HISTORY OF SCIENCE SOCIETY
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VOLUME 52, NUMBER 1
HISTORY OF
SCIENCE SOCIETY
Newsletter
TABLE OF President's Message
CONTENTS
Fa-ti Fan
President's Message - 1 Greetings! It was wonderful to see many of you at the
Annual Meeting in Chicago. I am happy to report that
From the EO - 4
the meeting was a great success. More than five
News from the Annual
hundred members registered for the meeting, only
Meeting - 6
slightly down from the pre-pandemic years, and the
Prizes- 8
excitement and intellectual vibrancy was palpable. I
Summer School - 22 am grateful to all those who helped organize the
Beyond Technological event. We are back on track!
Resources - 23
Update from GECC - 26
HSS@100 - 28 Continued on page 2.
Forum News - 30
CFPs - 30
Member News - 31
1 1
President's Message Continued
The Annual Meeting is the most important event of our community. We are
dedicated to making the event a truly rewarding experience. We have conducted a
post-meeting survey with a good return rate. The Committee on Meetings and
Programs has submitted a thoughtful report. The pandemic has added new
challenges and possibilities to the annual meetings of all major societies. I believe
that this is an opportunity for us to reimagine our annual meetings. We will gather
all the relevant committees to discuss how to further enable the annual meeting to
best serve our members.
Our Society will turn 100 in 2024. To celebrate the Centennial, we have formed a
Centennial Committee to coordinate all related projects and events. Kate Sheppard,
who chairs the committee, has an announcement in this Newsletter. Please take a
look. The Centennial belongs to us all. It is a special moment for us to reflect on our
past, present, and future. If you have any ideas and suggestions as to how to
celebrate the Centennial or how to promote the events, please let us know. Overall,
I think HSS can do more in outreach and public engagement. The Centennial
provides an excellent opportunity for expanding this area of work.
I am pleased to announce that the Society will introduce two new projects this
summer. We will co-sponsor a workshop, “Beyond the Global: Transregionalism in
Histories of Science,” and a couple of public lectures at Academia Sinica in Taipei. I
am grateful to colleagues in East Asia for their kind support. It is a small but
meaningful step toward collaboration with scholarly communities in different parts
of the world. Together with our 2024 Centennial Annual Meeting in Mérida, Mexico,
this event in Asia will help to further internationalize HSS, in accordance with the
Ten-Year Strategic Plan approved by the Council in 2014. Indeed, HSS has always
considered itself an international scholarly organization since its founding. We are
carrying on this spirit and goal.
Another exciting new project is the HSS Interdisciplinary Summer School. The Call
For Applications has been out for some weeks, and the deadline is 3 February.
Please circulate the announcement as widely as possible. The Summer School is one
of our concerted efforts to better serve graduate students and early career scholars
in our field. We particularly encourage students from underrepresented groups and
underresourced institutions to apply.
2 2
President's Message Continued
I would like to add a thought here. Perhaps more than other areas of historical
scholarship, history of science draws much of its strengths from interdisciplinary
and innovative research and knowledge dissemination. I am glad to note that the
American Historical Association, one of our sibling societies, recently rolled out its
“Guidelines on Broadening of the Definition of Historical Scholarship.” Personally, I
support this development. A number of our committees, caucuses, and forums –
such as Historians at Work and the Caucus on Collections, Archives, Libraries, and
Museums – are pioneers of this new historical scholarship. Kudos to them!
I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome all new and continuing Council
and Committee members. As a scholarly community, we depend on the volunteerism
and commitment of our members. If possible, please go to our website and sign up
to volunteer. We keep a list of volunteers and will contact you when suitable
opportunities arise.
As always, if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please let me know.
I wish everyone a wonderful 2023! I am looking forward to working with you all!
3 2
Note from the Executive Office
John Paul Gutierrez
I’d like to begin with heartfelt thanks to all those who participated in the 2022
HSS Annual Meeting. As a first-time attendee, I can say that it was a truly
magnificent experience.
Over our four days in Chicago, there were 130 sessions, 552 registered attendees
(approximately 470 in-person), and one donut wall. We ventured out to the Adler
Planetarium for the the Elizabeth Paris for an event that connected the history of
the Adler’s telescopes and the current program of mapping the light pollution in
the Chicago area. A lucky group of members were able to attend a special tour of
the Rare Book Room at the Field Museum. We were graced with hearing a history
of Sarton Medalist, Margaret W. Rossiter’s work in the Sarton Invterview. We saw
friends we haven’t seen in years, and made new ones along the way.
Coming back to our first in-person meeting provided us with plenty of ups and
downs. Overall, 80% of attendees reported in our survey (N=108) that they found
the experience Very Good to Excellent, 10% Good, 9% Fair, and 1% Poor. These
are promising numbers, and the meeting overall was a great success. That
doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement.
The accessibility of the Drake Hotel had poor marks, and makes us rethink
holding meetings in historic hotels. The hybrid rooms that allowed for online
presentations received mixed reviews: some members loved the idea and the
sessions, while others were disappointed by the internet connection. The Virtual
Festival held in December proved to be a more successful version of remote
participation that we will consider in the future. This synchronous option
allowed for streamlined presentations from members all around the globe. And,
because it stood on its own, it was free from competing with an in-person
meeting where everyone’s attention is diverted to the happenings on the ground.
All the data and information we gathered at the Annual Meeting is being
reviewed by a subcommittee of Council and the Committee on Meetings and
Programs. This will fuel further discussions about how to improve the Annual
Meeting in coming years.
