Working Groups

The Consortium invites scholars to join our topical working groups for challenging and collegial discussion of interesting publications in their fields and of each others’ works-in-progress.

Each group meets monthly. All interested scholars are welcome to participate via online video conferencing.

To join a group:

  1. Log in, or create an account
  2. Click on a group below
  3. Click on the "Membership" tab and select "Request Group Membership"
Submit a discussion paper for one of the working groups.

Upcoming Meetings

Please set your timezone.

Wednesday, January 15, 2025, 10:00 - 11:00 am EST

In this session, we will read and discuss Katharine Gerbner's selected posts from her ongoing project on her grandfather, George Gerbner.

Wednesday, January 15, 2025, 2:00 - 3:30 pm EST

Richardson, Sarah S. The maternal imprint: The contested science of maternal-fetal effects. University of Chicago Press, 2021.

Thursday, January 16, 2025, 1:00 - 2:30 pm EST

 
This year, our sessions function as a space for members to give and receive feedback on works-in-progress (WIP). This week we will engage with the following: 
 

Friday, January 17, 2025, 12:00 - 1:30 pm EST

Speaker:
Prof. Francesco Cassata
Full Professor in Contemporary History, University of Genoa
Presentation:
"Reconstructing 'Dante's Race': Fabio Frassetto and the International Committee for Anthropological Standardization (SAS)."
The lecture will be delivered in English.
Suggested Readings:

Monday, January 20, 2025, 9:30 - 11:00 am EST

Bernard Lightman  (York) and Ruselle Meade (Cardiff) on 'The American biologist Edward Morse and his introduction of evolution into Japan'. 

Please note that this talk will be at a different time than usual: 9.30am Eastern on Monday January 20. 

Tuesday, January 21, 2025, 11:00 am - 12:30 pm EST

A greater understandings of colour objects in museum and heritage collections: Digitising Autochromes

Tuesday, January 21, 2025, 2:00 - 3:30 pm EST

Katharine Anderson, York University, "The Artificial Perspective: William Beebe, the Modern Observer and Oceanic Natural History”

Wednesday, January 22, 2025, 10:00 - 11:30 am EST

Spanish naturalists established the Viceregal Botanical Garden of New Spain in Mexico City in 1788 to advance agriculture, manufacturing, and medicine, while also cultivating agents of empire. Rather than build on the robust tradition of American botany, the Spanish appropriated this space, employing Creole students and servant workers to Europeanize local botanical knowledge. This talk revisits archival materials and methodologies used to uncover the contributions of Black and Indigenous laborers, whose roles remain obscured in official accounts.

Monday, January 27, 2025, 11:00 am - 12:30 pm EST

 
Tuomas Räsänen (Professor, University of Eastern Finland) will present a talk: ‘Arachnophobia Finnish Style’ connected to the forthcoming book he is co-editing: "Human-Bug Encounters in Multispecies Networks" (Brill) followed by a discussion.

Tuesday, January 28, 2025, 10:00 - 11:30 am EST

Alex Blum and Martin Jähnert - "Quantum mechanics, radiation, and the equivalence proof." Archive for the History of Exact Sciences (2024).

Wednesday, February 5, 2025, 10:00 - 11:30 am EST

Reading:

Simon Schaffer, "Scientific Discoveries and the End of Natural Philosophy," Social Studies of Science 16, no. 3 (1986): 387–420.
 

Thursday, February 6, 2025, 2:00 - 3:30 pm EST

Jason Chernesky, "Jeopardized Lives: Urban Environmental Inequalities and the Root Causes of HIV/AIDS among American Families, 1950-1980"

Friday, February 7, 2025, 12:00 - 1:30 pm EST

Andrea Weeks (George Mason University), "Lessons learned from SISRIS, a US-based initiative to support inclusive and sustainable collections-based biodiversity research infrastructure."
 

Monday, February 10, 2025, 10:30 am - 12:00 pm EST

*Note Special Date*
 
Ritual and Medicine in Indian Alchemy
 
Patricia Sauthoff (Hong Kong Baptist University)
 

Tuesday, February 11, 2025, 9:00 - 10:30 am EST

Mark Liberman, Linguistic Data Consortium (TBA)

Wednesday, February 12, 2025, 9:30 am - 11:00 pm EST

Marij van Strien “Was physics ever deterministic? The historical basis of determinism and the image of classical physics ”  

Guest: Marij van Strien

Primary Source:  Maxwell on “Progress of Science” 

Wednesday, February 12, 2025, 12:00 - 1:30 pm EST

Glenn Fleishman (independent comics and printing historian) on 'How Comics Were Made: Dawn of the Dots'

Thursday, February 13, 2025, 10:00 - 11:30 am EST

Louis Champion (IRD France - 232 DIADE): L'origine et la diffusion de l'hibiscus (hibiscus sabdarifa): Parcours d'une plante aux racines africaines et son impact social et culturel
 
[talk in French with a powerpoint presentation in English, the Q&A will be in French and English]

Thursday, February 13, 2025, 12:00 - 1:30 pm EST

Andrew Watson, Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Saskatchewan and executive team member of the Network in Canadian History & Environment | Nouvelle initiative Canadienne en histoire de l'environnement (NiCHE).

Friday, February 14, 2025, 11:00 am - 12:30 pm EST

 
"Mercurial Bloodletting: Bodily Fluids in Early Modern Alchemical Iconography"
Sergei Zotov (Warwick)
Commentator: TBC