wagner Free Institute of Science
November 15, 2007
Dr. Ronald Boyer, International Foundation for Clinical Homeopathy
Section on Medical History Lecture: “The History of Homeopathy”
College of Physicians of Philadelphia | Visit site »
Speaker: Dr. Ronald Boyer, President of the Center for Education and Development of Clinical Homeopathy, International Foundation for Clinical Homeopathy
Time: 6:15 p.m.
Registration form: http://www.collphyphil.org/pdf/progreg.pdf
November 15, 2007
Paul C. Pasles, Villanova University
Reading & Book Signing: “Benjamin Franklin’s Numbers”
University of Pennsylvania Bookstore | Visit site »
Speaker: Paul C. Pasles, Associate Professor of Mathematical Sciences, Villanova University
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Place: Penn Bookstore, 2nd Floor
November 15, 2007
Marina Vulis
“Life and Work of Luca Pacioli”
Philadelphia Area Seminar on the History of Mathematics (PASHoM) | Visit site »
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Place: Villanova University
November 16, 2007
Call for Papers: Pennsylvania Hospital History of Women’s Health Conference
Pennsylvania Hospital | Visit site »
The Pennsylvania Hospital will host its third annual History of Women’s Health Conference on Wednesday, April 23, 2008. Interested persons are invited to submit a two-page proposal or abstract by Friday, November 16, for consideration. The Conference will focus on women’s health issues from the late 18th century to the present, and interdisciplinary work is encouraged. Topics include, but are not limited to, obstetric and gynecology issues, adolescence, mental health topics, geriatric concerns, access to health care, minority health and more. For more information or to submit proposals, contact Stacey C. Peeples, Curator-Lead Archivist, Pennsylvania Hospital, peepless@pahosp.com.
November 16, 2007
Book Launch: “Mütter Museum: Historic Medical Photographs”
College of Physicians of Philadelphia | Visit site »
Speaker: Laura Lindgren, author and publisher
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Discusson and book signing. A selection of historical medical photographs from the Mütter Museum’s collection will be available for public viewing.
Registration form: http://www.collphyphil.org/pdf/progreg.pdf
November 17, 2007
Celebration of the 100th Birthday of Dr. Ruth Patrick
The Academy of Natural Sciences | Visit site »
November 19, 2007
Paul Offit, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Fall 2007 Workshop: “One Scientist’s Perspectives on the History of Vaccines”
Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Speaker: Paul Offit, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Time: 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Place: 337 Logan Hall
November 26, 2007
John Krige, Georgia Tech
Fall 2007 Workshop: “Technology as an Instrument of U.S. Foreign Policy”
Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Speaker: John Krige, Kranzberg Professor in the School of History, Technology, and Society, Georgia Tech
Time: 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Place: 337 Logan Hall
November 27, 2007
Slawomir Lotysz, University of Zielona Gora (Poland); 2007-2008 Charles C. Price Fellow, CHF
“Casimir Zeglen: Pioneer of Bulletproof Vests”
Chemical Heritage Foundation, Brown Bag Lecture | Visit site »
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Place: 6th floor conference room, 315 Chestnut Street
November 28, 2007
McNeil Center Brown Bag Seminar: “Negotiating Sickness: Health and Work on British West Indian Sugar Plantations, 1750-1810”
The McNeil Center for Early American Studies | Visit site »
Speaker: Justin Roberts, Doctoral Candidate in History, The Johns Hopkins University
Time: 12:30 - 1:45 p.m.
Place: Seminar Room 105, McNeil Center, 3355 Woodland Walk
November 28, 2007
Dominique Tobell, Doctoral Student, History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania
History of Nursing Seminar Series: “Allied Against Reform: Pharmaceutical Industry-Academic Physician Relations in the United States, 1945-1970”
Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
Speaker: Dominique Tobell, Doctoral Student, Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Place: 3R Conference Room, Claire Fagin Hall
November 30, 2007
Babak Ashrafi, Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science
History of Science Colloquium: “Max Born’s Bad Bet”
History of Science Program, Princeton University | Visit site »
Speaker: Babak Ashrafi, Executive Director, Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science
Time: 4:30 p.m.
Place: 211 Dickinson Hall
December 3, 2007
Franklin Institute Permanent Exhibit: “Franklin. He’s Electric.”
