Conecta. Desde 1995

The  Canadian Science and Technology Historical Association (CSTHA-AHSTC ) invites proposals for its biennial meeting, to be held at York University, 7–9 November 2025.  We encourage scholarship that engages broadly with the topics of nations and nationalism as they relate to scientific and technological change. These are classic questions for Canadian historians of science and technology, but also timely ones in the current era of profound, rapid, and unpredictable global change.  Proposed topics include   but are not limited to the following: Where and when have Indigenous knowledges or practices intersected or interacted with colonial scientific or technological ones?  What roles have political or geographic borders played in the development of science and technology in Canada, nationally, internationally, or provincially?  How have different sciences and technologies interacted with the way Canadians have understood and aligned themselves with their nat...

The significance of law enforcement for public health has recently been spotlit by the policing of Covid-19 lockdowns, and the impact of police violence on minoritised populations. Public health and policing have been entwined since the early 1800s, evolving together as characteristics of the modern nation state. Sex work and sexual health, environmental harms and nuisances, unsafe workplaces, substance misuse, mental health crises, interpersonal violence, road collisions, and unintended injuries have long interested public health experts and been central to policing. Moreover, police personnel are themselves at risk of occupational harms, presenting a particular public health challenge.   With sparse exceptions, histories of modern policing and public health rarely meet. This one-day workshop will bring together researchers from both fields, situating the police officer as a key figure in histories of public health and medicine, and public health as integral to the evolution ...

Accounts of journeys and expeditions have long been seen as articulations of a hunger for knowledge about other places, climates and peoples. In the early modern period, the establishment of scientific associations and learned societies, the accelerated production of print artefacts and the drive for colonial expansion saw non-fictional travel writing became one of the most widely read genres in the Western world. Only relatively recently has attention turned to the ways in which travel writing problematises the creation, organisation and dissemination of knowledge. In line with studies into how factual information is acquired, processed and diffused (Winchester, 2023), but also the role played by ignorance, uncertainty and non-knowledge as productive driving forces (Burke, 2023; Gross and McGoey, 2023), this conference explores the challenges to forging knowledge in the period between 1600 and 1820.    Possible topics may include, but are not limited to: the tensions between ...

This call for papers aims to prepare a collective publication focused on the actors and practices of assistance to migrant populations in Europe and the Middle East between 1945 and 1970. The project adopts an innovative perspective, emphasizing on-the-ground dynamics and the interactions among the various actors involved in migration-related aid, between cooperation, competition and entanglement. It also seeks to shed light on lesser-known figures—third-party actors in the field of displacement assistance—whose roles, though significant, have often remained marginalized in historical scholarship. An editorial workshop, designed to coordinate and refine the submitted texts, will be held at the German Historical Institute in Paris on December 3-5, 2025 (exact day to be confirmed). Selected contributors will have reviewed the draft papers of the other participants ahead of time, so that the workshop can be fully dedicated to collectively aligning and revising the contributions. All parti...

DYNAMIS Volumen 45 (1) — 2025 SUMARIO DOSSIER: Disease Landscapes Beyond the “Spanish Flu” Pandemic (1889-1960s) Guest editors: Francisco Javier Martínez y Matheus Duarte da Silva Disease landscapes beyond the “Spanish flu” pandemic: temporal patterns, re-centered narratives (1889-1970s) Francisco Javier Martínez y Matheus Duarte da Silva By the rivers of Babylon: 1889-cholera outbreak in Iraq, production of medical knowledge and construction of scientific periphery Neta Talmud Inventing aerosols: Auguste Trillat (1861-1944) and the medical meteorology of influenza Etienne Aucouturier Devil’s choice: Ricardo Jorge, the ‘Spanish flu’ and the pneumonization of plague Francisco Javier Martínez Towards a complex ecology: an essay on plague history in Brazil (1890s-1970s) Matheus Duarte da Silva ARTÍCULOS Salud y desequilibrios en la centuria de las Luces: hospitales y médicos en Cádiz a t...

