BSHS

Postgraduate Conference
2015
Programme
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The British Society for the History of Science is a company limited by guarantee:
registration number 562208 and charity number 258854.
BSHS Executive Secretary
PO Box 3401, Norwich NR7 7JF
(+44) 01603516236
Email: office@bshs.org.uk
Webpage: www.bshs.org.uk
2014, British Society for the History of Science

BSHS POSTGRADUATE CONFERENCE

UCL Department of Science and Technology Studies
7 8 9 JANUARY 2015

The Department of Science and Technology Studies at University College London

welcomes you to the BSHS Postgraduate Conference 2015! This event is an annual
conference for postgraduate scholarsin the history, philosophy and sociology of science,
technology and medicine interested in meeting and sharing research with other
postgraduatescholars. This is a great opportunity to build professional and social networks
within a supportive and constructive environment. We had an outstanding response for
paper submissions and postgraduate attendance, and we are looking forward to an
extraordinary conference this year. Thank you for your contribution!
Sincerely,
BSHS Postgraduate Conference 2015 Committee
Elizabeth Jones
Raquel Velho
Erman Sozudogru

Blue:
Grant Museum of Zoology
21 University Street
London WC1E 6DE

Grey:
UCL Roberts Building
Torrington Place
London WC1E 7JE

Yellow:
Holiday Inn Bloomsbury
Coram Street
London WC1N 1HT

CONFERENCE INFORMATION
Webpage: http://www.bshs.org.uk/conferences/postgraduate-conference/2015postgraduate-conference-ucl
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BSHS.PG.15
Twitter: @BSHS_PG_15
#BSHSPG15
CONFERENCE CONTACTS
For information and queries: bshs.pg.15@gmail.com
For emergencies: (+44) 02076791328
CONFERENCE LOCATION
University College London
Roberts Building (Malet Place Entrance)
Torrington Place, London WC1E 7JE
(+44) 02076792000
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/
University College London
Department of Science and Technology Studies
22 Gordon Square, London WC1E 6BT
(+44) 02076791328
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/sts
CONFERENCE ACCOMMODATION
Holiday Inn Bloomsbury
Coram Street, London WC1N 1HT
(+44) 08719429222
http://www.hilondonbloomsburyhotel.co.uk/
TRANSPORTATION INFORMATION
London offers taxi, bus, underground and overground transportation. Please note
that all conference events including the Wellcome Wine Reception and Conference
Bright Club Event are walking distance from conference venue.
https://www.tfl.gov.uk/
ARRIVAL INFORMATION
The conference registration desk is in Roberts Foyer. Please collect your name
badge and conference packet.
Tea and coffee and lunch will be provided in Roberts Foyer on 7 January. Tea
and coffee and lunch will be provided in Roberts 422 on 8 and 9 January.
All conference rooms will be marked, but if you need assistance then please ask
the conference registration desk.
If you need to temporarily store your luggage, please ask the conference
registration desk.
If you have applied to BSHS for a Butler-Eyles Travel Grant, please keep your
receipts.

PRESENTATION INFORMATION
All conference rooms have PowerPoint available. Please upload your presentation
on an USB drive and arrive to the appropriate room 10 minutes prior to the start of
the session. Please save your presentation as a PDF file to avoid incompatibility
issues. Talks should be a maximum of 18 minutes for presentation and followed by
a maximum of 5 minutes for questions. The session chair will record the time.
EVENT INFORMATION
Welcome Wine Reception
Wednesday 7 January
17:30-19:30
Grant Museum of Zoology
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums/zoology
21 University Street
London WC1E 6DE
Conference Bright Club Event
Thursday 8 January
19:30-22:30
Star of Kings Pub
http://www.starofkings.co.uk/
126 York Way
London N1 0AX

WEDNESDAY 7 JANUARY 2015

10:30-12:00
12:00-12:30
12:30-13:00
13:00-14:30

REGISTRATION, TEA AND COFFEE

Roberts Foyer G02
WELCOME KEYNOTE BY DR BILL MACLEHOSE
Ambrose Fleming G06
LUNCH BREAK
Roberts Foyer G02
SESSION 1, 2 & 3
Ambrose Fleming G06, Roberts 106 & David Davies G08

SESSION 1
Investigative Histories
Room: Ambrose Fleming G06
Chair: Erman Sozudogru

SESSION 2
Biotechnology
Room: Roberts 106
Chair: Paul Sims

SESSION 3
Alternative Histories
Room: David Davies G08
Chair: Natalie Lawrence

Meritxell Ramirez-i-Olle
An intellectual history of trust and
scepticism in science

Carolyn Cobbold
Controlling chemical dyes in food
in the nineteenth century experimental assemblages

Alexander Iosad
Translating Western natural
knowledge in 18th-century
Russia: texts, attitudes, disciplines

Jennifer Adlem
Mad dogs and English flour: The
work of Edward Mellanby on
canine hysteria and public health.