The Franklin Institute | Visit site »
Created for the Franklin Institute’s 175th Anniversary celebration in 1999, the exhibit explores Franklin’s scientific genius: from meteorology and music, to electricity, optics, and aquatics. It also offers new insight into the inventive minds of other great scientists whom Franklin inspired, such as the Wright Brothers and Thomas Edison. Objects with historical significance are featured, including rare 18th Century artifacts from the Institute’s curatorial collections and Franklin’s own inventions and models, including his lightning rod and a reproduction of his bifocals. The role of The Franklin Institute in major scientific breakthroughs during its 175-year-plus history is highlighted in a special section, “The Wonderland of Science.” This was a term coined to describe the museum shortly after its opening in 1934.
December 3, 2007
Online Exhibit. “J. G. Brill Company Photographs”
The Historical Society of Pennsylvania | Visit site »
The J.G. Brill Company and its various incarnations dominated the world of trolley and undercarriage manufacturing for most of its seventy-year history. Based in Philadelphia, Brill was founded in 1868 by a German immigrant and held in family hands well into the 1930s. At its height, The J.G. Brill Company owned plants in six states as well as in Canada and France.
December 4, 2007
Doogab Yi, Princeton University; 2007-2008 Robert W. Gore Fellow, CHF
“From Laboratory to Factory and Vice Versa: Gift and Commodity in Biomedical Materials Exchange and Production at the New England Enzyme Center, 1962–1980”
Chemical Heritage Foundation, Brown Bag Lecture | Visit site »
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Place: 6th floor conference room, 315 Chestnut Street
December 11, 2007
Monica Green, Arizona State University
History of Science Colloquium: “Did Women Have a Printing Revolution? Women’s Medicine Before and After 1500”
History of Science Program, Princeton University | Visit site »
Speaker: Monica Green, Professor of History, Arizona State UniversityTime: 4:30 p.m.
Place: 209 Scheide Caldwell House
Co-sponsored with the Program in Medieval Studies.
December 12, 2007
Cynthia Connolly, Ph.D., Associate Professor, School of Nursing, Yale University
“ ‘Bearing Witness’: Nurses and the AIDS Epidemic in the United States, 1981-2001”
Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania, History of Nursing Seminar Series | Visit site »
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Place: 3R Conference Room, Clare Fagin Hall
December 15, 2007
Exhibit: “Lewis and Clark Revisited: A Trail in Modern Day”
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology | Visit site »
In 1804 Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led an unprecedented overland expedition across North America and back, pioneering the western exploration and expansion of the United States. Two centures later, photographer Greg MacGregor retraced their journey to see the present state of this historic route. This exhibition features 60 of MacGregor’s dramatic black-and-white images chronicling the transformation of the American landscape. Paried with the images are entries from the Lewis and Clark journals, which MacGregor used to follow in their footsteps, and maps of the expedition trail.
January 17, 2008
Seminar in Celebration of Benjamin Franklin’s Birthday: “Franklin’s Legacy: Celebrating Women in Science”
Celebration! Benjamin Franklin, Founder | Visit site »
Speakers:
Susan Branson, The University of Texas at Dallas: “American Women and Enlightenment Science”
Virginia M.-Y. Lee, University of Pennsylvania: “Neurodegenerative Disease Research in the Spirit of Benjamin Franklin”
Time: 9:00 - 10:30 a.m.
Place: Benjamin Franklin Hall, 427 Chestnut Street, American Philosophical Society
January 17, 2008
Alan Gluchoff, Villanova University
“Philip Schwartz, Probable Error, and the Variability of the Ballistic Trajectory”
Philadelphia Area Seminar on the History of Mathematics (PASHoM) | Visit site »
At the close of World War I those who studied ballistics began to turn their attention to the “second order effects” - how such factors as wind, density of air, and small changes in initial velocity affected the range of a projectile. Related to these questions is the matter of the dispersion of a series of shots fired under as nearly identical conditions as possible, and how one measures this dispersion. In the United States efforts were made to introduce standard tools of elementary probability: mean, standard deviation (actually “probable error") , and normal distribution of errors, into this milieu, with mixed results. The talk highlights the attempt of Philip Schwartz, a young artillery officer with some mathematical background and an associate of Oswald Veblen, to analyze these concepts as they were used in dealing with the data of artillery firing. Emphasis is given on how difficult men found it to understand, defend, and apply these concepts by viewing a controversy played out in the pages of the Coast Artillery Journal during the years 1924-1930. No knowledge other than that of elementary probability and the normal distribution is required.
