Announcements
A collection of STS news items, in the order submitted, including grants and awards, new books and other publications, and people news.
Last updated 05/10/2013 by Jay Burlingham.
Forum for the History of the Human Sciences 2012 Award Winners & 2013 Award Competition
Deadline: June 30 2013
Updated: May 10 2013
The Forum for the History of the Human Sciences (FHHS), an interest group of the History of Science Society (HSS), is pleased to announce the winners of its 2012 awards, presented at the HSS meeting in San Diego on 17 November 2012.
Find further information, all prize citations, etc., at http://www.fhhs.org
-The 2012 FHHS Dissertation Prize went to Perrin Selcer (University of Texas) for “Patterns of Science: Developing Knowledge for a World Community at Unesco,” University of Pennsylvania, 2011
-The 2012 FHHS/JHBS John C. Burnham Early Career Award went to Chris Renwick (University of York) for “Evolution, Mind, and Society: L.T. Hobhouse’s Spencerian Philosophy and Social Science”
FHHS would also like to announce its award competitions for 2013:
-2013 FHHS/JHBS John C. Burnham Early Career Award
The Forum for History of Human Science invites submissions for the John C. Burnham Early Career Award for 2013.
This award is intended for scholars, including graduate students, who do not hold a tenured position and are not more than seven years past the Ph.D. Unpublished manuscripts dealing with any aspect of the history of the human sciences are welcome.
The winning article will be announced at the annual History of Science Society meeting, and will be submitted to the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences with FHHS endorsement, to undergo the regular review process. When the article is accepted for publication, the publisher of JHBS will announce the award and issue a US $500 honorarium. The manuscript cannot be submitted to any other journal and still qualify for this award.
Email manuscript and curriculum vitae (PDF format) by
June 30, 2013, to Nadine Weidman (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address))
-2013 FHHS Article Prize
The Forum for History of Human Science invites submissions for its biennial prize (a nonmonetary honor) for the best article published recently on some aspect of the history of the human sciences. The winner of the prize is announced at the annual History of Science Society meeting. Winners are publicized in the FHHS Newsletter and in newsletters and journals of several other organizations (HSS and Cheiron, for example).
Entries are encouraged from authors in any discipline, as long as the work is related to the history of the human sciences, broadly construed, and is in English. Eligible articles must have an imprint date from 2010 to 2012 inclusively. Preference will be given to authors who have not won the award previously.
Deadline: June 30, 2013. Email PDF version of the article to the FHHS (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
Call for Chapter Proposals, next edition of the Handbook of Science and Technology Studies
Updated: May 10 2013
The editors of the next edition of the Handbook of Science and Technology Studies invite proposals for chapters to be included in the new Handbook. This edition of the Handbook is expected to appear in 2016, some nine years after the last edition. Much has happened during that interval: the advancement of STS theories and methods, the development of new ideas and the evolution of long-important themes, the engagement of STS with other disciplines and with the public sphere. We aim to capture an enduring snapshot of the ongoing creative activity of STS in the new Handbook, representing the core theoretical, methodological, and substantive concerns of the field and situating the field in its intellectual and historical contexts.
The STS Handbook is one of the most important books that the field produces. For STS graduate students, the Handbook offers a substantive and significant introduction to the field as a domain of scholarship, to its core ideas, and to exciting new areas of research. For scholars in the field, the Handbook can provide reviews of the key concepts and approaches across a range of subfields. For scholars in other fields, and for professionals more broadly in society, the Handbook can present a broad, deep, and nuanced view of STS scholarship. Our vision in this volume of the Handbook is to address all of these audiences. Chapter proposals must therefore be written so as to engage new graduate students in the field as well as more experienced researchers and professionals.