3
4
Note from the Executive Office
In the last Newsletter, I wrote about my anxieties in putting on this year’s
meeting. Part of that trepidation was about meeting members for the first time.
It was unwarranted. I was struck by the kindness I received, and by how many of
you went out of your way to seek me out and introduce yourselves as I darted
around the hotel. Thank you for your gracious welcome to my first in-person
HSS Annual meeting.
We now turn our attention to the HSS Interdisciplinary Summer School, which
will be held July 10-14, 2023, at the Science History Institute in the city of
Philadelphia. We are currently receiving applications, and we will fill out our
faculty roster in the next few weeks. We are still raising money to make the
Summer School cost neutral. If you haven’t already made a contribution, please
consider donating to the Graduate Student Support Fund.
I am looking forward to what this new year brings the Society, as we continue to
expand our programs and proceed with our tried and true ones, like the 2023
HSS Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon (November 9-12). Planning is now
underway, and the call for proposals is being fine-tuned, and should be ready by
in February. Thank you to our co-chairs, Jaipreet Virdi and Courtney Thompson
for organinzing what will surely be an outstanding conference.
3
5
News from the Annual Meeting
The 2022 HSS Annual Meeting, expertly organized by Don Opitz and Jaipreet
Virdi, was a great success. From the Distinguished Lecture, delivered by Dr.
Michelle Murphy, to the awarding of the Sarton Medal to Dr. Margaret W.
Rossiter, the weekend was packed with the intellectual heft HSS is known for,
and celebrating our member’s achievements.
The Meeting is also time for the Executive Committee and Council to meet to
discuss the ongoing developments of the Society. Here are some news items
from these meetings.
Dissolution of the Technology and Communication Committee: Council voted
to dissolve the committee and incorporate what the committee was
responsible for into the remit of the Centennial Committee.
Dissolution of the Physical Science Forum: After much discussion, Council
voted to dissolve the Forum after waning participation in the group.
HSS in Asia (tentative title): Council approved plans for HSS to participate in
an event at the Academia Sinica in Taipei in the summer of 2023.
Bylaws Changes Balloting: Council approved online balloting for future Bylaws
changes giving all members a chance to vote, not just those at the Business
Meeting (to start with any potential changes in 2023 and beyond).
Council and Members (at the Member’s Business Meeting): Approved the
Bylaws change:
Amend Article 5, Section 5, of the HSS Bylaws to read as follows:
Section 5. Vacancies on the Council. Vacancies in Council Members At-Large
positions in which there are more than six months left in the term shall be filled
for the unexpired term by election by a plurality vote of HSS members occurring
within (3) months after the vacancy occurs. If fewer than six months remain in
the term, the vacancy will be filled by a majority vote of the Council. Vacancies in
the Council resulting from an increase in the number of Council members shall
be elected by a plurality vote of HSS members and serve until their successors
assume their elected positions.
3
6
News from the Annual Meeting
Amend Article 6, Section 4, of the HSS Bylaws to read as follows:
Section 4. Vacancies. A vacancy in any office, except President, Editor or
Executive Director, shall be filled for the unexpired term by election by a
plurality vote of HSS members occurring within three (3) months after the
vacancy occurs. A vacancy in the presidency shall be filled for the unexpired
term by the Vice President. If the Vice President is unable to assume the
presidency, the presidency shall be filled for the unexpired term by election by a
plurality vote of HSS members occurring within three (3) months after the
vacancy occurs. A vacancy in the office of Editor or Executive Director shall be
filled by a vote of a majority of the Council.
3
7
2022 HSS Prize Recipients
The HSS Prize Ceremony was conducted on Saturday, 19 November at the Drake
Hotel.
The 2022 Class of Prize Recipients.
3
8
2022 HSS Prize Recipients
The HSS Prize Ceremony was conducted on Saturday, 19 November at the Drake
Hotel.
The 2022 Class of Prize Recipients.
3
9
Sarton Medal
Margaret W. Rossiter
Cornell University
Professor Rossiter’s great contribution has been to make
visible what we now would term the structural inequalities
under which women in science have labored, or through
which they have been excluded from participation. Her
three-volume Women Scientists in America has redrawn the
historical landscape of women in science.
Archive by archive, case by case, individual by individual, year by year, Professor Rossiter’s
painstaking research has written women back into the history of science in America. In influential
articles such as “The Matthew Matilda Effect” Professor Rossiter has exposed the systematic yet
microsocial processes by which the history (and present) of women’s work in science is understated
and undervalued.
Professor Rossiter’s work has made an impact well beyond the world of academic history. When, in
the 1980s, the National Science Foundation began looking to increase the number of women in
science, they turned to Professor Rossiter’s research for “an intellectual foundation” from which to
understand and articulate the problem of how “very talented women faced barriers” to access and
participation in science, both historically and in the present day. Armed with an understanding of
the deep structural issues at play, Professor Rossiter has worked at the national level on issues of
women in science: she worked on issues of representation with the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, served as consultant to Fulbright Foundation, consulted for the National
Institutes of Health and other agencies, and also worked as a rotating officer at the National
Science Foundation. In 2012 Professor Rossiter was named a fellow of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science.
HISTORY OF SCIENCE SOCIETY
10Sarton Medal
Both a scholar and an activist, Professor Rossiter has also tirelessly worked to build a better history
of science (and a better HSS), one that aims to serve not only the sometimes-narrow interests of
own discipline, but something bigger. She was a co-founder of the HSS Women’s Caucus, and
brought an ideal of openness and inclusivity to her work as editor for nearly a decade of both Isis
and Osiris.
