Working Groups

 
Caleb Shelburne (Department of the History of Science, Harvard University) will present "Leeches for the ‘Sick Man of Europe’: Science and the Environment in the Ottoman Leech Industry, 1830-1870," followed by a discussion.
 

Carlo Sariego, Department of Sociology & Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Yale University
“Is Daddy Having a Baby?” Speculation and Race-Making in 20th-century Histories of Male Pregnancy"
Abstract:

"Disease and Death in Early 19th Century Istanbul as Recorded in Ottoman Death Registers" Gülhan Balsoy & Cihangir Gündoğdu (Istanbul Bilgi University)
 

Short Writings Roundtable
 
If you have a shorter piece--an abstract, a proposal, an op-ed, etc.--that you would like feedback on, this session is for you!

Anna Toledano (Los Altos History Museum), Nathan Smith (National Museum of Wales), Felipe Eguiarte Souza, (Pavek Museum of Electronic Communication), Olin Moctezuma-Burns (University of Cambridge), "Lost Objects: Histories and Futures of Collections": A Reprisal and Discussion of the 2024 CALM Caucus HSS Session
 
This session will feature a discussion of this year's CALM-sponsored session on "Lost Objects," which will take place at this year's HSS Meeting in Merida. The session abstract is as follows:

Judy Kaplan (Science History Institute), "The Information Science of Linguistics"

Amy Woolf (Woolf Color and Design) on color palettes and creating and color schemes.
NOTE: Enhance your experience at this meeting by having a collection of color samples at hand. See the note "Paper Tools" on the Resources page for details.
Organizer: Sarah Lowengard

Reading Club / Holiday Gathering

• Building a Bibliography! What are the best works in energy history? Both classics and new works? 

Topic: Jinshu Kairyо̄: The 'Race Improvement' Debate in Japan, 1870-1890
Presenter: Subo Wijeyeratne

DEEPMED Project, "Visualizing the 3D Mediterranean (and beyond?): A Work in Progress Session"

Speaker:
Prof. Francesco Cassata
Professor of 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:
Coming soon.
To learn more about Prof. Cassata, please click here.

Sebastian De Haro - "Noether’s Theorems and Energy in General Relativity"
Felix Klein - "Zu Hilberts erster Note über die Grundlagen der Physik"
Guest Expert: Sebastian De Haro

Bismark Asamoah (University of Ghana): Ethno-Archaeological Study of Traditional Medicine at Kodiabe, Ghana

This meeting we'll host a round of 'Lightning Talks' by group members, each taking 5 minutes to share work that falls under our group's diverse umbrella.
If you are interested in offering a short 5-minute talk about a project, an upcoming book, a new idea, or an area of future collaboration, please do get in touch!

*Note Special Date*
 
The Suśruta Project Group Presentation
https://sushrutaproject.org/
 
Dominik Wujastyk (University of Alberta), Deepro Chakraborty (University of Alberta), Harshal Bhatt (The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda), Vandana Lele, and other Suśruta Project Group Members TBD
 

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

Katharine Anderson, York University

Tuomas Rasalnen

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

Tanne Bloks
Sowerby's Chromatometer of 1809
Learn how to use a paper tool devised by James Sowerby. (1757-1822). He published the chromaometert in A New Elucidation of Colours, Original, Prismatic, and Material (1809) to show how to visualise spectral colors and, in particular, the inverted spectrum (notoriously) discussed by Goethe in his Farbenlehre (1810)
 
Organizer: Giulia Simonini

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).

David McCaskey, University of California, Riverside, "Net Losses: The Failures and Successes of Trawling in French Indochina"

Leah Mahmut

Hugo Rueda (SSOM, McGill), "Taxonomical Clashes. Indigenous Material Culture in the Natural History Museum of Chile during the 19th century"

Erin McLeary (Mütter Museum)

Olga Smith (Newcastle University): Ecopolitical Aesthetics of Weeds
 

"'God's Gift to the People of the Orient': Coffee, Slavery, and Medicine in Early Modern Tuscany"
Lucia Dacome (University of Toronto)
Commentator: tbc
 

 
Some reflections on the practices of proofs in Sanskrit mathematical texts, with a special emphasis on Śaṅkara Vāriyar’s work on Mādhava’s procedure to approximate the circumference of a circle.
 
Agathe Keller (Sphere, CNRS / Université Paris Cité)
 

Kristine Palmieri, PhD
Gastwissenschaftlerin / Visiting Researcher 
Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für die Erforschung der Europäischen Aufklarung 
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg

Luisa Reis Castro

Enrico Beltramini, Notre Dame de Namur University, California

Philippa Barr, "The Divided Sky: Producing Atmosphere through Spatial Segregation in Milan"
 

Ian Dooley (School of Advanced Study, University of London) on 'A Pigment Paradigm Shift: How British Printing Ink Industrialization Revolutionized Color Printing in the Late Nineteenth Century'
 
Organizer: Elizabeth Savage

April 10, 2025
Dr Nathan Bossoh, Research Fellow in History at Southampton University (UK)
 
Title: Imperial Legacies and Decolonial Futures: Curating the 'Wellcome' African Medical Material
 

• Nicholas Ostrum, Extracting Concessions and Losing Ground: The Twin Failures of Souédie and the Euphrates Dam, 1963-1969

 
The Sumhuram Yakṣī, an index of metal reuse?
 
Divya Kumar-Dumas (Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW))
 

Jovita Yesilyurt (Natural History Museum London) and Christina Welch (University of Winchester) "Unearthing the contribution of Indigenous and enslaved African knowledge systems to the Saint Vincent Botanical Garden under Dr Anderson (1785-1811)"

Joanna Paxton Federico, "Finding the Center(s): Insitutionalizing the Science of Violence Prevention at the CDC (1977-1992)
 

Edwin Coomasaru (London): Plantation Ecologies in Sri Lankan Art: Gender, Sexuality and Environmental Aesthetics

• Syllabus share! What should be on a syllabus for energy history and energy-related topics? 

 
Methods in the Material Histories of South Asia: Snapshot-presentations and Discussion
 
Join us for a special meeting! We invite you to use an object or an image to introduce your work in the material history of South Asia in a snapshot presentation. These presentations will be a springboard into a discussion on methods in the Material Histories of South Asia. Pre-circulated readings TBD.
 

Elena Schaa - "Heisenberg's Experience of the Matrix Mechanics on Helgoland." 

What is it about Prussian blue?
Prussian blue has a winding history that includes a myth-like origin story, rapid international success, a range of adapted uses in art, industry & trade, medical uses, and contested efforts to understand its formation and structure.
In this meeting, we'll use a group research format to spark a discussion of the multivalent nature of colors that uses Prussian blue as a reference point.

TBD

Banji Chona (Lusaka): The Fragile Lexicon: How Botanical Words Fail to Reflect Zambezia’s Living Plant Knowledge