We are especially interested in soliciting a broad array of contributions to the Handbook drawing on geographically diverse authors. STS and the challenges that it confronts are global enterprises, and we invite authors from all over the world to submit abstracts. We particularly want to encourage chapter proposals from STS scholars in parts of the world that have historically been underrepresented in prior STS Handbooks, including Asia, Latin America, and Africa—and proposals that offer global and/or comparative perspectives. Strong proposals are likely to include more than one author and, especially, to bring together authors and perspectives from across two or more subfields of STS to offer new, synergistic insights. We expect all chapters to be fully grounded in relevant STS theory and to use empirical evidence to illuminate key ideas.
We currently plan the Handbook to have five major sections, with 5-10 chapters in each:
Section I. Core Ideas in STS
What are the core ideas that motivate and underpin STS as a dynamic field of inquiry? In this first section of the Handbook, we focus on the core lines of thinking that have accompanied and structured the development of STS as a research field. These chapters should reflect the evolution of debates in these areas over time. We regard it as essential for students of STS issues to understand their own field’s history of thinking as one deeply intertwined with societal change. The chapters should show how ways in which people decide to live in the world also tie into ways of questioning and/or reinforcing technoscientific developments, reflect on the impact that scholarship in these areas has had on multiple levels, and explore why, today, these ways of thinking about the world remain at the core of STS thinking. Some chapters that we would like to see include: knowledge as a social phenomenon; socio-technological systems; the transformation of life; the construction of ideas and identities; gender and race in science and technology; expertise and publics; living and working in technoscience; institutional structures of science and technology; classification and standardization; co-production of science and politics.
Section II. The Contributions of STS to Enduring Intellectual Problems
What has STS contributed to addressing central questions in the humanities and social sciences? We believe that STS has much to say to its neighbor disciplines, and we aim for this section of the Handbook to help engage scholars more broadly in the humanities and social sciences. We anticipate these chapters will offer a valuable entry point for graduate students entering STS from other disciplines who are looking for ways of connecting STS scholarship to broader intellectual traditions. In this, we are cognizant of the fact that many STS researchers are still trained within other fields of humanistic and social science inquiry. We are looking for authors to explore, through an STS lens, enduring intellectual issues of significance in humanistic and social science scholarship. Our desire is to see authors provide broad and deep reviews that demonstrate the value of STS scholarship to answering critical questions that concern multiple scholarly fields. Some areas where we believe STS has made important contributions: democracy; identity and difference; power and inequality; the body; culture; place; innovation; design; capitalism.
Section III. Advances in STS Theory and Methods
What are the most exciting areas of emerging scholarship in STS today—and what might be the most exciting areas tomorrow? In this section, we are looking explicitly for chapters that describe cutting edge areas of STS theory and methods. We are especially looking for new areas of research that meet two criteria: first, they have achieved sufficient attention as to deserve a thorough review of scholarship and future prospects; and, second, they are broadly relevant to readers in STS and beyond. The chapters will contextualize the intellectual histories of the work under review, explain its core ideas in accessible terms, and offer suggestions for where future research can continue theoretical advances. Some ideas for potential chapters include: globalization, the rise of biology, socio-technical constitutions, imagination; time, temporality, and the future; food and health; social media and information; vulnerability and resilience; and emerging technologies.
Section IV. Key Challenges for STS as a Field and a Profession
What challenges does STS face as a field of scholarship struggling for resources and attention in today’s academic environments? In this section of the Handbook, we focus on key challenges, including both those that have emerged for the field of STS in recent years and those that have endured for decades. For the most part, these challenges are, at once, intellectual and institutional. They may result from tensions within STS or between STS and other fields of scholarship. They may result from the transformation of the university, as the context within which STS scholarship takes place. Or they may result from broader transformations in science, technology, policy, or society. Regardless of their source, we see it as important that students of and in the field understand the kinds of challenges the field confronts moving forward. The list below is admittedly partial, and we expect to fill it in through nominated contributions: disciplinarity and inter-/trans-disciplinarity; the transformation of the university and academic work; the search for normativity and policy impact; responsible and ethical science and engineering; engaging STS in the professions.
