Abstracts Archive

The British natural philosopher John Herschel (1792–1871) remains a paradoxical figure in the historiography of modern science: simultaneously recognized as pivotal in the development and professionalization of modern science while curiously under-examined. Herschel’s career spanned fields from ...

The importance of the history of science to science education has been recognized since the founding of HSS, formalized in the establishment of the Committee on Education in 1981 to facilitate “the role of history of science in education at all levels.” While most members of HSS are involved in ...

Eighty years ago, in 1939, a radical collective of French mathematicians published the first installment of a monumental effort to rewrite the foundations of mathematics under the pseudonym Nicolas Bourbaki. The Elements de Mathematique, collectively planned, written, and revised, quickly became an ...

The role of fiction in both understanding and interpreting the world has recently become an increasingly important topic for many of the human sciences. The next volume of Osiris focuses on the relationship between a particular genre of story-telling – science fiction (SF), told through a variety ...

This roundtable puts the spotlight on ‘generation’—the capacious conceptual framework within which issues of procreation and descent were discussed across large swathes of the globe before modernity. Eventually replaced by the apparatus of ‘reproduction’, which has grabbed most of the atte...

This roundtable asks how politics and methodology operate in interrelations between Science Studies and LGBTQ+ Studies, as well as in conversations with other Area Studies. The panel’s participants engage Women’s, Jewish, German, and Chinese Studies, but we will, together with the audience, be c...

The passing of the Society Editorship from Utrecht to Mississippi State University presents an opportunity for those overseeing HSS publications to discuss their work with members, and to highlight the range of ways that members of every career stage and specialization can participate in the publica...