A founding member of the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University, the
recipient of multiple NSF grants, a Guggenheim fellowship, and a MacArthur fellowship, Professor
Rossiter deserves the Sarton Medal not only for the undeniably monumental scholarly contribution
she has made to the history of science, but also for the nature of that contribution: for her
unwavering focus on aiming to do history of science “better.” She deserves the Sarton Medal, in
other words, for a lifetime spent on a very difficult but very important task, which can best be
described (in reference to the work of other scholarship on women in science) by Professor
Rossiter herself:
Thus, though the ultimate task remains difficult and elusive, this [historical work] is a giant step
toward the goal of a better, more inclusive, more humane and relevant history of science…It will
help reshape our understanding of what science has been and what it can become.
Jessica Ratcliff
Cornell University
1Rossiter, Margaret W. ‘The Matthew Matilda Effect in Science’. Social Studies of Science 23, no. 2 (1
May 1993): 325–41.
2Quoted in Dominus, Susan. ‘Women Scientists Were Written Out of History. It’s Margaret
Rossiter’s Lifelong Mission to Fix That’. Smithsonian Magazine (October 2010).
3Rossiter, Margaret W., “Foreword” in Abir-Am, Pnina G., and Dorinda Outram. Uneasy Careers and
Intimate Lives: Women in Science, 1789-1979. Rutgers University Press, 1987, p. xii.
HISTORY OF SCIENCE SOCIETY
11Pfizer award
Tara Nummedal
Brown University
Anna Zieglerin Lion’s Blood: Alchemy and End Times in
Reformation Germany (University of Pennsylvania Press,
2019)
In a year of particularly strong competition, the prize committee has unanimously selected Tara
Nummedal, Anna Zieglerin and the Lion’s Blood: Alchemy and End Times in Reformation
Germany (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), as the winner of the 2022 Pfizer Award. In a
tour-de-force of historical inquiry and storytelling, Professor Nummedal expertly situates her
alchemical tale in its complex context of early modern politics, religion, and gendered court
culture. She brilliantly demonstrates how the self-taught and self-fashioning alchemist Anna
Zieglerin negotiated the difficult landscape of the politically fractured Holy Roman Empire, with
its fractious array of scientific, occult, and Christian beliefs. At the ducal court of
Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, Anna’s prized asset was her detailed recipe for “lion’s blood,” a
golden oil possessing wondrous powers, both curative and lucrative. But she offered her noble
patron much more than just a miraculous oil. Presenting herself as a kind of physiologically and
spiritually purified Protestant Virgin Mary, she adopted the role of prophet, literally embodying
regeneration and redemption in a time of apocalyptic eschatology. However, her success was
short-lived. Three years after her arrival in Wolfenbüttel, enemies at court engineered her
destruction; accused of fraud, sorcery, and adultery, Zieglerin was arrested, tried, tortured until
confession, then gruesomely executed in 1575. Building her account upon exhaustive study of
an enormous number of difficult and often conflicting sources, and providing an illuminating
historiographical analysis, Nummedal tells a fascinating tale. But more important than just a
ripping good story, Anna Zieglerin and the Lion’s Blood is a model of how best to write serious
and engaging history of science.
HISTORY OF SCIENCE SOCIETY
12price/webster prize
Jeremy Greene, Victor
Braitberg, and Gabriella
Maya Bernadett
“Innovation on the Reservation: Information Technology
and Health Systems Research among the Papago Tribe of
Arizona, 1965-1980,” published in Isis in issue number 3 of
volume 111.
The authors tell a fascinating story about a collaboration between NASA, the Indian Health Service,
and the Lockheed Missiles and Space Company, which took place from 1965-1980. Members of the
Papago Tribe (now Tohono O’odham Nation) of southern Arizona were provided remote access to
physicians via telemedical technology instead of being required to travel to distant hospitals. The
authors are particularly adept in exploring the history of the project from the multiple perspectives
of NASA and its contractors, of the Indian Health Service, of the O’odham engineers and health
professionals, and most importantly of the members of the Papago Tribe themselves.
But one of the main points of the article is to demonstrate that the Papago were by no means
passive subjects in this study. The authors offer an alternative to the ways that indigenous actors
have often been portrayed in prior accounts. They provide a complex and interesting account of
agency, deploying the voices of tribal leadership in a way that allows them to emerge as a group
with authority who through their exercise of their circumscribed autonomy had a significant
impact on how the project was established and conducted. If never treated entirely as equals, they
were nonetheless integral to the collaboration.
The article is grounded in thorough empirical research. The authors draw on a diverse set of
sources to tell their story, including the institutional archives of NASA and the Indian Health
Service, as well as interviews with surviving STARPAHC participants both on and off the
reservation. Interestingly, the collaboration at the heart of the story, that between the indigenous
actors and American institutions and businesses, is painstakingly analysed by collaborating co-
authors. The stylistic elegance of the article makes it clear that a genuinely collective process was
used, leading to a final result that is much more than the sum of the individual contributions. This is
a testimony to how collaborative work can lead to innovative and creative papers that reach
beyond the history of science.
