H-Sci-Med-Tech: New posted content
EASST 2026 CFA: "Invasive species through STS" (Panel CB190) [Announcement]
Poland
Dear all,
Following on from other calls, we would also like to share our panel "Meeting invasions halfway: Reimagining futures with invasive species through STS” (CB190) for the EASST 2026 conference in Krakow, 8-11 September 2026. We are excited to invite submissions from anyone in STS and environmental humanities who is interested in the issues of invasive species, conservation, and/or multispecies violence.
The panel consists of two parts: 1. Paper presentations, and 2. An interdisciplinary ecology-humanities workshop.
This CFP is for the first part. The workshop is open to all. Presenters are invited to participate in the workshop as one of the discussant pairs.
Short Abstract:
Bringing together ecologists and STS scholars, this combined panel+workshop examines invasion science as an eco-social practice, exploring cultural meanings, ethical tensions, and possibilities for coexistence with so-called invasive species, exploring cross-disciplinary opportunities in practice.
Long Abstract:
“Invasive species” provoke questions that reach far beyond invasion science. Core ideas like species origins, temporal thresholds, and distinctions between harm and change reveal how human activities and understandings of the past shape our experience of the present ecological reality. The idea of and our attitude to biological invasions reflect things that are not only ecological, but also fundamentally cultural, social, and political. In a rapidly changing world marked by environmental destruction and precarity—conditions to which invasive species are often said to contribute—how do we live with species cast as enemies?
Responses from the humanities and natural sciences have exposed both practical and ideological divides, as evidenced by the ongoing and emotive debates in journals and other intellectual spaces. At the same time, invasion science continues to evolve, proposing new theories and developing new management technologies such as toxins, traps, and genetic tools that promise greater control, monitoring, and eradication.This panel seeks to engage these cross-disciplinary tensions through an STS lens—borrowing, with Karen Barad, the commitment to “meet” biological invasions “halfway.” It combines two sessions: (1) paper presentations and (2) an ecologist–humanist pair workshop. The first session invites contributions that explore:
1. How invasion sciences operate as situated social practices, shaping and performing the very phenomena they study;
2. How biological invasions can be reframed as more-than-biological questions; and
3. How alternative ways of knowing and living with invasive species might shape future coexistence.
The second session, a collaborative workshop, invites exchanges between scholars from different fields who converge on the topic of invasive species. Working in groups led by pairs of ecologists–STS scholars specialised in the field, participants will engage with case studies, discuss and experiment with interdisciplinary approaches to studying and living with invasive species—exploring what research beyond the natural sciences can offer, and laying groundwork for future collaborations.
Submit your abstract via this link: https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/easst2026/p/18232
Submission Deadline: 28th February 2028
Convenors:
Katie Kung (Rachel Carson Center, LMU Munich) - katie...@rcc.lmu.de
Luiza Teixeira-Costa (Meertens Instituut) - luiza.tei...@meertens.knaw.nl
Discussants (ecologists):
Mason Heberling (Carnegie Museum of Natural History)
Leonardo Teixeira (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)
Abby Keller (University of California, Berkeley)
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Please feel free to ask any questions, and share the CFP widely with anyone who might find this interesting! Look forward to seeing your submissions!
Katie Kung (Rachel Carson Center, LMU Munich) - katie...@rcc.lmu.de
Luiza Teixeira-Costa (Meertens Instituut) - luiza.tei...@meertens.knaw.nl
ICOHTEC PhD School 2026/ Escuela doctoral ICOHTEC 2026 [Announcement]
Méx.
Mexico
Exciting Opportunity for PhD Students & Post-docs!
The International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC) is proud to announce the ICOHTEC PhD School 2026, held in a hybrid format at the UNAM in Mexico City on 24-25 November 2026.
This year's theme, "Engaging the History of Technology: Bridging Disciplines and Perspectives for Global Challenges", focuses on the crucial role of our field in addressing contemporary issues like climate change, AI, and social justice.
Why apply?
-Free registration for all selected participants.
-Hybrid format: Attend in person in Mexico City or join us online.
-International networking: Present your research and engage with senior scholars.
-Financial support: Limited travel and accommodation grants are available.
Deadline for applications: 20 March 2026.
