Talks
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The list below is mainly an archive of titles of past events. To instead see upcoming events, go to the tab Events, on the left, or also, to this website: https://sites.utexas.edu/hps/
2019-2021
- 2021
Date Nov. 5 Gregory T. Cushman (University of Kansas/University of Arizona) — “Alex in Wonderland: Humboldt’s Male Companions and the Queer Science of Liberation” (12:00 noon, online) Oct. 29 Rebecca Onion (Slate) — “How the Histories of Medicine and Public Health Have Fared in the Media During Covid-19” Oct. 22 Felipe Fernandes Cruz (Tulane University) — “Hacking Airspace: The Insurgent Technology of Brazil’s Hot Air Balloons” Apr. 30 Peter Worger (UT History Department) — “Eugenics, Organizational Psychology, and Industrialization in the Soviet Initiatives of V. M. Bekhterev” Mar. 26 Johnny Miri (independent scholar) — “Vannevar Bush and Cold War Science Policy” Mar. 5 Jan Todd (UT Stark Center) — “Weights and War: Thomas L. DeLorme and the Transformation of Rehabilitative Medicine” Feb. 5 Iván Chaar López (UT—American Studies) — “Networked Asymmetries in Stories of Technoscience”
- 2020
Date Nov. 13 John Wallingford (UT–Molecular Biosciences) — “Reconsidering Buddhist Embryology as Science History” Sep. 11 Graduate Student Panel: John Carranza, Jeremey Donnelly-Rutledge, Diana Heredia-López, and Alyssa Peterson — “History, Medicine, and COVID: A Roundtable” Mar. 6 Fredrik Albritton Jonsson (University of Chicago) — “Fossil Futures: the Science and Politics of Coal in Britain, 1800–1870” Feb. 28 Jonathan Coopersmith (Texas A&M) — “Creative Construction: The Importance of Fraud, Fear, and Froth in Emerging Technologies” Jan. 31 Lydia Pyne (UT) — “Carbon Copy: Making Real, Authentic Laboratory-Grown Diamonds” - 2019
Date Nov. 15 Nicole Elmer (UT) — “In Search of UT’s ‘Fly Room’” Nov. 1 Jesse Ritner (UT) — “Making Snow and Designing the X-Games: Technological Innovation and the Production of a New Ski Culture” Oct. 4 Bruce J. Hunt (UT) — “To Tycho’s Island: Reflections of a History of Science Tourist” - Accordion 4Panel 4. Add body text in this space.
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2014-2018
- 2018
Date Apr. 13 John Hartigan (UT) — “Races of Corn and the Science of Plant Biodiversity” Mar. 39 Chris Babits (UT) — “Born That Way: The Search for a Gay Gene amid the U.S. Culture Wars, 1990–2004” Mar. 2 John Lisle (UT) — “The Alsos Mission: Scientific Intelligence and War” - 2017
Date Dec. 1 Richard M. Mizelle, Jr., University of Houston — “Sugar Diabetes: Medical Entitlement and Civil Rights in America” Nov. 3 Richard Noakes, University of Exeter (UK) — “From Telegraphy to Telepathy and Back Again: Research, Creativity and British Electrical Communication, 1870–1930” Sep. 22 Matthew Stanley, NYU — "Draft chapter of Einstein’s War: The 1919 Eclipse and How Relativity Conquered the World" Apr. 14 Audra Wolfe (The Outside Reader) — “The Fight for Science and Freedom: Recovering the Role of Science in Cold War-Era Cultural Diplomacy” Apr. 7 Lone Star Historians of Science meeting at Texas A&M Mar. 31 Rodolfo John Alaniz (UC-Berkeley) — “Darwinian Sensualities: Havelock Ellis, Sexual Inversion, and Late Nineteenth-Century Evolutionary Theory” (joint event with the Gender Symposium — 12:00 noon in GAR 1.102) Mar. 24 Chitra Ramalingam (Yale) — “The Laboratory as Camera: Experiment and the Photographic Archive of Victorian Science” Mar. 22 Paul Josephson (Colby College) — “Transforming Nature in Russia and the West: From the Tsars and the Roosevelts to Trump and Putin” (joint event with the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies and the Office of Sustainability — 4:00 pm in the Avaya Auditorium, ACES Building 2.302) Mar. 3 Daniel Jean-Jacques (UT) — “Scientific Networks and Legal Truths: Authenticating Knowledge through Forensic Authorities in Late Colonial Southwestern Nigeria” Feb. 24 Michael Barany (Dartmouth) — “Wordplay, Abuses of Language, and Making Sense in Modern Intercontinental Mathematics” Feb. 17 Tracie Matysik (UT) — “Spinoza and Science: A Matter of Historical Debate” Feb. 10 Jonathan Coopersmith (Texas A&M) — “Forging the Fax: How Fax Machines Helped Create ‘Alternative Facts'” Feb. 6 Alberto Martinez (UT) — “Roasted and Broiled Alive: Bruno, Galileo, and the Inquisition” (joint event with the IHS — 12:00 noon in GAR 4.100) Feb. 4 Gustavo Garza (St. Andrew’s School) — “Thomas Edison, the Phonograph, and the Sacred: Phonographic Musings on Life and Death” Jan. 20 Scottie Buehler (UCLA) — “A Simulacrum of Birth: The Pedagogical Instruments and Obstetrical Course of Madame du Coudray” (joint event with the Gender Symposium — 12:00 noon in GAR 1.102) - 2016