HISTORY OF SCIENCE SOCIETY
13hazen prize
Alex Wellerstein
Stevens Institute of Technology
The committee wishes to award this year’s Hazen Prize to Alex Wellerstein (Stevens Institute of
Technology) in recognition of his achievements in bringing the history of science to a broad public
audience. Wallerstein’s use of digital tools is exemplified by his interactive digital projects
NUKEMAP and MISSILEMAP. Both allow visitors and students to simulate the effects of current
and Cold War era weapons and have been used extensively by educators. We are fortunate that
these are only simulations. Visitors to NUKEMAP have “detonated” well over 200 million nuclear
bombs since its launch. By creating and maintaining the sites Wellerstein demonstrates how
academic expertise in the history of science can be successfully leveraged for broader educational
engagement. In addition to his work with the maps, Wellerstein has shown a strong commitment to
classroom teaching and public speaking in his areas of expertise. Letters in support of his
nomination explicitly attest to his generosity as a scholar both in person and online. He has spoken
in college classrooms as well as museums and public settings on nuclear history and collaborated
with colleagues at other education institutions including Air & Space Museum and acted as
historical consultant for the documentary series Manhattan. His blog “Restricted Data”
https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/ presents well-written and researched history of science to a
broad audience and received over five million views since its launch in 2011. For all these reasons
we believe he exemplifies the kind of work and dedication the Hazen Prize celebrates.
Committee on Education and Engagement
HISTORY OF SCIENCE SOCIETY
14pauly prize
Allison Margaret Bigelow
University of Virginia
Mining Language: Racial Thinking, Indigenous Knowledge,
and Colonial Metallurgy in the Early Modern Iberian World
(The University of North Carolina Press, 2020)
In this ambitious, imaginative, and boundary-crossing work, Allison Margaret Bigelow develops new
methods for uncovering the complex, cross-cultural origins of knowledge about mines and
minerals in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Iberian world. During this period, she shows,
Spanish and Portuguese officials, artisans, and naturalists extensively borrowed language from
Indigenous and African miners to understand how gold, iron, copper, and silver could be located,
extracted, refined, and worked. As those
terms were transmitted and translated beyond their original languages and contexts of use, their
origins were obscured, and new and sometimes contradictory meanings became attached to them.
When Spanish writers described mixed metals as cimarrón or mulato, for example, they both drew
on Andean mining knowledge and transformed it to match European gender and racial categories.
In the process, the epistemological contributions of Indigenous miners and the social conditions of
colonial mining were effectively effaced. Allison Margaret Bigelow’s close attention to the nuances
of mining language offers both a compelling new story of the origins of scientific and technical
knowledge about minerals and a powerful set of methods for uncovering histories that have been
hidden in the very terminology we use to describe the natural world. A methodological tour de
force, it provides historians of science in the Americas—or anywhere, really—new ways to read
well-known sources and new reasons for reading obscure ones.
HISTORY OF SCIENCE SOCIETY
15rainger prize
Claire Isabel Webb
Bergguen Institute
“Gaze-Scaling: Planets as Islands in Exobiologists’
Imaginaries,” published in Science as Culture, 30: 3
(2021), 391-415.
The 2022 Rainger Award is given to Claire Isabel Webb for her article “Gaze-Scaling: Planets as
Islands in Exobiologists’ Imaginaries,” published in Science as Culture, 30: 3 (2021), 391-415.
“Gaze-Scaling” examines why the earliest exobiologists—researchers of the origin and evolution of
life in outer space—consistently described their work on extraterrestrial environments as an
extension of the traditional use of islands as laboratories for understanding and conserving life on
Earth. Deftly situating exobiologists’ discursive tendencies in the European colonial history of
natural history, biology, and field sciences since the early modern period, Webb synthesizes the
existing historiography in striking ways, especially by pointing to a longstanding, pervasive tension
between the concept of islands as self-contained microcosms versus islands as connected
archipelagos. Furthermore, Webb expands on previous historical and analytical work on scaling in
the post-World War Two field sciences to develop her concept of ‘gaze-scaling,’ conjuring both the
exobiological toolkit—the zooming in-and-out operation of a telescope—and the complexity of
theorizing the origins of life in universal as opposed to merely earthbound terms. Skillfully weaving
together evidence from textual and visual traditions, Webb shows how scientists adapted and
reframed long-established frameworks of terrestrial exploration and conquest to justify the
exobiological approach. She persuasively demonstrates why the metaphorical use of islands to
express the relation between planets proved nearly irresistible. Pushing analytical boundaries and
leveling provocative new questions about the multidisciplinary field of astrobiology, the example of
Webb’s work might also stimulate further research on if and how exobiologists have drawn on
other similes to represent their understanding of life outside Earth. For its sharp analysis and rich
suggestiveness, “Gaze-Scaling” deserves a wide audience, particularly of historians studying the
earth and environmental sciences, who could be spurred to include the planetary sciences within
their purview.
HISTORY OF SCIENCE SOCIETY
16rossiter prize
Beans Velocci
University of Pennsylvania
“Standards of Care: Uncertainty and Risk in Harry
Benjamin's Transsexual Classifications" published in
TQ, 1 November 2021; 8 (4): 462-480.
