Events

Department of History, Princeton University 

Title: “Philosophy Kings of Rocky Mountains: Marmots, Time, and Animal Behavior”

Abstract: This talk explores the history of behavioral research on marmots at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in the mountains of Colorado. Started in 1962, this is one of several long-term studies of animal behavior that started in the decades after the Second World War that have become central to behavioral ecology as a discipline. Why did researchers decide to return to the same site year after year, and how have those reasons changed for subsequent generations of ecologists? How were affective connections to place—from danger to freedom—important in cementing ecologists’ commitments to field sites like RMBL? Charting the history of this project allows me to navigate the relations of activity and torpor, sociality and solitude, and station and university over the last sixty years, so as to understand the role of remote research stations as crucial places for the production of knowledge about the natural world in which we live. 

About 

Lectures begin at 3:35pm in 125 Nicholson Hall on the East Bank of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities campus. As a reminder, masks are required indoors by University of Minnesota policy. 

The Program in History of Science, Technology and Medicine and the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science will host a joint lecture series during Spring 2022. At this time, all events will be in-person unless otherwise stated. Please contact hstm@umn.edu for more information. 

ASC on the Air

Rebecca Toov, Collections Archivist, University of Minnesota Archives

Join us in celebrating over 100 years of radio broadcasting at the University of Minnesota as we share recordings featuring the voices of staff and friends of the University Libraries.

Digital Library Services and Archives & Special Collections: 20+ years of working and growing side by side

Jennifer Claybourne, Digital Projects Specialist, Digital Library Services

Digital Library Services has been supporting early open access for Archives and Special collections through various projects and programs. Learn how we've grown and expanded in our own right, but still maintain a close connection with ASC through patron orders, strategic digitization and grant funded projects.

About 

First Fridays is a series of intellectually stimulating talks presented by the University of Minnesota Libraries’ Department of Archives and Special Collections (ASC) and is made possible by a generous gift from Governor Elmer L. and Mrs. Eleanor Andersen in honor of former University Librarian Dr. Edward B. Stanford.

History; Biomedical Ethics, University of Iowa

Title: A Global Perspective on the History of Disease and Medicine in the Greater Caribbean.

Abstract: This talk discusses how the history of disease and medicine, which is usually studied in very localized geographical contexts, benefits from also being evaluated from a broader, more global, perspective. The Caribbean provides a perfect example to see how connections among islands and mainland ports—between their inhabitants, their economies, their environments, among others—are manifested in the history of epidemics and of medical knowledge.  Studying the history of disease and medicine in this manner reveals the interconnections between the islands and the networks of medical knowledge to be multi-directional exchanges that at the same time transcend the boundaries of language and empires.

About 

Lectures begin at 3:35pm in 125 Nicholson Hall, on the East Bank of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities campus. As a reminder, masks are required indoors by University of Minnesota policy. 

The Program in History of Science, Technology and Medicine and the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science will host a joint lecture series in during Spring 2022.  At this time, all events will be in-person unless otherwise stated. Please contact hstm@umn.edu for more information. 

Visiting Assistant Professor and Lecturer, History of Science, Technology and Medicine

Title: Brothel of the Pacific: Syphilis and the Urban Regulation of Laikini Wahine in Honolulu, 1855-1875.

Abstract: By 1860, Hawai‘i's Indigenous population had declined by 75 per cent when compared to its estimated pre-contact level. Legislators and physicians attributed this crisis to the seasonal migration of Hawaiian women engaged in sex work. After contracting syphilis from sailors in Honolulu, these women returned to their Native villages where they unwittingly spread the disease. Drawing on legislation, health reports, and newspapers, this presentation will underscore the urban-rural nature of Hawai‘i's syphilis epidemic by analyzing the 1860 Act to Mitigate the Evils and Diseases Arising from Prostitution. The law compelled alleged prostitutes to enlist on a government registry, undergo medical inspections, and submit to treatment if infected. Arresting depopulation, adherents argued, hinged on the government's ability to police Indigenous women within a conspicuous urban environment. In designing and enacting the Act to Mitigate, legislators and physicians characterized Honolulu as a syphilitic breeding ground that catalyzed Indigenous depopulation by sheltering transient carriers of this highly gendered disease. 

About 

Lectures begin at 3:35pm in 125 Nicholson Hall on the East Bank of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities campus. As a reminder, masks are required indoors by University of Minnesota policy. 

The Program in History of Science, Technology and Medicine and the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science will host a joint lecture series during Spring 2022. At this time, all events will be in-person unless otherwise stated. Please contact hstm@umn.edu for more information. 

The CLRC/Kerlan Collection- From Portable Portfolios to Digital Dives: Let's Celebrate the Past 20 Years

Presented by Mary Schultz, Kerlan Board Member and Volunteer, The Kerlan Collection of Children’s Literature

With strong roots in our archives, see how The Kerlan has been nourished by authors, illustrators, curators, volunteers, and Friends of the Kerlan and hear how we have branched out to serve students, researchers, teachers and other institutions.

About 

First Fridays is a series of intellectually stimulating talks presented by the University of Minnesota Libraries’ Department of Archives and Special Collections (ASC) and is made possible by a generous gift from Governor Elmer L. and Mrs. Eleanor Andersen in honor of former University Librarian Dr. Edward B. Stanford.

Social Thought, University of Chicago

Title: The Science of Imprecision: Neoclassical Economics, the Problem of Induction, and the Limits of Calculation

Abstract: TBA

About 

Lectures begin at 3:35pm in 125 Nicholson Hall on the East Bank of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities campus. As a reminder, masks are required indoors by University of Minnesota policy. 