Section V. STS and 21st Century Grand Challenges
How can STS contribute to solving the most vexing challenges facing humanity at the outset of the 21st century? STS has had far less impact in many parts of the world in shaping humanity’s responses to these challenges than, arguably, the power of its ideas might suggest. At the same time, STS scholars and ideas have made important contributions to solving societal problems that should not be ignored. This section strives to review, most importantly, where STS has essential contributions to make in helping societies around the world address key social and policy problems. We also seek chapters that highlight where STS is already making significant contributions and where, with new developments in the field, it might be positioned to contribute in the future. Examples include, but are certainly not limited to: energy transformation; global environmental change; health and wellbeing; security and justice; poverty; food and agriculture; finance and markets; technological disasters; the human future/future human.
What to do?
Chapter proposals should include a 1000-1200 words abstract describing the proposed chapter. In addition to the abstract, proposals should also offer a paragraph explaining the importance of including the proposed chapter in the STS Handbook and for which thematic section it would be most appropriate. Proposals should also identify the proposed lead author and contributing authors and describe the relevant qualifications of the team in the chapter's field of coverage. Please include full contact information (including email addresses) and short bios for all authors. Please send proposals electronically as pdfs, to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). More information can be found at http://stshandbook.com.
Target Date: August 15, 2013
Association for Political and Legal Anthropology (APLA) Graduate Student Paper Prize Competition
Deadline: May 15 2013
Updated: May 10 2013
The APLA Board invites individuals who are students in a graduate degree-granting program (including M.A., Ph.D. and J.D.) to send stand-alone papers centering on the analysis of political and legal institutions and processes. Topics may include citizenship; colonialism and post-colonial public spheres; cosmopolitanism; cultural politics; disability; environment; globalization; governance; humanitarianism; medicine, science, and technology; multiculturalism; nationalism; NGOs and civil society; new media; immigration and refugees; resistance; religious institutions; sovereignty; war and conflict. We encourage submissions that expand the purview of political and legal anthropology and challenge us to think anthropologically in new ways about power, politics and law.
APLA awards a cash prize of $350.00, plus travel expenses of up to $650.00 if the prize winner attends the 2013 annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association (Chicago) to receive the prize in person. The prize winner will be announced in Anthropology News, and the winning paper will be published in the peer-reviewed journal of the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology, PoLAR: The Political and Legal Anthropology Review.
Authors must be enrolled in a graduate program through at least May 1, 2013. Papers should not exceed 8,000 words (including notes and references) and should follow the style guidelines of PoLAR, which are detailed in the American Anthropological Association Style Guide.
Please submit papers as PDF attachments.
Submissions and questions should be sent to Jennifer Hamilton at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
First issue of Valuation Studies, new peer-reviewed open access journal, has been published
http://valuationstudies.liu.se/
Updated: April 23 2013
The first issue of the peer reviewed open access journal Valuation Studies has been published! The issue is available online: http://valuationstudies.liu.se
Valuation Studies is committed to foster valuable conversations in the new transdisciplinary and emerging field committed to the study of valuation as a social practice. The journal encourages contributors to focus on the pragmatic aspects of valuation activities wherever they take place and to foster dialogue between different approaches working on this broad topic. Apart from traditional journal articles, the journal welcomes short opinion pieces or research notes, interviews, staged debates, or indeed longer than normal journal articles.
More information and the call for papers is available here: http://valuationstudies.liu.se/
Twitter: @Val_Studies
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ValuationStudies
New book series: Nature, Society, and Culture (Rutgers University Press)
Updated: April 17 2013
A sophisticated and wide-ranging sociological literature analyzing nature-society-culture interactions has blossomed in recent decades. This new series provides a platform for showcasing the best of that scholarship: carefully crafted empirical studies of socio-environmental change and the effects such change has on ecosystems, social institutions, historical processes and cultural practices.
The series aims for topical and theoretical breadth. Anchored in sociological analyses of the environment, the series will be home to studies that employ a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives to investigate the pressing socio-environmental questions of our time – from environmental inequality and risk, to the science and politics of climate change and serial disaster, to the environmental causes and consequences of urbanization and war-making, and beyond.