In “Standards of Care: Uncertainty and Risk in Harry Benjamin's Transsexual Classifications,” Beans
Velocci provides a fresh look at gender and the history of medicine by focusing on the medical
treatment of transgender women in mid-twentieth-century America. Through a close study of the
German-born endocrinologist Harry Benjamin’s medical practice and his working relationship with
urologist Elmer Belt, one of the few doctors to perform trans surgeries in the period, Velocci gives
us surprising insight into doctors’ motives for limiting access to surgery and hormones for trans
patients. As Velocci documents, doctors feared trans women, not because they challenged gender
norms, but because they were imagined to represent a personal threat to doctors. Through their
practice, doctors defined womanhood and normative gender, denying medical transition to trans
women they deemed insufficiently feminine. But it turns out they did so for deeply selfish reasons:
to protect themselves from what they imagined to be violent, irrational patients who would regret
their gender transition and target their doctors in revenge. Bringing together methodological
insights from feminist, queer, and trans studies, Velocci provides us with a deep analysis of a
moment in transgender history with broad repercussions for how we think about issues of agency,
ethics, and policing in medical care, issues all the more urgent today.
HISTORY OF SCIENCE SOCIETY
17reingold prize
Alexander David Clayton
University of Michigan
“Wisdom Grunts: Pigs, Philosophers, and Other Demi-
Rational Animals in Enlightenment London.”
This is a fascinating and elegantly-written piece that uses a strange episode from the eighteenth-
century world of commercial performances to cast new light on key Enlightenment questions
about human nature, intelligence, taste, and creativity. The “learned pig” was a creature exhibited
to paying spectators in London in 1785; its amazing abilities to tell the time, do mathematics, and
answer audience questions by picking out cards marked with the letters of the alphabet caused a
sensation and garnered his owner a sizable profit. The learned pig’s performances took place amid
a welter of licit, semi-licit, and illicit shows taking place across the imperial capital, with which they
competed for public attention. The paper shows how the “demi-rational” pig straddled the
boundary between the human and the non-human, and how, in doing so, it prompted profound –
but also ribald – questions about the nature and implications of that boundary. Commentators from
Samuel Johnson to Robert Southey descanted on the porcine wonder, and it was invoked at a
notorious high-court trial turning on whether a witness who was unable to speak or hear could be
said to reason. Others worried about what an apparently reasoning animal might imply for human
properties of taste and even creative genius: if learning was associational, as authorities like Locke
and Hume claimed, then how sure could anyone be that the pig could not model such properties?
Even beyond that, how secure was the Cartesian boundary between the human and the animal, the
intelligent and the mechanical? Both the virtues and the vulnerabilities of Enlightenment were at
stake when the pig took to the stage. Based in a wide array of primary and secondary sources, and
taking aim at some of the most important questions currently being asked of eighteenth-century
public science, this paper exemplifies the contribution that the historian of science can make to
major themes of cultural history.
HISTORY OF SCIENCE SOCIETY
18Davis prize
Marga Vicedo
University of Toronto
Intelligent Love: The Story of Clara Park, Her Autistic
Daughter, and the Myth of The Refrigerator Mother
(Beacon Press, 2021).
The Watson, Helen, Miles, & Audrey Davis Prize Committee is delighted to announce that the 2022
award for a history of science book that effectively appeals to general readers goes to Marga
Vicedo, Intelligent Love: The Story of Clara Park, Her Autistic Daughter, and the Myth of The
Refrigerator Mother (Beacon Press, 2021).
At the center of this moving and beautifully written book is the relationship between Clara and
Jessy Park—a mother and her autistic child—and the challenges they faced navigating a pathway
amongst experts, parents, activists, and emerging ideas about the causes of autism after World War
II. Vicedo tells their story in a highly accessible and engaging way, painting a larger portrait of child
psychology and the development of medical models of disability. Here we learn about scientists’
practices and pitfalls, their insights and blind spots, never straying too far from the people—Clara
and Jessy—who became subject to their judgements. Over the course of the story, Vicedo brilliantly
dismantles the perceived dichotomy between emotion and intellect and urges us to view the
relationship between intelligence and love differently, and in the process, our conceptions about
what mothers and autistic people can do. Vicedo’s considerable skills as a researcher, historian, and
philosopher are amplified by her compassion for her subjects and her gifts as a storyteller.
Intelligent Love does what so many history books attempt to do but fall short: connecting small
worlds to big ones, making both more memorable in the process. This is an important book for our
times—as we continue to grapple with issues of neurodiversity and ableism, Vicedo explains how
through learning history, we can do better.
HISTORY OF SCIENCE SOCIETY
19levinson prize
Jennifer Bangham
Queen Mary University London
Blood Relations: Transfusion and the Making of Human
Genetics (University of Chicago Press, 2020)
We are delighted to announce the winner of this year’s Suzanne J. Levinson Prize: Jenny Bangham’s
Blood Relations: Transfusion and the Making of Human Genetics (University of Chicago Press, 2020).
Bangham tells an original story of the history of blood transfusions in twentieth-century Britain,
critically expanding our understanding of the history of genetics beyond DNA. Bangham shows how
the transfusion, collection and study of blood in the first half of the twentieth century was bound
up with new forms of medical governance and surveillance. For some British biologists and
anthropologists, blood offered a new opportunity to apply Mendelian genetics and evolutionary
population dynamics to humans. For others, it suggested possible redefinitions of “race” and nation.
Blood Relations tells the story of a specifically national scientific mobilization effort organized
around the transfusion of blood in Britain - largely spurred on by wartime mobilization efforts
between the first and second World Wars. But it also reminds us that this agenda was crucially
intertwined with broader, transnational goals: the effort to map global blood groups, the project of
establishing genetics as the fundamental science of human difference, and the desire to establish
definitions of “race” as a biologically coherent notion. By focusing on the ways in which blood,
people, and instruments were projected into the public domain, Blood Relations expands our
understanding of how histories of materiality and labor can reorient our methodological and
historiographical approaches in the history of science. We congratulate Dr. Bangham on this
skillfully researched and lucidly written history– it is a welcome contribution to the history of the
life sciences.