Find all details, the full announcement, and application forms here:
https://www.icohtec.org/icohtec-phd-school-2026-escuela-doctoral-icohtec-2026/
Nelson Arellano-Escudero <pres...@icohtec.org>
Poser Stefan (ITZ) <stefan...@kit.edu>
NYU Space Talks: History, Politics, Astroculture | Spring 2026 program (season XI) [Announcement]
NY
United States
Contemporary astropreneurs, Italy's participation in Spacelab, the satellite gaze, and fin-de-siècle poetry and painting: the NYU Space Talks: History, Politics, Astroculture lecture series enters its eleventh season. The spring 2026 program commences on 17 February 2026.
NYU Space Talks are convened by Alexander C.T. Geppert at NYU's Center for European and Mediterranean Studies and NYU Shanghai with the Department of History in New York City. Once a month, established and upcoming scholars present the latest research on the history and politics of outer space, planetarity, extra-terrestrial life and astroculture, both in Europe and around the globe.
All NYU Space Talks are held on Zoom. They are live conversations in a colloquium-like setting; recordings will not be made available. Everybody is welcome but advance registration is required. For further details and to register, please consult www.space-talks.com.
1. How to Think Like a Space Billionaire
Valerie A. Olson (University of California, Irvine)
Tuesday, 17 February 2026
10–11:30 EST/14–15:30 GMT/15–16:30 CET/23:00–00:30 CST
Several of the world’s wealthiest people are aggressively pursuing off-world enterprises. This paper argues that this is not about an obsession with outer space. Instead, outer space serves as an open deregulated space for grand-scale systems thinking and building. To think like a space billionaire, then, is to turn everything into systems: bodies, machines, minds, planetary objects. The talk introduces three key, but not generally understood, elements of systems thought: the system/environment dyad, controlling separations over making connections, and how a built system’s underlying purpose can be hidden. Unless non-engineers – from politicians to populaces – understand these and other basic systems engineering principles, societies will not be able to respond effectively to the emerging threats posed by projects such as generative AI and quantum computing.
2. Italy’s Participation in Spacelab: A Case of Space Diplomacy?
Piero Messina (Università degli Studi di Padova)
Tuesday, 10 March 2026
10–11:30 EDT/14–15:30 GMT/15–16:30 CET/22:00–23:30 CST
In the early 1970s, Italy decided to become the second principal contributor – after West Germany – to Europe’s Spacelab within the ESRO framework. That a country with only a decade of experience since the launch of its first satellite, San Marco 1 in 1964, would commit to such an ambitious undertaking is anything but self-evident. This talk reconstructs the decision-making process behind that move along three lines of inquiry: First, who were the key actors pushing Italy onto this new industrial and programmatic terrain? Second, what objectives and expectations informed Italy’s shifting priorities during the post-Apollo period? And third, can this choice be read as a case of ‘space diplomacy,’ in which foreign-policy considerations were at least as important as technological and economic ones?
3. Eyes in the Sky: Inversion and Imagination from Earth to Satellite and Back
Lilian Kroth (Université de Fribourg)
Tuesday, 14 April 2026
10–11:30 EDT/15–16:30 BST/16–17:30 CEST/22:00–23:30 CST
Contemporary debates about the epistemic impact of the satellite gaze often emphasise the distant 'photographic witness,' captured in metaphors like 'eyes' or 'mirrors' in the sky. Tracing the philosophical trajectory of satellite imagery reveals enduring efforts to inverse the satellite’s perspective. This talk argues that such inverted vision depends fundamentally on forms of inverted imagination. Building on work in the history and philosophy of science foregrounding the epistemic and imaginative impact of remote sensing, it investigates key philosophical cases in the eighteenth century, in particular Immanuel Kant’s writing on analogies between Earth and Moon. From inverting the imagined perspective from the Moon to concepts such as satellite planetarity, this talk discusses how inverted imagination is key to the epistemic impact of the satellite gaze.
4. Prelude to the Space Age? Tracing the Cosmic in European Art around 1900
Christina Ntanovasili (Aarhus Universitet)
Tuesday, 12 May 2026
10–11:30 EDT/15–16:30 BST/16–17:30 CEST/22:00–23:30 CST
This presentation re-examines the historiography of Western modernity and its attendant world concepts of the globe, Gaia, and the planet by tracing a cosmic (re)turn within a European cultural context: the revival of the cosmos as a unifying world rooted in ancient myth and cosmology, yet reimagined in modern art, popular science and spirituality. Based on French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s ideas of cosmic forces and the cosmic artisan (A Thousand Plateaus, 1980), I examine how the cosmos reemerges across knowledge domains and analyze, more specifically, themes of stars and cosmogony in the development of visual poetry (Stéphane Mallarmé) and abstract painting (Hilma af Klint). By exploring lesser-known starry worlds in art at the turn of the twentieth century, this cultural history renegotiates the origins of modern astroculture, cosmist worldviews and the Space Age.
