New Special Section Call for Proposals for @hsnatsci.bsky.social ! My co-editor Dominik Huenniger and I are seeking short essays (800-1000 words) on the theme of "Revisiting Classics and Major Influences." More below.
This review of four recent climate change histories by Dagomar Degroot "Four Paths Through Climate History" is a great read. online.ucpress.edu/hsns/article...
The group review is one of our favorite forms of historical scholarship. Is there anything historians love more than reading a group of books and talking in depth about what they reveal about the state of the field? Maybe asking questions that aren't really questions at conferences! (more a comment)
Adler traces human understandings of the submarine world through visualizations of squid-- from turn-of-the-century photographs of dead squid to recent high definition videos taken from deep sea submersibles. Vol. 56 Issue 2 is out now!
🚨New Issue Alert🚨Up first! Tony Adler's paper analyzing the way that humans have viewed giant squid. online.ucpress.edu/hsns/article...
Thanks @aip.bsky.social for highlighting @hsnatsci.bsky.social's article on roads as scientific infrastructure. www.aip.org/history/arti...
Read about the project and think through the field's myopic focus on books here: online.ucpress.edu/hsns/article...
The project produced a website, a curated exhibit, a 24-page briefing book, and an academic book; these outputs reached a varied audience. Fyfe asks if removing pressure to produce a single book can free projects to take new forms and reach a greater variety of audiences.
Do historians focus too much on producing academic books? In her essay for our most recent volume @aileenfyfe.bsky.social her team's research project "Publishing the Philosophical Transactions: the social, cultural and economic history of a learned journal, 1665–2015"
Can historians benefit from creative works for historical research? In this @hsnatsci.bsky.social short piece, I share how I worked w/ different types of making to research and write my recent book on 17th-c. florilegia. Thank you @dominikhhh.bsky.social & @mbaldwin.bsky.social for the invitation!
The article explores famous psychology James Cattell's college experimentation with psychoactive drugs. Green argues Cattell's experiments were not merely college-aged experiments with drugs dressed up as science, but teach us about psychology and experimentation of the late 19th century.
Have a long weekend and need a good read? How about Jacob Green's new article "Psychoactive Drugs and Moral Qualms: James McKeen Cattell’s Self Experiments with Cannabis, Chocolate, and Caffeine"? online.ucpress.edu/hsns/issue/5...
🚨New Volume Alert🚨For the new year, why not read a special section on Historical Practice? Edited by @dominikhhh.bsky.social and @melissagiragrant.com this section contains eight essays on the practice of researching and writing the history of science. online.ucpress.edu/hsns/issue/5...
Recent history resonates with current public health conversations. Check out 2021's Essay section on Pandemic Subjects. Dora Vargha's short article "The Vaccine" says it all: "Vaccines are technologies of trust...and trust can fray at any point." online.ucpress.edu/hsns/article...
Weart's work shows how funding in the cold war increased government support for science deemed important for security and international collaboration, but the Regan era politicized wide swaths of research- especially climate science- drying up support and reducing funds. History.Exhausting.Amirite?
Weart's article details the link between funding and politicization of climate change, tracking his funding sources from its small start during the International Geophysical Year to funding by NOAA, the Department of Energy, NSF, and the USGS between 1977 and 1980. But that bubble also burst.
Today is a great day to read Spencer Weart's paper on funding at Mauna Loa Observatory: doi.org/10.1525/hsps... From the #vault, it begins "Funding is obviously a necessity for scientific research, but the details of the funding of a given program have rarely been studied in detail."
Find all these articles here, plus Shin and DeVorkin's article on the half century long battle to develop a national planetarium for the US. Taken together, this Volume speaks heavily to the politics of science in the 20th century. online.ucpress.edu/hsns/issue/5...
Using these papers, the authors show how Wilson positioned his science in the political climate of the Cold War, casting his critics as enemies of both science and the State. Other essays examine the impact of Sociobiology on ecological thought and its legacy today.
Each essay examines the debates and legacy of E.O. Wilson's publication. This collection of essays is particularly rich, as many of the scholars used Wilson's recently opened papers at the Library of Congress.
It's very easy to think that scientists are politically united. But the newest issue of HSNS is a close look at the politics of science. Vol 55 Issue 1 contains 11 short essays looking at the legacy of E.O. Wilson's Sociobiology at 50.
Thought you'd find this useful @nzjh.bsky.social @conteurohistory.bsky.social @euroreviewhistory.bsky.social @isisjournal.bsky.social @asia-pacific-echr.bsky.social @enghistrev.bsky.social @hsnatsci.bsky.social @jmormonhist.bsky.social @jofvictculture.bsky.social @jbritishstudies.bsky.social
All of these essays are worth the read. I do believe that reading them together will help you think clearly about AI in the academy and your role in shaping that role. online.ucpress.edu/hsns/issue/5...
And Jennifer Robertson suggests new forms of fieldwork that will help scholars better understand and process the rapid changes in robotics and automated life in the 21st century. Joseph Martin, the editor of the journal, finishes with an essay that reflects on the role of editors in this new world.
Damien P. Williams suggests that issues with AI "scholarship" intertwines with academic publish or perish culture- pushing scholars to accept the slight of hand that interprets publishing with knowledge production. Instead, he suggests we interrogate what knowledge means outside of this system.
" In the face of such a profound threat from AI, researchers should take a leaf out of the Luddites’ playbook by intervening and organizing wherever possible to prevent automation imposed by commercial publishers and analytics companies."
Check out Alex Csiszar, Nicole Howard, and Samuel A. Moore's essays. They historicize scientific publication, quick production of written materials, and the development of automation. Moore uses Hobsbawm's historical account of Luddites to call for an intervention.
Melinda Baldwin and Brigid Vance have put together 6 short essays examining AI in academic publishing through a historical lens. And it is calming me down!
At the beginning of the semester, if questions of AI in academia are stressing you out, could I suggest reading through our most recent set of essays? online.ucpress.edu/hsns/issue/5...