HISTORY OF SCIENCE SOCIETY
20gerjuoy/michell award
Judy Johns Schloegel
The award committee voted to give the 2022 Gerjuoy/Michell Award of History of Science Society
to Judy Johns Schloegel for her abstract: Instituting Biology in the Great Lakes. The committee
appraised this work positively because of its bold interpretation of maritime science and cultures.
At one level, Schloegel shows the co-construction of knowledge by scientists, academicians, and
resource management workers in the Great Lakes surveys. At another level, she shows commercial
and recreational fishing interests shaping the surveys as well as academic projects and ecological
perspectives that came out of them.
Committee on Meetings and Programs
HISTORY OF SCIENCE SOCIETY
21HSS Interdisciplinary Summer School
What
A 5-day intensive workshop on the history of science for up to 12 graduate student
and early career scholars, whose work intersects with the history of science.*
Featuring: 3 masterclasses, 2 professionalization sessions, and the opportunity for
each participant to either (a) workshop an article/dissertation chapter; or (b) to
give a workshop length presentation/mock job talk. Participating students will be
mentored by 4–6 faculty participants.
* Participants must be HSS members, but need not be members at time of application
Where
Science History Institute, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
When
10-14 July 2023
Eligibility
The HSSISS program is open to Graduate Students and Early Career Scholars* at
any institution whose work intersects with the history of science.
We seek participants who hail from historically excluded communities, especially
those belonging to underrepresented racial minority (URM) groups - including
African American, Latinx, and Native American. We also strongly encourage
applications from scholars whose institutions do not otherwise provide them with
mentorship opportunities in the history of science.
Applicants who have a dissertation chapter or an article in progress will be given
priority. However, applications from graduate students who have not yet advanced
to candidacy, who would use the HSSISS to workshop their dissertation prospectus
will be considered.
The HSS Summer School is fully funded (fundraising goals permitting). This
includes accommodation for four nights, travel to/from Philadelphia, and most
meals.
Deadline to submit an application is 3 February 2023.
*We define an early career scholar as anyone who has received their dissertation within the last five years.
Applicants who received their PhD more than five years prior to the application deadline, but who took leave
for caregiving or medical reasons, are eligible to apply if your time active in academia amounts to less than
five years. Please address your leave and its duration in your application materials.
3
22Beyond Technological Resources, Give Students
the Gift of Time
Jörg Matthias Determann
Threats to societies have often been catalysts for innovation. Historians are well
aware of how twentieth-century wars propelled astrophysics forward and gave
rise to the space sciences, for instance. In the recent memory of even the
youngest members of our profession stands the COVID-19 pandemic as another
driver of technological change. Instructors around the globe and in virtually
every discipline, including ours, experimented with new ways of delivering
content during sudden lockdowns. I personally have learned more about
applications like Kahoot!, Poll Everywhere, Top Hat, and, of course, Zoom.
However, as much as I am excited about the latest software, I have also come to
appreciate what is perhaps the most timeless of all resources: time itself.
To be sure, much educational technology can save time. Otherwise, it would
probably not be in use. Video conferencing software can reduce the time to move
from one meeting to another to a minimum. Audience response systems allow an
entire student body to vote or answer questions within seconds. Learners also
appreciate speed on many other occasions, for instance, when exchanging quick
messages before a deadline or viewing their grades in a learning management
system.
However, in any situation, and especially in urgent ones, students also deserve
care. A long and carefully written email is often better than a short and rushed
comment in an online chat. I have certainly witnessed how instant messaging can
unnecessarily cause misunderstandings and negative feelings. I prefer to draft
important communications first in a word processor before copying them into
the email service on my web browser. I thereby automatically benefit from a
double check on my spelling and grammar, once by Microsoft Word and once by
Gmail. I also view my text in a different format, thus allowing me to catch other
mistakes. Finally, when in doubt, I add a clarifying sentence or a compliment to
avoid confusion or offense. Leading by example, I thus also want to cultivate
good habits in my students for writing in the workplace. For many careers,
professional email etiquette is arguably also more useful than the ability to write
long essays.
1 Ser, for instance, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Avis Lang, Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between
Astrophysics and the Military (New York: W. W. Norton, 2018).
3
23Beyond Technological Resources, Give Students
the Gift of Time
Of course, even a well-crafted email, just like communication via any app, can
appear cold and impersonal. For the most sensitive topics, it might be best to go
low-tech or no-tech. Unless you want to pass on precise written information and
have a record of it, a phone call is probably more advisable than an email
exchange. An in-person conversation in turn is better than one over the phone.
Such strategies might seem obvious. However, they perhaps still need to be
shown to many young people who have grown up in a digital world in which
frustrations are often publicly shared on social media.
Being available for face-to-face dialogues requires extra time, of course. As the
teacher, I try to be the first person in the classroom, not only to check that my
projector and speakers are working, but also to individually greet students
coming in and ask them how they are. In addition to holding scheduled office
hours, I have long made a habit of keeping my door open for whoever wants to
pass by. I also avoid long-distance travel during the semester, attending
conferences abroad during breaks instead.