Yoshimi Takuwa
Since when did the Japanese see
indigo in rainbows?: A fusion of
Newton's theory and folklore

Michael Kattirtzi
A History of Social Research in
DEFRA: 2001-present

Alex Mankoo
Teargas We havent got the
foggiest: Deconstructing the
Ambiguities of Creeping
Legitimisation

Hattie Lloyd
Mr. Davy's lectures - read all
about it!

Joe Simpson
The Francis Crick Institute and
the Political Economy of Hope

Joshua Hutton
Funding biodefence: Gaps in the
fence?

Tom Kelsay
I am not sure that Professor
Waddington really got what he
hoped for.: A history of the
Science Studies Unit from its
inception to the Edinburgh
School

CONTINUED

Helen-Frances Pilkington
Science, heal thyself: Charles
Dickens's call for scientific reform
in the 1830

WEDNESDAY 7 JANUARY 2015

14:40-15:50

SESSION 4 & 5
Ambrose Fleming G06 & David Davies G08

SESSION 4
Sociobiology & Mind
Room: Ambrose Fleming G06
Chair: Helen-Frances Pilkington

SESSION 5
Technopolitics & War
Room: David Davies G08
Chair: Arik Clausner

Valentine Hoffbeck
From "unproductive" to "social
burden": The use and misuse of
mental diagnosis to classify the
mentally challenged

Paul Coleman
Full of hot air: The role of the
Northcliffe Press in the
development of aviation
technology in Britain 1900-1914.

Eilis Kempley
In Awe of Insanity: The Mescaline
Experiments of Julian Trevelyan

Aaro Sahari
Powering through the Cold War
pack ice

Pedro Ricardo Fonseca

Avante Sociobiologia? The
sociobiology debate in Portugal
(1975-1982).

Saara Matala
Technopolitics of Cold War
shipbuilding - Finnish-Soviet
Nuclear icebreaker project
1961-1989

16:00-17:00
17:30-19:30

OPTIONAL EXCURSION TO WELLCOME COLLECTION

Meeting point: Roberts Foyer G02
WELCOME WINE RECEPTION
Grant Museum of Zoology
END OF CONFERENCE DAY 1

THURSDAY 8 JANUARY 2015

9:30-11:00
SESSION 6
Biopolitics & Innovation
Room: Roberts 309
Chair: Raquel Velho
Agnes Arnold-Forster
The Function of Incurability:
Breast Cancer in the Image and
Identity of the Medical Elite in
Britain, 1789-c.1835
Carlos Barradas
Unintended Consequences: From
Clinicians to Patients and Back
Again
Christiaan de Koning
Beyond Cure and Controversy Exploring the deployment of
Genetically Modified Insects
(GMIs) in Panama and Spain
Taemin Woo
From Human Genome Project to
Synthetic Biology : The
Governance of Big Biology in
South Korea

11:00-11:30

SESSION 6, 7 & 8
Roberts 309, Roberts 421 & Roberts 508
SESSION 7
State Sponsorship vs. Private
Reward: The role of the
twentieth-century General Post
Office in Warfare and Welfare.
Room: Roberts 421
Chair: Oliver Marsh
Alice Haigh
State-sponsored Secrets: GPO
engineering research and WW1
Coreen McGuire
Now Deaf Ears Can Hear Again!
Advertising Hearing Loss: Post
Office promotion of public
amplified telephony and private
hearing aids.
Sean McNally
The Socialist Black-Box: the role
of the GPO in State-sponsored
Hearing Aids
Jacob Ward
Research Transplanted and
Privatised: Post Office/British
Telecom R&D in the digital and
Information Era

SESSION 8
Histories & Medicine
Room: Roberts 508
Chair: Alexander Iosad
Ianto Thorvald Jocks
Pharmacological Parallels
between 1st Century Rome and
19th Century Dorpat The
Reception of Scribonius Largus'
Compositiones Medicamentorum
in German Scholarship between
1880 and 1930
Manikarnika Dutta
Degenerate Space and Drinking
Habits: Health of European
Sailors in Colonial Calcutta
Mujeeb Khan
Negotiating Medicine: The Ishinp
and Locality
Farrah Lawrence
Native American Medical
Knowledge and Practice:
Comments on an outdated
historiography and new
approaches

TEA AND COFFEE BREAK WITH BSHS OUTREACH

Roberts 422

CONTINUED

10

THURSDAY 8 JANUARY 2015

11:30-13:00

SESSION 9, 10 & 11
Roberts 309, Roberts 421 & Roberts 508

SESSION 9
Science & Empire
Room: Roberts 309
Chair: Dolores Iorizzo

SESSION 10
Science & Broadcasting
Room: Roberts 421
Chair: Jacob Ward

SESSION 11
Science & Body
Room: Roberts 508
Chair: Agnes Arnold-Forster

Jessica Price
Witchcraft and the East India
Company, 1668-1736

Adrian James Kirwan

The telegraph nationalisation
debate and its impact on the
United Kingdoms nationalised
telegraphs, c. 1860-1870

Sadie Harrison
Mind of the Marquise: Madame de
Pompadour and the Subversion of
Enlightened Anatomy

Edward John Gillin

Mechanics and Mathematics: the
politics of building time at
Parliament, 1845-1855.
Erika Jones
Microscope Images from the
Challenger Expedition
(1872-1876): Constructing the
Oceans for Science and Empire
Arik Clausner
The Minor Horrors of War:
Insects, the British Empire, and
the First World War

13:00-13:30
13:30-14:00
14:00-14:30

Michael Guida
Sonic therapy: birdsong on the
radio during the Second World
War
Jared Keller
Science in the Broadcast Booth:
Science Popularisers, the BBC,
and the Public During the PostWorld War II Period
Rupert Cole
Quite extraordinarily
irresponsible?: BBC2s
Controversy series, 1971-1975.