Series Editor: Scott Frickel, Washington State University
For general information and guidelines for submissions contact:
Peter Mickulas, Editor
Rutgers University Press
(848) 445-7752
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
2013 Sacknoff Prize for Space History
Deadline: June 20 2013
Updated: April 10 2013
The submission period for the 2013 Sacknoff Prize for Space Historyis now open. First awarded in 2011, the annual prize is designed to encourage students to perform original research and submit papers with history of spaceflight themes. The winner receives a $300 cash prize, a trophy, and the possible publication in the journal, “Quest: The History of Spaceflight”. It is open to undergraduate and graduate level students enrolled at an accredited college or university.
Submissions must be postmarked by 20 June 2013, with the winners announced in August. Manuscripts should not exceed 10,000 words, be written in English, and emphasize in-depth research, with adequate citations of the sources utilized. Originality of ideas is important. Diagrams, graphs, images, or photographs may be included. The prize committee will include the editor of “Quest: The History of Spaceflight” and members of the Society for the History of Technology / Aerospace Committee (SHOT/Albatross).
Although works must be historical in character, they can draw on disciplines other than history, eg. cultural studies, literature, communications, economics, engineering, science, etc. Comparative or international studies of the history of spaceflight are encouraged. Possible subjects include, but are not limited to, historical aspects of space companies and their leaders; the social effects of spaceflight; space technology development; the space environment; space systems design, engineering, and safety; and the regulation of the space business, financial, and economic aspects of the space industry.
For questions, please contact: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
New Book: Refining Expertise: How Responsible Engineers Subvert Environmental Justice Challenges
http://nyupress.org/books/book-details.aspx?bookid=8052#.UTNFcXzir1u
Updated: March 03 2013
Refining Expertise: How Responsible Engineers Subvert Environmental Justice Challenges (NYU Press, 2013)
Gwen Ottinger
Residents of a small Louisiana town were sure that the oil refinery next door was making them sick. As part of a campaign demanding relocation away from the refinery, they collected scientific data to prove it. Their campaign ended with a settlement agreement that addressed many of their grievances—but not concerns about their health. Yet, instead of continuing to collect data, residents began to let refinery scientists’ assertions that their operations did not harm them stand without challenge. What makes a community move so suddenly from actively challenging to apparently accepting experts’ authority?
Refining Expertise argues that the answer lies in the way that refinery scientists and engineers defined themselves as experts. Rather than claiming to be infallible, they began to portray themselves as responsible—committed to operating safely and to contributing to the well-being of the community. The volume shows that by grounding their claims to responsibility in influential ideas from the larger culture about what makes good citizens, nice communities, and moral companies, refinery scientists made it much harder for residents to challenge their expertise and thus re-established their authority over scientific questions related to the refinery’s health and environmental effects.
Gwen Ottinger here shows how industrial facilities’ current approaches to dealing with concerned communities—approaches which leave much room for negotiation while shielding industry’s environmental and health claims from critique—effectively undermine not only individual grassroots campaigns but also environmental justice activism and far-reaching efforts to democratize science. This work drives home the need for both activists and politically engaged scholars to reconfigure their own activities in response, in order to advance community health and robust scientific knowledge about it.
2013 ESST European Award for Aspiring Undergraduates in Science, Technology and Society (STS)
Deadline: June 30 2013
Updated: February 11 2013
The European Masters Programme in Society, Science and Technology (ESST) is sponsoring an award of 1,000 € for the best undergraduate paper or essay related to Science, Technology and Society (STS). Undergraduates of all fields studying at any European university are eligible to apply.
Papers or essays must be between 2,000 and 3,000 words on any topic that falls under the Science, Technology, Society agenda (for example, from environmental, ICT or innovation policy to the relationship between science, technology and gender) and must be written in English.