Today, as we navigate increasingly polarized discussions about science’s role in society, the scientific community must address the complicated history of scientific triumphalism. The long twentieth century undeniably saw science transform societies and deliver significant improvements in human welfare. This success story has fostered a pervasive belief that every question and problem can be solved through the continued expansion of scientific knowledge.  Recent developments have cast doubt on the validity of this narrative. Looming environmental crises have prompted critical questions about whether science has truly led to unambiguous progress. While ongoing breakthroughs in artificial intelligence exemplify scientific achievement, they also raise serious concerns about broader societal implications. At the same time, the authority of scientific discourse is being challenged by alternative frameworks. From one perspective, science denialism and pseudoscience have eroded public tru...

Donostia/San Sebastian (Spain), 23-24 October 2025   In his 1999 Rothschild lecture, Ian Hacking (1936-2023) tried to clarify one of his historico-philosophical programs,  historical ontology , and its relation to the then already established  historical epistemology  or what he preferred to call  historical meta-epistemology . This project was indeed deeply related to his overall contributions to the history and philosophy of science: (i) the “new experimentalism” approach to the sciences (Hacking 1983; Ackermann 1989) or, more generally, the practice turn (Pickering 1992; Soler et. al. 2014); (ii) the “styles project”, which evolved from scientific “styles of scientific reasoning” (Hacking 1982, 1994, 2009) to “styles of thinking & doing” as “ways of finding out” in the sciences (Hacking 2012, 2015); or (iii) the approach to biosocial sciences and mental illnesses through notions such as “making up people” and the “looping effect” (Hacking 1990, 1995, 1998...

A conference taking place on Tuesday 18 November 2025 at the Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, SW1 5YAG, London. 9.30 am – 5.00 pm   Deadline for submissions: 30 June 2025   March 2025 began the 80th anniversary year of the election of the first two female Fellows of the Royal Society – Kathleen Lonsdale and Marjory Stephenson. This anniversary year is being marked by a series of events looking at the past, present, and future of women in the scientific community. These will include a one-day history of science conference on 18 November 2025 and a two-day contemporary event in early 2026.   For the historical section of this activity in November, we are interested in new research that reflects on contributions, exclusions and collaborations between women collectors, researchers and illustrators from the seventeenth century to the twentieth century. We envisage a half-day on earlier periods, followed by a half-day on nineteenth- and twentieth-century scientists tha...

Programació de la  primera edició de  Ficcions de Ciència , un festival que, a través del cinema, explora com la ciència travessa la nostra manera de viure, imaginar i entendre el món i que se celebrarà del  26 de maig al 6 de juny  en diversos espais de Barcelona. La programació inclou  19 curtmetratges  repartits en dues seccions oficials:  Ciència i societat  i  Ciència i salut mental. El festival també compta amb  sessions especials fora de concurs  com les projeccions de   Buscant el meu propi nom , de Pablo García Pérez de Lara. Un film que denuncia la institucionalització de dones durant el franquisme (28/05 a La Bonne); i  Cyborg Generation , de David Morillo, que acompanya el viatge de Kai Landre cap al transhumanisme (31/05 als Cinemes Texas). Totes dues aniran acompanyades de col·loquis posteriors. Completen el programa diverses  taules rodones i debats , com  Cinema i ciència. Mirades, narratives i fr...

The 1950s and 1960s saw the birth of the new discipline “Informatik” in the German- speaking scientific landscape. It emerged as a direct challenge to and in contrast to “Computer Science”, which was evolving simultaneously in the American scientific system. The historical roots of this new scientific discipline can be found in Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Logic, and to a lesser extent also in other disciplines such as Philosophy, Brain Research and Psychology. As is often the case in the early stages of a new discipline, there was a clash of values, which resulted in disputes between representatives of different scientific milieus. These controversies have since been largely forgotten in the sciences as well as in the collective memory of our society due to the great success that “Informatik” (and Computer Science) enjoyed as a new “leading science” in the 20th century. The main objective of the conference is to facilitate critical reflection on these pasts in all their com...