Working Groups

Christèle Barois (CESAH)

Embryogenesis narratives and the history of ancient Indian medicine

For this meeting we will read the following articles, all of which I have combined into the PDF at the bottom of this page.

Hung, Kuang‐chi. “Alien Science, Indigenous Thought and Foreign Religion: Reconsidering the Reception of Darwinism in Japan.” Intellectual History Review 19, no. 2 (2009): 231–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/17496970902981702.

ONCE AGAIN ITS TIME FOR OUR NOVEMBER SPECIAL: Focus Session
Looking forward to 2026 a new year filled with enthusiasm, inspiration and perspectives on early color photography, Janine & Hanin  will present  an informal session organized as follows:

Sonya Schoenberger, Stanford University, "Enclosing the Sea: Marine Resource Sovereignty and the Rise of 'Large Ocean States' in the Postwar Pacific"

In this session, we will read and discuss Mariano Zarowsky's working paper (here in both English and Spanish versions): “New York, Santiago, París: las conexiones transnacionales de Seth Siegelaub, un editor marxista (1972-1991)”  and “New York, Santiago, Paris: The Transnational Connections of Seth Siegelaub, a Marxist Publisher (1972-1991).” The session will feature English and Spanish simultaneous interpretation.

Speaker: Lauren MacIvor Thompson, Kennesaw State University

Format: Chapter Workshop 

Minji Lee (Montclair State University), 'The Porous Womb: Hildegard’s Understanding of the Female Body Giving New Life and Salvation'

Biography:
Dr. Minji Lee is an Assistant Professor in Religion and the Medical Humanities Program at Montclair State University. Dr. Lee specializes in the study of medicine in relation to cultural practices and belief systems – including women’s health, reproductive issues, and comparative analysis of alternative medicine in Korea and the West.

'They will all go to hell anyway' - Killing the dead in early modern Rumelia

Taina Syrjämaa

Tracing ticks and a multispecies network in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Finland

Ticks have probably lived for centuries in the Finnish territory. However, their exact distribution was not mapped before the 1950s and only few overt traces of them exist in historical sources. For example, oral history collections contain hardly any reference directly to them. My search for ticks in rural nineteenth and early twentieth century Finland started with the dilemma of ticks’ invisibility in the then society.

NOTE SPECIAL TIME

Geoff Bil (University of Victoria)

A Tale of Two Naturalists: Hidden and not-so-hidden histories of Indigenous botanical translation in nineteenth-century Aotearoa New Zealand

Reading seminar with Erin Griffey (University of Auckland) on her book Facing Decay: Beauty, Aging and Cosmetics in Early Modern Europe (Penn State University Press, 2025)

From the Margins to the Center: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Understanding (Soviet/ Radio) Astronomy and the State

led by Gabriela Rădulescu, Postdoctoral Guggenheim Fellow, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
 

We are excited to announce that Caleb Shelburne (Harvard University) will join us in December to discuss "Teaching Resources at the History of Anthropology Review." Teaching Resources at the History of Anthropology Review." 

Speaker: Thomas Biskup 

Researcher, leader of the project "A testimony to ecclesiastical natural history and an archive of historical biodiversity. 
The Herbarium Ruperti (1700) of the Herzog August Bibliothek" (Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, Germany)

Amy Malventano, "Urban Environmentalism and Waste Management Reform in Early Twentieth-Century Louisville"

Hello all, for this meeting, we will read the following two articles on the theme of embodied and tacit knowledge. Hope to see many of you at the discussion. 

Bertucci P. Spinners' Hands, Imperial Minds: Migrant Labor, Embodied Expertise, and the Failed Transfer of Silk Technology across the Atlantic. Technol Cult. 2021;62(4):1003-1031. 

Eyferth, Jacob. “Craft Knowledge at the Interface of Written and Oral Cultures.” East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal 4, no. 2 (2010): 185–205.

NOTE SPECIAL DATE

A Roundtable Discussion to Launch: 

Tillmann Taape, Crafting Medicine: Artisans, Knowledge, and the Common Man in Hieronymus Brunschwig's Books on Surgery and Distillation (Chicago: 2025)

and

Jack Hartnell, Wound Man: The Many Lives of a Surgical Image (Princeton: 2025)

moderated by

Pamela H. Smith (Columbia) 

New Approaches in Mining Studies

Bernhard Hurch (Graz)

The Hugo Schuchardt Archive:  overview of an emblematic figure of the 19th century.

Join us to discuss Working Group member Minji Lee's recent book, The Medieval Womb Hildegard of Bingen’s Views on the Female Rep