The Program in History of Science, Technology and Medicine and the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science will host a joint lecture series during Spring 2022. At this time, all events will be in-person unless otherwise stated. Please contact hstm@umn.edu for more information. 

“Electronic evolution: The brave new world of born digital archives at the UMN Libraries”

Lara Friedman-Shedlov, Digital Records Archivist, Archives and Special Collections.

The Archives and Special Collections have been receiving archival collections in electronic formats for years, but it is only in the last five years that we have begun to systematically tackle the challenges of preserving and making these materials accessible. As of 2022, we have a full-time Digital Records Archivist on staff. Learn about the obstacles and opportunities that digital records present from the point of view of archives staff.

“Due Credit: Celebrating people behind the scenes at the Bell Library”

Marguerite Ragnow, Curator, and Anne Good, Assistant Curator, James Ford Bell Library

From before its inception, numerous people have worked behind the scenes to facilitate acquisition, access, and promotion of the materials in the James Ford Bell Library.  Curators Marguerite Ragnow and Anne Good will share some of the stories of these unsung heroes and the significant contributions they made.

About 

First Fridays is a series of intellectually stimulating talks presented by the University of Minnesota Libraries’ Department of Archives and Special Collections (ASC) and is made possible by a generous gift from Governor Elmer L. and Mrs. Eleanor Andersen in honor of former University Librarian Dr. Edward B. Stanford.

East Asian Languages and Cultures, Washington University – St Louis

Title: The Artisanal Heart: Craft and Experimentalism in Early Modern Korea

Abstract: This talk recasts the history of early modern science from the perspective of artisans and practitioners in Chosŏn Korea (1392–1910). It argues that from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, craftspeople in the military factories of Seoul developed a hands-on, experimental approach to investigating the material world. Their experimentalism originated from the shopfloor—the artisanal practice of “prototyping.” But as it passed on from the army workshops to poetry associations and literati studios, it spread across society, prompting the rise of new practitioners who emphasized a bodily, experiential approach to knowledge. The talk reconstructs this Korean artisanal science and expands our understanding of experiment and empiricism in the early modern world.

About 

Lectures begin at 3:35pm in 125 Nicholson Hall on the East Bank of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities campus. As a reminder, masks are required indoors by University of Minnesota policy. 

The Program in History of Science, Technology and Medicine and the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science will host a joint lecture series during Spring 2022. At this time, all events will be in-person unless otherwise stated. Please contact hstm@umn.edu for more information. 

Category

HSTM

History of Forensic Medicine; Notre Dame, ret.

Title: States of bodies and the state's bodies: A citizenship narrative for a comparative history of forensic medicine (and forensic science). 

Abstract: Behind the current fascination with forensic science lies a long, large, varied and underexplored history of forensic medicine, often called legal medicine or medical jurisprudence. Mostly it has been overlooked by medical historians focused on health care and by legal historians focused on constitutional issues. Historians have encountered it mostly in terms of single techniques or issues in local settings; the absence of a long-term, comparative big picture of medico-legal institutions, professions, and practices of governance has hampered interpretation. As in Locating Forensic Cultures (co-edited with Ian Burney, 2019), I use “citizenship to problematize. A medical jurisprudence will always exist, the states of bodies being matters of state concern. I focus on two axes. One, diachronic, is the change from a rule-bound medical jurisprudence of 18^th century German cameralism, in which categories of persons (by age, sex, race, place, property, station, and nation) were central, to the program of evidence-based individuation outlined by Paul Kirk in the 1960s. The second is the tension between retrospective and prospective actions -- “forensics” and “public health” may now seem separate, but a comparative medical-legal history helps to highlight the complex contingencies that underlie their relationship.

About 

Lectures begin at 3:35pm in 125 Nicholson Hall on the East Bank of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities campus. As a reminder, masks are required indoors by University of Minnesota policy. 

The Program in History of Science, Technology and Medicine and the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science will host a joint lecture series during Spring 2022. At this time, all events will be in-person unless otherwise stated. Please contact hstm@umn.edu for more information. 

Science and Technology Studies, Cornell University

Title: Natural Monopoly: Colonial Science, Orders of Access, and the East India Company in London, 1757-1858

Abstract: This project investigates changing patterns of knowledge resource management at the British East India Company. It covers the years between the Company’s takeover of Bengal in 1757 and the abolition of the Company in 1858. At the beginning of the period, the Company generally depended upon individuals for the historical, linguistic, navigational, botanical, medical and other sciences upon which their operations depended. By the end of the period, the Company had taken over the direct management and production of many domains of colonial science. Along the way, the Company would become a key institution of science in London, establishing around 1800 a library, museum and two colleges in Britain. In this talk, I will first give an overview of the changing structure and geography of science under the Company. Out of this overview, the role that the East India Company played in shaping British science becomes clear, as does the debt that the organization of both modern states and modern sciences owe to the corporation as a form of governance. I will then consider the importance of this case for our understanding of the relationship between “state science” (or public science) and “corporate science” (or private science), and the fuzzy historical boundaries between these two orders of access.

About 

Lectures begin at 3:35pm in 125 Nicholson Hall on the East Bank of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities campus. As a reminder, masks are required indoors by University of Minnesota policy. 

The Program in History of Science, Technology and Medicine and the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science will host a joint lecture series during Spring 2022. At this time, all events will be in-person unless otherwise stated. Please contact hstm@umn.edu for more information.