The members of the 2013 award committee are:
Ericka Johnson, Linkoping University, Sweden
Faidra Papanelopoulou, University of Athens, Greece
Juan Carlos Salazar, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain
Past Winners:
2012, Alina Marktanner, Maastricht University
2011, Miklós Horváth, Eötvös Loránd University
2010, André Feldhof, Maastricht University
Deadline: 30 June, 2013
For more information: http://www.esst.eu
How to apply:
Applications should consist of a cover sheet (available at http://www.esst.eu), completed and scanned, and a double-spaced pdf copy of the student paper or essay. Applicants may not submit more than one piece of work. Applications should be emailed to Aristotle Tympas, the 2013 ESST Award coordinator, at: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
E‐mail your application by the 30th of June of 2013 and expect a confirmation of its reception within a week.
New Book from Paul M. Leonardi et al.: Materiality and Organizing (2012, Oxford University Press)
http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Communication/?view=usa&sf=toc&ci=9780199664054
Updated: January 30 2013
Materiality and Organizing: Social Interaction in a Technological World (2012, Oxford University Press)
Edited by Paul M. Leonardi, Bonnie A. Nardi, and Jannis Kallinikos
Available from Amazon and Oxford University Press
From the publisher: Ask a person on the street whether new technologies bring about important social change and you are likely to hear a resounding "yes." But the answer is less definitive amongst academics who study technology and social practice. Scholarly writing has been heavily influenced by the ideology of technological determinism - the belief that some types of technologically driven social changes are inevitable and cannot be stopped. Rather than argue for or against notions of determinism, the authors in this book ask how the materiality (the arrangement of physical, digital, or rhetorical materials into particular forms that endure across differences in place and time) of technologies, ranging from computer-simulation tools and social media, to ranking devices and rumours, is actually implicated in the process of formal and informal organizing. The book builds a new theoretical framework to consider the important socio-technical changes confronting people's everyday experiences in and outside of work. Leading scholars in the field contribute original chapters examining the complex interactions between technology and the social, between artefact and humans. The discussion spans multiple disciplines, including management, information systems, informatics, communication, sociology, and the history of technology, and opens up a new area of research regarding the relationship between materiality and organizing.
New Book from Paul M. Leonardi: Car Crashes Without Cars (2012, MIT Press)
http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/car-crashes-without-cars-0
Updated: January 30 2013
Car Crashes Without Cars: Lessons About Simulation Technology and Organizational Change from Automotive Design (2012, MIT press)
By Paul M. Leonardi
Available from Amazon and MIT Press
Every workday we wrestle with cumbersome and unintuitive technologies. Our response is usually "That's just the way it is." Even technology designers and workplace managers believe that certain technological changes are inevitable and that they will bring specific, unavoidable organizational changes. In this book, Paul Leonardi offers a new conceptual framework for understanding why technologies and organizations change as they do and why people think those changes had to occur as they did. He argues that technologies and the organizations in which they are developed and used are not separate entities; rather, they are made up of the same building blocks: social agency and material agency. Over time, social agency and material agency become imbricated--gradually interlocked--in ways that produce some changes we call "technological" and others we call "organizational." Drawing on a detailed field study of engineers at a U.S. auto company, Leonardi shows that as the engineers developed and used a new computer-based simulation technology for automotive design, they chose to change how their work was organized, which then brought new changes to the technology. Each imbrication of the social and the material obscured the actors' previous choices, making the resulting technological and organizational structures appear as if they were inevitable. Leonardi suggests that treating organizing as a process of sociomaterial imbrication allows us to recognize and act on the flexibility of information technologies and to create more effective work organizations.
New Book Series: Critical Environments: Nature, Science, and Politics
Updated: January 30 2013
We're pleased to announce a new book series -- Critical Environments: Nature, Science, and Politics, edited by Julie Guthman, Jake Kosek, and Rebecca Lave, and published by the University of Nebraska Press.