Giving time to one’s students does not end after they graduate. If I succeed in
making them feel cared for, they may ask me for advice or a reference many
years later. A convincing letter of recommendation tailored to the addressee
should not be written in haste either, even if sometimes the due date is very
close.
The time you spend on helping alumni or students outside the classroom might
not always be well-acknowledged and rewarded. In my own annual reports for
my university, I do list how many reference letters I wrote in a given year.
However, like most academics, I do not quantify and track most efforts in
support of my students. Apart from numbers of registered class participants and
scheduled teaching hours as well as formal course evaluations, I thus end up
with few numerical indicators of my commitment as an educator.
Depending on the expectations of your supervisors, you might thus be tempted
to improve your research scores, like your number of publications and citations,
instead of investing time in care that goes unmeasured. However, as historians of
science, we are qualified to examine metrics of all kinds critically. We should be
content with the fact that no measurement is ever perfect and exhaustive,
including that of time.
3
24Beyond Technological Resources, Give Students
the Gift of Time
Moreover, as science historians we are also trained to view any technological
development with some professional distance. I am deeply grateful for the
opportunity to try out new tools during the coronavirus pandemic. At the same
time, I want to remind myself that applications and gadgets are not necessarily
the things that students need the most. Even in a public health emergency, care
should come in low-tech as well as high-tech forms.
Jörg Matthias Determann teaches history at Virginia Commonwealth University in
Qatar. He can be reached at jmdetermann@vcu.edu.
3
25GECC @ HSS ’22: A Welcome Return, A Fresh
Start
Mikey McGovern
I’ll skip the clichés about how lovely it was to see people’s faces outside of a
Zoom rectangle (it was): didn’t it feel like there were a lot of new folks in
Chicago? It was the first in-person meeting for a number of our officers, and it
dawned on me in the midst of wiping Italian Beef drippings from my hands en
route to The Drake that I was the only GECC member remaining who had helped
out with Utrecht. In many ways, this year’s meeting felt like a new beginning.
Going forward we will have our work cut out for us, because JP and the Executive
Office have set the bar extraordinarily high in their support for grad students
and early career scholars. People were raving about the Welcome Room all
weekend long. Likewise with the free food, which ranged from boxed lunches to
salvaged bundt cakes. This was a real help for those lacking the funds to hobnob
at the tony establishments in our immediate vicinity like Hugo’s Frog Bar. Our
mixer was also a hit, with more than 80 attendees bonding over Galaga and ping-
pong at Headquarters Beercade. Even an in-house DJ pulling out all the aughts-
EDM-remixes-you-didn’t-know-you-didn’t-need couldn’t dampen the
enthusiasm on our side of the room. We will continue to seek out spaces that
allow us to de-center alcohol and provide different modes of socializing. Again, a
big thanks to JP, Morgan, our volunteers, and the hotel staff who made all of this
possible.
As a previous Program Chair pointed out to me, GECC was all over this year’s
program. Indeed, there were times when it seemed like we were planning too
much, but in the moment it felt just right. Organized by Gina Surita, our CV
review was a full house, and possibly the biggest one we have ever coordinated:
90 minutes of rapid-fire consultations with senior scholars from various
institutions and backgrounds. Ellie Louson organized a Women’s Mentorship
Chat on the theme of “Navigating the Institution” that got rave reviews from all
participants. And finally, Iris Clever organized our Tacit Knowledge panel on
Writing Practices, possibly our best-attended so far, which brought together
scholars and editors to field questions about how to approach writing projects in
the early career transition. At each of the latter two events, we raffled off various
thematic books using our caucus funds: two notable examples are Laura
Portwood-Stacer’s The Book Proposal Book (Princeton, 2021) and Lorgia García
Peña’s Community as Rebellion, published by Chicago-based Haymarket Books.
3
26GECC @ HSS ’22: A Welcome Return, A Fresh
Start
We also co-sponsored an incredibly important and useful roundtable on sexual
harassment, and participated in a listening session responding to proposals put
forth following last year’s session on Reparations and Redistribution hosted with
the Forum for the History of the Human Sciences and others.
It’s always nice to spend some time in the city away from the conference hotel,
so following the final session co-chair Taylor Dysart and I headed up to Pequod’s
to debrief over what is quite obviously the best Chicago-style pizza by leaps and
bounds. Our discussion inevitably led to the future of GECC, and in subsequent
group meetings we have formulated a clearer idea of what we would like to get
done next year.
First, we plan to actively collaborate with ongoing HSS initiatives like the
Interdisciplinary Summer School and the Centennial Committee. For the latter,
we’d like to contribute to the podcast series, and will continue to discuss
potential projects as the year goes on. Second, we plan to rethink our previous
one-on-one mentorship program and figure out new ways to support first-time
attendees. Through our final initiative, an overhaul of our communication
footprint, we hope to reach more potential attendees. We will be moving our
website off of WordPress, and are looking into setting up some kind of social
platform like Discord for early career scholars to use to connect more—it will
also double as a way to support communication during the conference. We are
also considering sunsetting some of our social media initiatives in favor of a
more intentional newsletter that will both spotlight early career scholars and
share the many calls we receive for reposting as a digest. These are just some
proposals, and they will no doubt change as time goes on.
From my end, it’s been a pleasure serving in this role, and I can’t wait to see what
Taylor and our new co-chair are able to achieve in the coming year. We continue
to support efforts to make our society and meetings more accessible, equitable,
and welcoming to early career scholars. We look forward to working with Early
Career Representative Patrícia Martins Marcos, and we take heart in how open
Fa-Ti and everyone involved in HSS’s governing structure have been to
conversations about concrete steps to fulfill these aspirations. If you have any
ideas, feel free to drop us a line.