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Place: Villanova University
January 22, 2008
Pamela S. Lottero-Perdue, Fisher College of Science and Mathematics, Towson University
“Critical Scientific Literacy: Examples from a Breastfeeding Information, Support, and Advocacy Group”
Chemical Heritage Foundation, Brown Bag Lecture | Visit site »
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Place: 6th Floor Conference Room, Chemical Heritage Foundation
January 23, 2008
Yvonne McKeown, M.Sc. (History), M.Sc. (Nursing), University of Edinburgh
“Wounds of the Spirit: Shell Shock in Front Line Nurses and Female Combatants”
Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania, History of Nursing Seminar Series | Visit site »
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Place: 3R Conference Room, Claire Fagin Hall
January 24, 2008
Steven J. Peitzman, M.D.
Great Works Symposium: Steven J. Peitzman, “The Artificial Kidney in the United States: A Three-Part Invention”
Drexel University | Visit site »
This talk will be based on Dr. Peitzman’s extensive research in the history of nephrology, which culminated recently in the publication of his second book, entitled Dropsy, Dialysis, Transplant: A Short History of Failing Kidneys (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007). In this lecture, Dr. Peitzman will examine the history of the artificial kidney, or hemodialysis machine, which was transformed from a very imperfect device by a special government program and a novel commercial enterprise into an entirely new form of medical care. Dr. Peitzman will explore how in the “chronic dialysis unit,” doctors, nurses, patients, disease, government, and business meet each other every day of the year.
Steven J. Peitzman, M.D., is a graduate of Temple University School of Medicine and Professor of Medicine at Drexel University College of Medicine. He did his post-graduate training in internal medicine and nephrology at Medical College of Pennsylvania Hospital and the V. A. Medical Center in Philadelphia. He is a nephrologist and currently does mainly outpatient nephrology, with special interest in renal stone disease and refractory hypertension. He also does general medicine at a student-run free night clinic.
The Winter 2008 Great Works Symposium, entitled “The Mechanical Body: Building Humans, Challenging Humanity,” features interdisciplinary lectures by distinguished scholars on the history, meanings, and implications of medical technologies and human-machine interfaces.
3:30-4:50 p.m.,
Drexel University, Curtis Hall, Room 340
32nd and Chestnut Streets
January 29, 2008
Brigitte Van Tiggelen, Université Catholique de Louvain, and Annette Lykknes, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
“Ida Noddack-Tacke: Woman in Chemistry”
Chemical Heritage Foundation, Brown Bag Lecture | Visit site »
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Place: 6th Floor Conference Room
In their talk, Van Tiggelen and Lykknes will present Ida Noddack-Thacke’s career as a woman scientist and the main debates following her most important contributions. Thacke studied chemical engineering at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin between 1915 and 1921, and was employed as a chemist at Allgemeine Elektrizität Gesellschaft (AEG). She resigned to work for free at Siemans-Halske and at the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt in Berlin, searching for missing elements 43 and 75. She collaborated with (and married) the head of the chemistry department at the Reichsanstalt, Walter Noddack. Together they were acknowledged for the discovery of element 75, which led to three joint Nobel Prize nominations. Thacke is also known for proposing nuclear fission in 1934, although this was not taken seriously by the scientific community.
February 4, 2008
Michael Leja, University of Pennsylvania
“Eakins, Science, and Realism”
Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania, Spring 2008 Workshop | Visit site »
Time: 3:30 - 5:15 p.m. [Note time change.]
Place: 337 Logan Hall, University of Pennsylvania
February 5, 2008
Heather Ewing, Architectural Historian
“The Lost World of James Smithson”
Chemical Heritage Foundation, Brown Bag Lecture | Visit site »
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Place: Chemical Heritage Foundation
In 1836 the United States government received an extraordinary and mysterious gift --a half-million-dollar bequest to establish a foundation in Washington “for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.” The donor was an English chemist named James Smithson, who had never visited the United States. The Smithsonian went on to become the largest museum and research complex in the world and one of the best known, but the man behind the institution remained an enigma. Ewing’s The Lost World of James Smithson: Science, Revolution, and the Birth of the Smithsonian is the first full biography of Smithson. She will talk about her search for information on Smithson in archives across Europe and the United States, and how Smithson’s story emerged through the mapping of the network of Enlightenment scientists in which he worked.