Date Nov. 18 Jethro Hernandez Berrones (Southwestern University) "Medicine in Revolution: Mapping Homeopathy into the Landscape of Mexican Medical Science, 1861-1934" Nov. 11 Erika Bsumek (UT) — “Navajo Sandstone: Herbert Gregory and Geological Naming Practices on the Colorado Plateau” Nov. 9 Lydia Pyne (UT) — Discussion of her new book Seven Skeletons: The Evolution of the World’s Most Famous Human Fossils (Institute for Historical Studies event — meets in GAR 4.100) Nov. 7 Neel Baumgardner (UT–San Antonio), Erika Bsumek (UT), and Karl Jacoby (Columbia Univ.) — “Roundtable on the Centennial of the National Parks Service” (Institute for Historical Studies event — meets in GAR 4.100) Oct. 31 Xaq Frohlich (IHS visiting fellow) — “New Diet Foods in Post-War America: Even Better Than the Real Thing?” (Institute for Historical Studies event — meets in GAR 4.100) Oct. 21 Lina Del Castillo (UT) — “New Granada Elites in the Making of Republican Vanguard Science, 1840s-1850s” Oct. 14 Elizabeth O’Brien (UT) — “Rebellion in the General Hospital: Medical Experimentation, Forced Sterilization, and Revolutionary Doctors in Mexico City, 1932" (joint event with the Gender Symposium — meets in GAR 1.102) Oct. 7 Mark Metzler (UT) — “Systems Visions of Japan's Postwar Social Metabolic Crisis” Sept. 30 Maurice Finocchiaro (Univ. of Nevada–Las Vegas) — “Galileo’s First Confrontation with the Inquisition (1616): Historical Documents, Philosophical Distinctions, Legal Issues” Sept. 23 Bruce Hunt (UT) — “Themes and Problems in the History of Science: Thoughts on Organizing a Graduate Seminar” April 15 Conevery Bolton Valencius (Univ. of Mass.–Boston) — “Earthquakes, Fracking, and Public Perception of Science” — 4:00 pm, Lone Star History of Science Group Meeting April 8 Larry Laudan (UT) — “The early days of HPS” April 1 Lydia Pyne (UT) — “Piltdown: A Name Without a Fossil” March 25 Jack Loveridge (UT) — "Between Hunger and Growth: Agricultural Science and Humanitarian Intervention in North India, 1947-1964" March 4 Brent Crosson (UT) — "Burdens of Proof: The Evidence of Science, Supernatural Power, and Oil in Trinidad" Feb. 26 Michael Shank (Univ. of Wisconsin) — "Astrology and Politics in the Background of the Galileo Affair" Feb. 19 Seth Garfield (UT) — "João Martins da Silva Coutinho’s Plant: Guarana and Louis Agassiz's Amazon Expedition of 1865" Feb. 8 Megan Raby (UT) — “Biological Diversity: From a ‘Tropical Problem’ to a ‘Global Crisis’” — 12:00 noon, at the Institute for Historical Research, GAR 4.100 Jan. 29 David Collins (UT) — “‘I dare not lean to my conceit’: Reflections on Contemplative Deconstruction in the West’s via negativa and Soto Zen” - 2015
Date Apr. 24 Andrea Woody “Setting the Agenda: Recognizing Diverse Goals for Scientific Activity” Dr. Woody is Associate Professor of Philosophy and faculty in Dance, History, and Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington. She co-edited Philosophy of Chemistry (2011). Apr. 17 Adam Shapiro “Darwin’s foil: The evolving uses of William Paley’s Natural Theology“ Dr. Shapiro is Lecturer in Intellectual and Cultural History at Birkbeck – University of London and author of Trying Biology: The Scopes Trial, Textbooks, and the Antievolution Movement in American Schools (2013). Apr. 10 Richard Fitzpatrick “Ptolemy’s Almagest: Fact and Fiction” UT Professor of Physics Fitzpatrick is author of several books, including Plasma Physics: An Introduction (2014) and a translation of Euclid’s Elements of Geometry (2007).