Critical Environments focuses on research at the intersection of nature, science, and politics in fields including geography, anthropology, environmental studies, and American studies. Books in the series will explore the deep interconnections between biophysical and social systems through the critical lens of political economy, feminist theory, subaltern studies, science and technology studies, or other approaches explicitly concerned with the politics of knowledge production. The series will publish books that are both empirically rich and conceptually rigorous, with an emphasis on historical and ethnographic analysis, addressing themes such as: environmental health, human/animal relations, political economy and material natures, race and nature, and STS and earth systems science. Series books might make links between chemical warfare and agrarian politics, cold war military science and the science of global warming, the natural purity of organics and racial histories of eugenics, or ecological models of evolutionary selection and hetero-normative ideas of gender and sex.
Proposals for series books should include an overview of the project, annotated table of contents, and writing sample. Prospective authors should, in their cover letter, provide some sense of how the proposed book fits with the series mission.
For more information contact:
Derek Krissoff, University of Nebraska Press (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address))
Julie Guthman, University of California, Santa Cruz (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address))
Jake Kosek, University of California, Berkeley (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address))
Rebecca Lave, Indiana University (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address))
New Book from Jonathan Kahn: Race in a Bottle (Columbia University Press, 2012)
http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-16298-2/race-in-a-bottle
Updated: January 13 2013
Race in a Bottle: The Story of BiDil and Racialized Medicine in a Post-Genomic Age
by Jonathan Kahn
At a ceremony announcing the completion of the first draft of the human genome in 2000, President Bill Clinton declared, “I believe one of the great truths to emerge from this triumphant expedition inside the human genome is that in genetic terms, all human beings, regardless of race, are more than 99.9 percent the same.” Yet despite this declaration of unity, biomedical research has focused increasingly on mapping that .1 percent of difference, particularly as it relates to race.
This trend is exemplified by the drug BiDil. Approved by the FDA in 2005 as the first drug with a race-specific indication on its label, BiDil was originally touted as a pathbreaking therapy to treat heart failure in black patients and help underserved populations. Upon closer examination, however, Jonathan Kahn reveals a far more complex story. At the most basic level, BiDil became racial through legal maneuvering and commercial pressure as much as through medical understandings of how the drug worked.
Using BiDil as a central case study, Kahn broadly examines the legal and commercial imperatives driving the expanding role of race in biomedicine, even as scientific advances in genomics could render the issue irrelevant. He surveys the distinct politics informing the use of race in medicine and the very real health disparities caused by racism and social injustice that are now being cast as a mere function of genetic difference. Calling for a more reasoned approach to using race in biomedical research and practice, Kahn asks readers to recognize that, just as genetics is a complex field requiring sensitivity and expertise, so too is race, particularly in the field of biomedicine.
"Jonathan Kahn has produced a major and unique contribution, giving readers a 'big picture' understanding of this vital issue by integrating empirically grounded analysis of real controversies with a detailed conceptual roadmap. This is a substantial piece of scholarship, and will be of interest to anyone concerned with the escalating, even geometrically expanding use of the concept of race in science and medicine." — Troy Duster, University of California, Berkeley
"Jonathan Kahn is the undisputed Hercules Poirot of biomedicine. His unraveling of the nonsense, non-science and complicated illogic that allowed the vasodilator Bidil to be approved by the FDA exclusively for 'black' patients is as compelling a read as any good mystery. This riveting book details what happens to scientific method when profit motive drives the marketing of a drug to the extent that its curative properties are touted as race-specific—even when they’re not. Genetic variation in humans has no correlation to the shifting historical meanings of race, yet pharmaceutical companies continue to force the square peg of social category into the round hole of scientific fact. Race in a Bottle is a brilliant deconstruction of the kinds of thought processes that make for bad policy, bad medicine and ultimately endanger our health as a species." — Patricia Williams, Columbia Law School
"Jonathan Kahn brilliantly exposes the stunning truth behind new race-based medicines: they are driven by market incentives, not scientific evidence. Based on meticulous research and astute analysis, Kahn constructs a gripping, devastating portrait of profit motivating the use of race in genetic research and pharmaceuticals. Race in a Bottle is absolutely essential for understanding why the myth of biological race has reemerged in genomic science and biotechnology and how it is distorting research, damaging pubic health, and undermining justice in our supposedly post-racial society." — Dorothy Roberts, University of Pennsylvania, author of Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-first Century
The Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry: The Partington Prize 2014
Deadline: December 31 2013
http://www.ambix.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7&Itemid=7
Updated: January 11 2013
The Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry has established the Partington Prize in memory of Professor James Riddick Partington, the Society’s first Chairman. It is awarded every three years for an original and unpublished essay on any aspect of the history of alchemy or chemistry. The prize consists of five hundred pounds (£500). The competition is open to anyone with a scholarly interest in the history of alchemy or chemistry who, by the closing date of 31 December 2013, has not reached 35 years of age, or if older has been awarded a doctoral thesis in the history of science within the previous three years. Scholars from any country may enter the competition, but entries must be submitted in English and must not have been previously submitted to another journal. The prize-winning essay will be published in the Society’s journal, Ambix.