February 6, 2008
Keith Mages, Doctoral Student, University of Pennsylvania
“Print Culture and Nursing”
Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania, History of Nursing Seminar Series | Visit site »
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Place: 3R Conference Room, Claire Fagin Hall
Information: ehweiss@nursing.upenn.edu
February 7, 2008
Eric Schatzberg, University of Wisconsin-Madison
“Competition and Critique: The Discourse of Technology in Twentieth-Century America”
Hagley Museum and Library, Research Seminar | Visit site »
Time: 6:00 - 8:30 p.m.
Place: Hagley Museum and Library
February 8, 2008
Gaye Wilson, Thomas Jefferson Foundation
The Friends of the APS Library, Spring 2008 Lecture Series: “Thomas Jefferson: Image and Ideology”
American Philosophical Society | Visit site »
Speaker: Gaye Wilson, Historian, Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, Thomas Jefferson Foundation
Time: 5:30 p.m.
Place: Benjamin Franklin Hall, 427 Chestnut Street
RSVP: sduffy@amphilsoc.org or 215.440.3400
Gaye Wilson is an historian for the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, a part of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation that owns and preserves Monticello. Through her years with the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, she has enjoyed studying the Jefferson image as preserved in his life portraits. Ms. Wilson has lectured and published essays on this topic and is currently at work on a book-length study of the Jefferson image.
February 8, 2008
Workshop, Program in History of Science, Princeton University: “Discovering Life”
Program in History of Science, Princeton University | Visit site »
Organized by: Angela N. H. Creager and Daniel Garber
Times: Friday, February 8, and Saturday, February 9
9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., both days
Place: 211 Dickinson Hall, Princeton University
Registration: Contact Amy Shortt to register for the workshop, including lunches, ashortt@princeton.edu
How has the conception of life related to other convictions and concerns, whether scientific, medical, intellectual, cultural or political? How have technologies and ways of manipulating living materials changed the understanding of life itself? How have the slippages in the meaning of “life” been subversive to, or perhaps generative of, biological knowledge?
Schedule for Friday, February 8
9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Session 1. Life Between Machine and Technology
* Gideon Manning, California Institute of Technology, “Cartesian Anthropocentrism: Why Living Machines Were Different and Why It Mattered”
* Hannah Landecker, Rice University, “Life In Vitro”
* Commentator: John Tresch, University of Pennsylvania
2:30 - 5:30 p.m.
Session 2. Life, Death, and Medicine
* Nancy Siraisi, CUNY, “Human Life Span, Length of Life, and the Powers of Medicine: Some Fourteenth to Early Seventeenth Century Views”
* Domenico Bertoloni Meli, Indiana University, “Experimenting on Live Animals: A Taxonomy of Vivisections in the Seventeenth Century”
* Commentator: Harold Cook, Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, London
[Also see February 9]
February 9, 2008
Workshop, Program in History of Science, Princeton University: “Discovering Life”
Program in History of Science, Princeton University | Visit site »
Organized by: Angela N. H. Creager and Daniel Garber
Times: Friday, February 8, and Saturday, February 9
9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., both days
Place: 211 Dickinson Hall, Princeton University
Registration: Contact Amy Shortt to register for the workshop, including lunches, ashortt@princeton.edu
This workshop will consider how natural philosophers and scientists have thought about--and experimented with--life over the last two thousand years or so. How has the conception of life related to other convictions and concerns, whether scientific, medical, intellectual, cultural or political? How have technologies and ways of manipulating living materials changed the understanding of life itself? How have the slippages in the meaning of “life” been subversive to, or perhaps generative of, biological knowledge?
Schedule for Saturday, February 9
9:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Session 3. Visualizing Evolution
* Jessica Riskin, Stanford University, “The Divine Optician”
* Robert Richards, University of Chicago, “Objectivity in the Visualization of Life: The Charges of Fraud against Ernst Haeckel”
* Commentator: Jeff Schwegman, Princeton University
2:00 - 5:30 p.m.
Session 4. A Science of Life?
* James G. Lennox, University of Pittsburgh, “Aristotle on the Prospects for a Theoretical Science of Life”
* V. Betty Smocovitis, University of Florida, “Carl Sagan, The Encyclopedia Brittanica, and the Meaning of ‘Life’ in the Mid-Twentieth Century”
* Michel Morange, École Normale Supérieure, “The Resurrection of Life”
* Commentator: Daniel Cloud, Society of Fellows, Princeton University
[also see February 8]
February 10, 2008
Darwin Day Celebration: Darwin and Evolution Teach-In
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology | Visit site »
Time: 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.