See you in Portland, if not before then!
3
27Announcement: HSS @ 100
The HSS @ 100 committee is excited to announce that 2024 will mark the 100th
anniversary of the founding of the History of Science Society. To mark the
occasion, HSS has asked several members to organize various events, podcasts,
commemorations in the next two years, as we build up to a celebration at our
annual meeting in Mérida, Mexico in 2024. The centennial meeting in Méridais
the first time in the history of HSS that our annual meeting will take place
outside of the US, Canada, or Western Europe. You won’t want to miss it.
The members of the Centennial Committee, made up of scholars from across the
US, Mexico, and Europe, are: Kathleen Sheppard, Missouri S&T; Babak Ashrafi,
CHSTM; Ben Gross, Linda Hall Library; Sarah Pickman, Yale University; Sarah
Qidwai, University of Regensburg; Matthew Stanley, NYU; Matthew Shindell,
Smithsonian Institution; Gwen Kay, HSS; and Edna Suárez Díaz, UNAM.
We are all excited to work with each other and with all of you to organize and
co-sponsor programming that looks at the history of science as a field and/or
HSS over the past century.
As part of our two year-long centenary celebration, which kicked off at the
annual meeting in Chicago in 2022 and will culminate at the annual meeting in
Mérida in 2024, we want to invite you to pitch to us. Our theme asks three main
questions, “Where have we been? Where are we now? Where do we want to be?”
We are seeking proposals for several events. First, we will be producing podcast
episodes in collaboration with the Consortium for the History of Science,
Technology, and Medicine. The podcast will tentatively launch in mid-2023.
Please pitch us!
We want to help support in-person and online events (including talks,
workshops, film screenings, trivia nights—you name it!), written series, social
media series, or anything you can think of that looks at the history of the history
of science. We welcome any and all ideas relating to the history of the field or
the history of HSS as an organization.
The HSS Centennial Committee also invites institutions, local societies, forums,
libraries, and more to make and record their own mini-histories. This could take
the form of audio, video, or written recollections over the last 100 years.
3
28Announcement: HSS @ 100
Please consider this your formal invitation to submit proposals for any or of
these calls. They are available here: https://hssonline.org/page/centennial
We look forward to your ideas in the coming months, making the Centennial the
most fun we’ve had in 100 years. If you have questions, please email Kathleen
Sheppard: sheppardka@mst.edu
If you have a call you would like to make more public (like the one below), please
email at the above address.
Call for podcast participants:
Singing Songs of HSS: Call for Collaborators
I am proposing a podcast episode about Singing Songs of HSS. Discipline
formation often involves moments of social bonding and showing off, such as the
communal singing of songs modified to include specialized terminology. The
Indiana History and Philosophy of Science Department developed "History and
Philosophy of Science Song Books" in the 1960s-80s, reflecting jokes about
writing dissertations, "great men" of history of science, professors, and their
specialties. Do you have access to song books from another history of science
graduate program? Are you just generally interested in the topic? If so, email me
(Andy Fiss, afiss@mtu.edu) ASAP.
.
3
29Forum & Caucus News CFPs
At the annual meeting in November, Tara Gender and Intersectionality in Science,
Nummedal (Brown University) was elected Technology, and Medicine: Historical
the new co-chair of the HSS Women’s Perspectives
Caucus, replacing Anita Guerrini. Tara’s
term begins January 1, 2023 and runs until University of Granada, Spain, 2–3 June
January 1, 2025. She joins Samantha (Sam) 2023
Muka (Stevens Institute of Technology),
whose term will expire in January 2024. International Conference of the
Commission on Women and Gender in the
History of Science, Technology, and
Medicine
The Forum for the History of the We invite proposals for organized sessions
Mathematical Sciences is launching a new and individual presentations that engage
virtual reading group that will meet with the theme, “Gender and
throughout the year. For more information Intersectionality in Science, Technology,
or to participate, please contact Hunter at and Medicine: Historical Perspectives.”
eahunter@uchicago.edu or Brit Shields at We encourage proposals that interrogate
bshields@seas.upenn.edu. the multi-agent histories of women,
gender and sexuality in science,
Please let me and Hunter know if you need technology and medicine, with particular
any additional information. attention to the roles played by
constructions of race/ethnicity, class and
further social categories that impacted
personal and professional lives in a range
of geographical and temporal contexts.
The deadline for submitting organised
sessions and individual presentations is
January 31, 2023.
For further details on submissions, please
visit
https://agnodike.org/conferences/grana
da2023/call-for-proposals/
30
6Member News
January 10 marks the 450th birthday of the
margravial court astronomer Simon Marius
and the following year the 400th anniversary
of his death. The Simon Marius Society takes
both anniversaries as an opportunity to
remember the South German astronomer in
2024 and proclaims an international
anniversary year under the title "Simon
Marius 1573 - 1624". We invite astronomical
communities to participate. All activities will
be publicized on the Marius portal.
Edward B. ("Ted") Davis has been named
Professor Emeritus of the History of Science
at Messiah University. His lectures on the
scientific revolution have been recorded by
ClassicalU. Also, an exhibit on American
religion and science for which he was an
advisor is now open at the Smithsonian, and
he is involved with an exhibit on “Scripture
and Science” that opens in January at the
Museum of the Bible.
31 9You can also read