Entries should be submitted electronically as e-mail attachments. We prefer files to be Microsoft Word documents (Word 93–2013 or higher), although these may be accompanied by a PDF version if desired. Essays must be fully documented using the conventions used in the current issue of Ambix. Essays must not exceed 10,000 words in length, including references and footnotes. All entries must be submitted with a word count.
All entries should be sent to The Hon Secretary, Dr Anna Marie Roos, at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), with the words “Partington Prize” in the subject heading. Two documents should be submitted: the first, a separate title page giving the author’s name, institution, postal address, e-mail address and date of birth (and, if relevant, the date of the award of the Ph.D.). The second should be the essay. The author’s name and contact details must not appear on the pages of the essay as the identity of the author will not be made available to the judges. Essays (no more than one from each competitor) must be received no later than midnight GMT on 31 December 2013.
The decision of the judges appointed by the Council will be final. The Society reserves the right to divide the prize between two or more entries of equal merit, or not to award a prize should no essay be deemed of suitable standard. The name of the winner will be announced by 30 April 2014.
Lakatos Award in Philosophy of Science, London School of Economics
http://www2.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/LakatosAward/home.aspx
Updated: January 11 2013
The Lakatos Award is given annually for an outstanding contribution to the philosophy of science, widely interpreted, in the form of a book published in English during the previous six years. The Award is in memory of Imre Lakatos and has been endowed by the Latsis Foundation. It is administered by the following committee: the Director of the London School of Economics (Chairman), Professor John Worrall (Convenor), and Professors Hans Albert, Nancy Cartwright, Adolf Grünbaum, Philip Kitcher, Alan Musgrave, and Michael Redhead. The Committee makes the Award on the advice of an independent and anonymous panel of selectors. The value of the Award is £10,000.
To take up an Award a successful candidate must visit the LSE and deliver a public lecture (naturally all relevant expenses are covered by the LSE). The Award, which may be shared if there are deemed to be two candidates of equal merit, has so far been won by Bas Van Fraassen and Hartry Field (1986), Michael Friedman and Philip Kitcher (1987), Michael Redhead (1988), John Earman (1989), Elliott Sober (1991), Peter Achinstein and Alexander Rosenberg (1993), Michael Dummett (1994), Lawrence Sklar (1995), Abner Shimony (1996), Jeffrey Bub and Deborah Mayo (1998), Brian Skyrms (1999), Judea Pearl (2001), Penelope Maddy (2002), Patrick Suppes (2003), Kim Sterelny (2004), James Woodward (2005), Harvey Brown and Hasok Chang (2006), Richard Healey (2008), Samir Okasha (2009), Peter Godfrey-Smith (2010), and Wolfgang Spohn (2012). No awards were made in 2007 and 2011.