Place: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Charles Robert Darwin, author of On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man, was born February 12, 1809. Penn Museum joins a growing international celebration leading up to next year’s 200th anniversary of his birth in 2009. On Sunday afternoon, Penn professors from a variety of disciplines will offer short talks in the galleries, focusing on what evolution means to their particular fields of study. There will be children’s activities, badminton (a favorite Darwin pastime), film, a sneak preview of the spring exhibition “Surviving: The Body of Evidence,” and birthday cake—and Charles Darwin promises to make an appearance! Free event. Information: 215/898-4890.
February 11, 2008
Sarah Kaplan, University of Pennsylvania
“Projecting the Future: The Temporality of Strategy Making”
Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania, Spring 2008 Workshop | Visit site »
Time: 3:30 - 5:15 p.m.
Place: 337 Logan Hall, University of Pennsylvania
February 12, 2008
Jeffrey Johnson, Villanova University
“Chemicals in the Hindenburg Munitions Program: The Limits of ‘Total War’ in Germany, 1916-1918”
Chemical Heritage Foundation, Brown Bag Lecture | Visit site »
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Place: 6th Floor Conference Room, Chemical Heritage Foundation
This talk will discuss the chemical problems of German munitions production during the latter part of World War I, 1916–1918. It pays special attention to the so-called Hindenburg Program, which in the late summer of 1916 set the ambitious and controversial goal of doubling German munitions production by the spring of 1917 through an attempt at total economic mobilization. Despite huge problems and long delays, the chemical industry ultimately achieved its quantitative goal—a year late, and only an illusory success, gained by sacrificing the overall quality of German explosives. Even worse, as the Germans could not produce enough shell casings to use all the new explosives, their sacrifice in quality was largely wasted. This was one of the mistakes that cost Germans the war.
February 18, 2008
“A 1932 Physics Meeting at Niels Bohr’s Copenhagen Institute”
Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania, Spring 2008 Workshop | Visit site »
Time: 3:30 - 5:15 p.m.
Place: 337 Logan Hall, University of Pennsylvania
February 19, 2008
Sylwester Ratowt, University of Oklahoma
“Technologies for Maintaining a Scientific Dialog: Age of the Earth in American Science, Civil War to World War II”
Chemical Heritage Foundation, Brown Bag Lecture | Visit site »
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Place: 6th Floor Conference Room, Chemical Heritage Foundation
February 19, 2008
Paul Israel, Director of the Thomas A. Edison Papers Project,
Rutgers University
Public Lecture: “Thomas Edison and His Impact on New Jersey”
Office of Legislative Services, State of New Jersey, and the
Thomas A. Edison Papers Project, Rutgers University
| Visit site »
Speaker: Paul Israel, Research Professor of History and Director of the Thomas A. Edison Papers Project, Rutgers University
Time: 10:00 a.m.
Place: Committee Room 11, Fourth Floor, State House Annex,
125 West State Street, Trenton, NJ
Information: Larry Gurman at (609) 984-0445
or David Price at (609) 292-1646
February 20, 2008
Allison Squires, Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research, School of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania
“Monks and Revolutions: Early Foundations of Mexican Nursing”
Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania, History of Nursing Seminar Series | Visit site »
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Place: 3R Conference Room, Claire Fagin Hall
Information: ehweiss@nursing.upenn.edu
This presentation will explore the significant events that led to the founding of modern Mexican nursing in the early 20th century. It will begin with the Spanish conquest of Mexico in 1520 and the institutionalization of health care. The presentation concludes with the founding of the first formal school for Mexican nursing in 1907, just before the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Roles of religious orders, formally trained midwives, and the state will receive special focus.
February 20, 2008
Kelly Wisecup, University of Maryland
McNeil Center Brown Bag Seminar: “Communicating Disease: Epidemic and Encounter in Thomas Hariot’s Briefe and True Reporte of the New Found Land of Virginia”
The McNeil Center for Early American Studies | Visit site »
Speaker: Kelly Wisecup, University of Maryland
Time: 12:30 - 1:45 p.m.
Place: Seminar Room 105, McNeil Center