Mar. 27 Blake Scott “The Nature of Tourism: Smithsonian scientists as guides to the Caribbean, 1912 to 1964” Scott is a PhD Candidate in History at UT Austin, writing a dissertation on the emergence of mass tourism in the Caribbean during the early twentieth century. Mar. 25 Alberto Martinez “The Cult of Pythagoras: Math and Myths” UT History Professor Martinez is the author of several books including The Cult of Pythagoras (2012) and Science Secrets: The Truth About Darwin's Finches, Einstein's Wife, and Other Myths (2011). *(Wednesday, 3:30, GAR 4.100) Sponsored by the Institute for Historical Studies Mar. 6 Reem Elghonimi “Seeing Small: Mathematical Optics and the Dissection of Nature in Interregnum and Republican England, 1640-1657” Elghonimi is a graduate student in History at UT Austin researching Arabic science in 17th-century England. Feb. 27 Eugene Garver “Spinoza on the Infinite” Dr. Garver is Regents Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Saint John's University. Most recently, he is author of Aristotle's Politics: Living Well and Living Together (2012). Feb. 18 Matthew Stanley “The Pointsman or the Steam Whistle: Maxwell’s Demon, T. H. Huxley, and the Nature of Consciousness” Dr. Stanley is Associate Professor at the New York University Gallatin School of Individualized Study. His newest book is Huxley’s Church and Maxwell’s Demon: From Theistic Science to Naturalistic Science (2014). *(Wednesday, 4:15, RLM 4.102) Co-sponsored by the Physics Colloquium Feb. 16 Bruce Hunt “The Bottom Line: Cables, Commerce, and Electrical Physics in the Victorian British Empire” UT History Professor Hunt is author of The Maxwellians (1991), and Pursuing Power and Light: Technology and Physics from James Watt to Albert Einstein (2010). *(Monday, 12:00, GAR 4.100) Sponsored by the Institute for Historical Studies Feb. 13 Felipe Cruz “Parachute Colonization: Aviation and Frontier Settlement in Brazil” A PhD Candidate in History at UT Austin, Cruz was awarded a Kranzberg Dissertation Fellowship by the Society for the History of Technology. Feb. 6 Abena Osseo-Asare “Atomic Junction: Bringing a Nuclear Reactor to an African Suburb” UT History Professor Osseo-Asare is the author of Bitter Roots: The Search For Healing Plants in Africa (2014). Jan. 30 David Crews “Nature, Nurture and Epigenetics” Dr. Crews is Ashbel Smith Professor of Integrative Biology and Psychology and Director of the Institute of Behavioral Neuroendocrinology at UT Austin.
- 2014
Date Nov. 21, 2014 Open Meeting BYO Discussion Topics. Nov. 14, 2014 Katherine Dunlop “Kant and Poincare on the Structure of Space and Perception” Oct. 31, 2014 Helen Hattab “Aristotelianism in Service of Atomism? Gorlaeus on Knowledge of Universals” Oct. 24, 2014 Lenny Moss “On a Comprehensive Theory of 'Detachment' as the Basis of a New Naturalism” Oct. 17, 2014 Maria José “Knowledge and War during the Independence of Colombia” Oct. 8, 2014 Philippa Levine “Darwin, the ‘Savage’ and Human Nature” (Note: This is a Wednesday event.) Oct. 3, 2014 John Zammito “History, Philosophy, Science: Some Lessons for Philosophy of History” Sept. 26, 2014 George Smith “An Alternative Agenda for Philosophy of Science” Sept. 19, 2014 Linda Henderson “The Vibratory Cultures of Modern Art” Sept. 12, 2014 Megan Raby “The Tropics and the Idea of Biodiversity” Sept. 5, 2014 Open Meeting Join us to discuss your ideas & future HPS events.