For details of the nomination process, see http://www2.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/LakatosAward/lakatosawarddetails.aspx
New Book by Miguel García-Sancho: Biology, Computing and the History of Molecular Sequencing
http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=407773
Updated: December 14 2012
Biology, Computing and the History of Molecular Sequencing: From Proteins to DNA, 1945-2000 (2012, Palgrave Macmillan)
By Miguel García-Sancho
When we talk about DNA sequencing, it is the relatively recent Human Genome Project and the so-called 'genomics revolution' which immediately come to mind. However, sequencing has a longer and more complex history which penetrates key issues of post-World War II biomedicine, such as the interplay of protein chemistry and molecular biology, and the growing interaction between biology and computing. In this, the first academic history of sequencing, Miguel García-Sancho follows the development of this form of molecular analysis to offer a new insight into the development of biomedicine during the second half of the twentieth century. He explores the emergence of the first protein and DNA techniques, the development of sequencing software and databases, and the commercialisation of the first automatic sequencers by the company Applied Biosystems. This vital historical perspective will allow both professionals and scholars to think rather differently about the emerging fields of bioinformatics and biotechnology, as well as the impact of biomedicine on modern society more broadly.
4S Seeks Editors for 4th Handbook of Science and Technology Studies
Updated: November 17 2010
The Society for Social Studies of Science Publications Committee invites proposals for the fourth edition of The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies. The Handbook consists of state-of-the-art review articles, along with occasionally more specific articles, that cover the current range of research in science and technology studies. The 3rd edition was published in 2008. At this point we are looking for a team of four editors who will enlist authors to write the full range of articles.
In your proposal, provide names and affiliations of editors along with a 1 paragraph biography outlining each editor’s areas of expertise. Also include proposed section and chapter titles with brief outlines that scope out substantive coverage in each chapter. Please submit electronic copies of your proposal by 15 October 2011 to Stephen Zehr, Chair of the 4S Publications Committee, {encode=szehr@usi.edu title=szehr@usi.edu}. Proposals will be reviewed by members of the Publications Committee. Once a team of editors has been selected, the Publications Committee will make suggestions regarding topical omissions, overlap, editors, potential authors and so forth to facilitate the project.
New Program in Science, Technology, and International Development at U of Edinburgh
Updated: January 08 2010
The Science, Technology and Innovation Studies Subject Group at the University of Edinburgh is launching a new postgraduate programme in Science, Technology and International Development from September 2010. The MSc programme (coursework plus dissertation) can be completed full-time over one year or part-time over two or three years. Alternatively a shorter programme (coursework without dissertation) can be followed for a Diploma or Certificate. The MSc Science, Technology and International Development is designed to equip students with an advanced interdisciplinary understanding of the historical, sociological, political and policy aspects of science and technology as they relate to international development. The programme provides a conceptual and policy-oriented approach the relationships between science, technology and international development. The programme prepares students for specialised practical work in international development or further academic study. Further information: see http://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/stid or contact the Programme Director Lawrence Dritsas .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
Arthur L. Norberg Travel Fund
Deadline: January 15 2010
Updated: January 02 2010
The Arthur L. Norberg Travel Fund provides short-term grants-in-aid to help scholars with travel expenses to use archival collections at the Charles Babbage Institute. Each year we plan to award two $750 grants.
Applicants should send a 2-page CV as well as a 500-word project description that describes the overall research project, identifies the importance of specific CBI collections, and discusses the projected outcome (journal article, book chapter, museum exhibit, etc.). Applicants are strongly encouraged to examine the extensive on-line finding guides to CBI’s 200-plus archival collections at http://www.cbi.umn.edu/collections/archmss.html Appli.cants should estimate how many days they plan to use CBI collections during their visit (travel should generally be in the calendar year of the award). To be eligible, scholars will reside outside the Twin Cities metropolitan region.
Notification of awards will be made within four weeks, and travel can commence directly thereafter. Questions pertaining to collection content and access can be directed to R. Arvid Nelsen, CBI Archivist, at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Please direct questions about the Arthur Norberg Travel Fund to Jeffrey Yost, CBI Associate Director, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). For additional information, see http://www.cbi.umn.edu.
Materials must be submitted by email to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or postmarked no later than 15 January 2010.
Further Information: http://www.cbi.umn.edu/collections/archmss.html