Alexander C.T. Geppert
New York University/NYU Shanghai
Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg – Institute for Advanced Study (HWK)
Reminder: CFA: 'Problems of Growth', Ischia Summer School on the History of the Life Sciences, 28 June – 5 July 2026, Italy
Problems of Growth
Nineteenth Ischia Summer School on the History of the Life Sciences
Biblioteca Antoniana, Ischia, Italy, 28 June – 5 July 2026
Applications are invited for this week-long summer school, which provides advanced training in history of the life sciences through lectures, seminars and discussions in a historically rich and naturally beautiful setting. The theme for 2026 is 'Problems of Growth’. The deadline is Friday 27 February 2026.
Organizers: Christiane Groeben (Naples, local organizer), Nick Hopwood (Cambridge), Erika L. Milam (Princeton), Staffan Müller-Wille (Cambridge) and the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn
Confirmed faculty: Daryn Lehoux (Queen’s, Canada), Dániel Margócsy (Cambridge), He Bian (Princeton), Patrick Anthony (Uppsala), Alison Bashford (UNSW), Hannah Landecker (UCLA), Edna Suárez-Díaz (UNAM), Sabina Leonelli (TU München)
For funding we are most grateful to Cambridge HPS, Cambridge Intesa Sanpaolo Fund, George Loudon, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Dohrn Foundation, Science History Institute, Centro Etnografico delle Isole Campane, Center on Science and Technology at Princeton University and the Italian Society for the History of Science.
About the school
The Ischia Summer School on the History of the Life Sciences provides advanced training in a lively international field that offers a long-term perspective on some of the most significant ideas, practices and institutions in the world today. The school, which has a tradition of association with the Naples Zoological Station, was revived in 2005 after a break of two decades and has run every other year since then other than during the coronavirus pandemic. We can accommodate up to 26 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. The event provides a structured learning experience plus extensive opportunities for participation and interaction. English is the working language and we encourage exchange of ideas across disciplinary boundaries, national cultures and historical periods. Spending the week on an island, staying in the same hotel and sharing breaks and meals maximizes opportunities for exchange. These are enhanced through social events, including a welcome reception and a day trip to Naples, the morning spent learning about the history and current research of the Station, the afternoon free for sightseeing. There will also be a free afternoon to explore Ischia itself.
Introduction to the theme
Programme
The school starts with registration and a reception on the afternoon of Sunday 28 June, and ends after dinner the following Saturday night. Departure is on Sunday 5 July. Lectures last for up to 30 minutes in one-hour slots, leaving at least 30 minutes for discussion. Seminars focus on pre-circulated texts. Groups of students will prepare each one with the seminar leader.
Cost
The fee for students is €400 each, which includes hotel accommodation and all meals for the week. Students need to pay for their own travel to Ischia. The directors will consider requests to waive the fee for accepted students unable to raise the money themselves, when supported by a detailed financial statement and a letter from their department head.
Applications
Applications should be sent by email to <admini...@ischiasummerschool.org> and should include, please:
Call for applications: Hans Rausing Scholarships 2026/27 to study history of science and technology [Announcement]
United Kingdom
The Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at King's College London invites applications for Hans Rausing Scholarships to begin in autumn 2026.The scholarships are available in two schemes, 1+3 award or 3-year award, to Overseas, EU and UK applicants to study the history of science and/or technology at Masters and PhD-level. Applications must be sent by the 17th of April, 2026 at 23:59 (UK time) to be considered.
Applicants should have an outstanding academic track record and outstanding research potential in the history of science and/or technology. Candidates are expected to have, or in some cases to develop, masters-level expertise in the history of science and/or technology.
Applicants are advised to contact a prospective supervisor to discuss research interests and proposal before submitting their applications. Click here to see staff at KCL working in the history of science and technology and related fields.
Applicants for a 1+3 award should apply to one of the MA programmes via the King's College London electronic application system for entry in September 2026. Click here for further guidance on MA History programmes and entry requirements. Please note the first round of applications to pursue MA at the Department of History closes 9 March 2026. Applications may be considered after this deadline depending on number of vacancies available.
