All History of Science Department Events for Fall 2016


September 9 (Friday) at Noon

Brown Bag
Welcome, introductions, and planning for the semester.

For the remainder of the hour, we’ll have an informal discussion about current problems with academic publishing, which seems increasingly dysfunctional. Check out this recent Atlantic article for a quick overview of some of the key issues.

Location: 204 Bradley Memorial


September 15 (Thursday) at 12:30 pm

STS Brown Bag: Florence Hsia, History of Science
“Toward a history of astronomical data.”

Location: 354 Ag Hall


September 16 (Friday) at Noon

Brown Bag: Matthew Wolf-Meyer, Anthropology, Binghamton University, State University of New York
“Excremental Medicine: Confronting Medical Ontologies of Molecules and Microbes.”

Location: 204 Bradley Memorial


September 23 (Friday) at Noon

Brown Bag: Professor Susan Lawrence, Ohio State University
“Digital History and Civil War Hospitals.”

Location: 204 Bradley Memorial


September 23 (Friday) at 3:45 pm

Colloquium: Professor Susan Lawrence, Ohio State University
“Privacy, Research Ethics and the Dead.”

Location: 976 Memorial Library (Special Collections)

Co-hosted by the UW Medical History and Bioethics and History of Science departments. Additional funding provided by the University Lectures Knapp Fund.


September 24 (Saturday) at 10:00 am

Public lecture: Catherine M. Jackson, History of Science
“Historian Meets Glass.”

Professor Jackson will give the keynote lecture at the American Scientific Glassblower’s Society Midwest Section Fall Meeting at the UW-Madison Glass Lab, Art Lofts, 111 N. Frances St (map). For more information, click to see the event poster PDF file.

Free and open to the public!


September 30 (Friday) at Noon

Brown Bag: Lisa Ruth Rand, A. W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, UW-Madison
“Space Junk: An Environmental History.”

Location: 204 Bradley Memorial


September 30 (Friday) at 3:45 pm

Colloquium: Professor John Evans, UCSD
“What is a Human? Public Views and the Impact on Human Rights.” (talk abstract)

Location: 976 Memorial Library (Special Collections)


October 7 (Friday) at Noon

Brown Bag: Catherine Jackson, History of Science
Pre-circulated paper, title: “All Branches of Human Wisdom.”

This paper will be distributed by e-mail to dept faculty and grad students about a week beforehand. If you are outside the dept and wish to receive a copy, please contact Eric Schatzberg (email: eschatzb@wisc.edu) for a copy of the paper.

Location: 204 Bradley Memorial


October 14 (Friday) at Noon

Brown Bag: James Cortada, Charles Babbage Institute
“Creating the History of Information Technology.”

Location: 204 Bradley Memorial


October 21 (Friday) at Noon

*** Cancelled due to a family emergency ***

Brown Bag: Florence Vienne, History of Pharmacy, Technische Universität Braunschweig

“Beyond Darwin: Science and Religion in Modern European Historiography of Biology.”


October 21 (Friday) at 3:45 pm

*** Cancelled due to a family emergency ***

Colloquium: Florence Vienne, History of Pharmacy, Technische Universität Braunschweig

“Revisiting the History of Nineteenth-Century Cell Theory: Matthias J. Schleiden’s and Theodor Schwann’s Metaphysical and Political Ideas.”


October 28 (Friday) at Noon

Brown Bag: Jessica Lehman, A. W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, UW-Madison
“Making Science Global: Synopticity and the International Geophysical Year (1957-1958).”

Location: 204 Bradley Memorial


November 4 (Friday) at Noon

Brown Bag: Dana Freiburger (HistSci) and Paul Grant (History)
“Poster or Presentation?: A discussion about current conference options.”

Location: 204 Bradley Memorial


November 11 (Friday) at Noon

Brown Bag: April Haynes, History
“Riotous Flesh: Women, Physiology, and the Solitary Vice in 19th-century America.”

Location: 204 Bradley Memorial


November 18 (Friday) at Noon

Brown Bag: Florence Vienne, History of Pharmacy, Technische Universität Braunschweig
“Beyond Darwin: Science and Religion in Modern European Historiography of Biology.”

Location: 204 Bradley Memorial


November 18 (Friday) at 3:45 pm

Colloquium: Florence Vienne, History of Pharmacy, Technische Universität Braunschweig
“Revisiting the History of Nineteenth-Century Cell Theory: Matthias J. Schleiden’s and Theodor Schwann’s Metaphysical and Political Ideas.”

Location: 976 Memorial Library (Special Collections)

Co-sponsored with the Center for German and European Studies.


November 25 (Friday) at Noon

No Brown Bag – Thanksgiving Holiday


December 2 (Friday) at Noon

Brown Bag: Hugh Slotten, University of Otago, New Zealand
“Writing the Global History of Science, Medicine, and Technology.”

Location: 204 Bradley Memorial


December 2 (Friday) at 3:45 pm

Colloquium: Nick Jacobson, History of Science
“Roger Bacon’s Political Calculations: Mathematical Jurisprudence and the Naturalization of Religion in the Mid-Thirteenth Century.”

Location: 976 Memorial Library (Special Collections)


December 9 (Friday) at Noon

Brown Bag: Andrew Warwick, History of Science
“Sex, Violence, Victorian History.”

Location: 204 Bradley Memorial


December 16 (Friday) at Noon

Town Hall discussion

Location: 204 Bradley Memorial

Following the Town Hall discussion, including current status of the departmental restructuring, Prof. Catherine Jackson will introduce the final project posters from her undergraduate course “Things not Words,” on the history of material culture and science (History of Science 350: Special Topics: Things not Words: Using Material Culture). Posters will be on display in the Bradley Memorial lobby from 12:30 pm till 1:30 pm. Some of Catherine’s students will be there, too, to show their posters and answer questions about them.