Programs
Graduate Working Groups
Modern Sciences Working Group
Coordinators: Lisa Crystal and Myrna Perez
Faculty Sponsors: Peter Galison, Janet Browne, and Jimena Canales
The Modern Sciences Working Group is a regular meeting of History of Science Department graduate students, faculty, and visiting scholars. The group provides a forum for participants to discuss their work and share ideas. Topics generally focus on the history of the physical and life sciences post-1800. Through regular meetings, the group generates lively and productive conversations about relevant topics, gives graduate students the opportunity to obtain useful feedback on their projects, and keep students in contact with scholars in the history of modern science community. It is organized by graduate students in the History of Science department in consultation with the faculty.
The Modern Sciences Working group is the product of a merger of the History of the Physical Sciences Group and the History of the Life Sciences / Environmental Science Group. The merger took placed when we realized that many of the graduate student attendees of the respective groups were writing on topics that cut across the traditional boundary between physics and biology. Further, insofar as historians of biology and physics continue to work on somewhat distinct sets of historical actors, we all encounter similar thematic and methodological opportunities and challenges. For these and other reasons, it has become increasingly obvious that historians of biology, physics, and technology have much to say to and learn from one another.
In 2009-2010 the Modern Sciences Working Group will meet twice a month. We are planning a varied, lively program of meetings that aim to foster a lively community of interacting, engaged graduate students and scholars. We hope to do this through graduate student presentations, discussions of current trends in the history of modern science, and special guest speakers with whom the graduate student community wishes to engage. Our primary aim is to encourage graduate students to present on ongoing research, both from dissertations in progress and special projects. However, we plan to supplement these presentations with graduate student led discussions of recent literature in the field, classic books and monographs, and other important materials, as well as with guest speakers.
Refreshments will be served at all of our meetings.