Applicants for a 3-year award should apply for the History Research MPhil/PhD programme to begin in October 2026. Students must already have a Master’s in History (or a related humanities or social science field) with either a strong history of science and technology taught component or history of science and technology research experience, or be studying a degree in the History of science and technology. Please note applications to begin in October 2026 the PhD in Historical Research close 1 June 2026. Start in January 2027 might be considered under exceptional circumstances.
There is no separate form to apply for the Hans Rausing Scholarship. To be considered, applicants must submit their application to one of the Master of Arts or History Research PhD via King's College London electronic application system. Please indicate to your prospective supervisor that you wish to be considered for the Hans Rausing Scholarship.
Applicants must submit:
- a sample of written work;
- a 1-2 page personal statement of academic interests and reasons for undertaking doctoral research;
- a research proposal (1,000-1,500 words) plus bibliography outlining the historical questions being addressed and their significance, relevant historiography, and sources.
Hans Rausing awards will be announced by mid-May 2026.
For informal enquiries, please get in touch with Francisca Valenzuela, francisca.valen...@kcl.ac.uk
The History of Agrochemicals and International Development: Knowledge, Politics, and Business, 1940s to the Present [Announcement]
Switzerland
Workshop: The History of Agrochemicals and International Development: Knowledge, Politics, and Business, 1940s to the Present
Date and place of the workshop: 6 November 2026, European University Institute, Florence, Italy
In the decades following World War Two, the use of chemicals in agriculture (natural and synthetic pesticides, fertilizers, fungicides, herbicides, disinfectants, etc.) dramatically increased in many parts of the world. In the 1950s and 1960s, these substances became central to visions of agricultural modernization, international development, and rural economic progress. Their widespread application also reshaped ecosystems and raised concerns about environmental and public health effects.
The goal of this workshop is to explore how agrochemicals have influenced the relationship between scientific knowledge, international development agendas and approaches, and national political priorities in different regions of the world. Furthermore, it aims to investigate the role of business companies and other non-governmental actors in shaping strategies for and against the use of agrochemicals. We invite contributions that analyze how agrochemicals have interacted with human and natural environments in specific localities. We are equally interested in how these interactions have been debated, legitimized, or contested within scientific communities, development organizations, and national and international politics.
Workshop Themes
We welcome contributions from the fields of history and the social sciences working with historical approaches on topics including, but not limited to:
1. Knowledge about agrochemicals
- Production and circulation of scientific knowledge on pesticides, fertilizers, and other agrochemicals
- Expert networks and agricultural research institutions
- The role of universities, laboratories, and industry in shaping understandings of agrochemical risks and benefits
2. Agrochemicals and international development
- Agrochemicals in development programs, in both the Global South and Global North
- Cold War geopolitics, economic development, and science
- International organizations and associations promoting or regulating the use of agrochemicals
3. Environmental and health consequences of postwar agricultural development
- Ecological transformations linked to chemical-intensive agriculture and forestry
- Public health debates, toxicology, and environmental activism
- Long-term assessments of chemical exposure in rural and forest environments
We welcome contributions covering topics from across the globe, particularly those that investigate issues related to gender, race, and class from social history, environmental history, multispecies history, and/or interdisciplinary approaches.
This event aims to bring together scholars at various career stages who are investigating the history of agriculture, environmental governance, international development, and rural development. The outcome of the conference will be a peer-reviewed edited volume. Contributors will be asked to pre-circulate papers based on original empirical research.
This event is part of the research project “Chemical Crossroads: Agrarian Transitions, Pesticide Controversies, and International Governance, 1940–1970,” which is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (www.chemicalcrossroads.com). The project will be able to cover parts of travel expenses and accommodation costs for participants (two nights of accommodation and travel in economy class). Participants are expected to arrive on Thursday, November 5, and stay until Saturday, November 7. The workshop will take place on Friday, November 6, and will end with dinner.
Timeline
Deadline for proposal submission: 16 March 2026
Interested participants are invited to submit a proposal consisting of an abstract of approximately 500 words and a short CV (max. one page). Please send submissions to both Elife Biçer-Deveci, elife...@graduateinstitute.ch, and Viktor Blum, vikto...@eui.eu.
Notification of acceptance: 20 April 2026
Deadline for pre-circulated papers: 18 October 2026
Accepted participants are expected to submit a full paper of approximately 5,000 words in advance of the conference.
Workshop organizers:
Elife Biçer-Deveci, Geneva Graduate Institute
Amalia Ribi Forclaz, Geneva Graduate Institute
Corinna Unger, European University Institute
Elife Biçer-Deveci, Geneva Graduate Institute, Switzerland

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