Alexandra Ion
From the natural body to the
anthropological type. The making
of historical bodies in the
beginnings of the Romanian
physical anthropology
Eileen Leary
Bodies Politic: Unwrapping the
Treatment of Mummies in
Colonized Egypt
Kathryn Ticehurst
Marginal Men? Anthropology,
assimilation and colonial
constructions of partial
Aboriginality in settled Australia,
1940-1965

LUNCH BREAK WITH BSHS OUTREACH

Roberts 422
LUNCH SEMINAR BY DR REBEKAH HIGGITT
Roberts 421
TEA AND COFFEE BREAK
Roberts 422

CONTINUED

11

THURSDAY 8 JANUARY 2015

14:30-16:00

SESSION 12, 13 & 14

Roberts 309, Roberts 421 & Roberts 508

SESSION 12
Science & Public Discourses
Room: Roberts 309
Chair: Meritxell Ramirez-i-Olle

SESSION 13
Philosophy of Science
Room: Roberts 421
Chair: Toby Friend

SESSION 14
Science & Case Studies
Room: Roberts 508
Chair: Coreen McQuire

Erin Beeston
A space to congregate, educate
and exhibit: sites of knowledge
production and consumption at
the Camp Field, Manchester

Hugh MacKenzie
Intention as primary cause in
Plato

Andrew Ball
Anatomy of an abattoir: Medicine,
the meat trade and making space
for slaughter at Woodside
Lairages, Port of Liverpool,
1879-1913

Jia-Ou Song
Lost in Communication: StaffVisitor Relations Set Against
Physical Sciences in Chinese
Museums

Valeria Motta
Emotions: structures in interaction
Jim Grozier
Early Measurements of Electric
Charge

Kanta Dihal
The Limits of Affective
Engagement in Science Books for
Children

16:15-17:00
17:00-19:30
19:30-22:30

Marcin Krasnodebski
Can science feed on the
economic crisis? The case of
resin chemistry in France in the
interwar period.
Yewande Okuleye
Medical Cannabis or Cannabinoid
Prescription Medicine?
Constructing respectability as a
business strategy

CONFERENCE KEYNOTE BY PROF HASOK CHANG

Roberts 106
BREAK FOR CONFERENCE ATTENDANTS
CONFERENCE BRIGHT CLUB EVENT
Star of Kings Pub

END OF CONFERENCE DAY 2

12

FRIDAY 9 JANUARY 2015

10:30-12:00
SESSION 15
Medieval & Early Modern
Science
Room: Roberts 309
Chair: Hattie Lloyd
Alessandra Petrocchi
Early Medieval Indian Arithmetical
Practices
Natalie Lawrence
Between objects and emblems:
early modern creature histories
Katerina Georgoulia
Painting Physiology in Early
Modern Period: The Construction
of a Healthy Self-Image

SESSION 15, 16 & 17

Roberts 309, Roberts 421 & Roberts 508
SESSION 16
Enlightenment Science
Room: Roberts 421
Chair: Carolyn Cobbold
Rafael Dias da Silva Campos
Enlightenment medicine in the
Portuguese America (Brazil): the
case of rebel physicians
James Cullis
Climate, Providence and Agency
in the Work of Henry Home, Lord
Kames
Hongjin Liu
What can a HPS learn from War
Diary

Dolores Iorizzo
Bacon's History of Life and Death
and the Origins of Modern
Scientific Observation

12:00-12:30

SESSION 17
Contemporary Science &
Technology
Room: Roberts 508
Chair: Hsiang-Fu Huang
Paul Sims
Bread versus beauty: contested
modernity and the British nuclear
power programme, 1955-1963
Thomas Turnbull
From William Stanley Jevons to
Brookes versus Grubb: energy
conservation and the market for
energy in the United Kingdom
Hannah Grenham
Challenged by Change: the
Computerisation of the Political
Process in the United States
Camilla Mrk Rstvik
Gendering CERN

TEA AND COFFEE BREAK

Roberts 422

CONTINUED

13

FRIDAY 9 JANUARY 2015

12:30-14:00
SESSION 18
Science & Applications
Room: Roberts 309
Chair: Kanta Dihal
Catherine France
Franois Blondel, absolutism and
the art of launching bombs
Maria Montava Gadea
A Double-Acting Steam Engine in
Barcelona (1804-1806). The
Contribution of Francesc
Santpon

SESSION 18, 19 & 20

Roberts 309, Roberts 421 & Roberts 508
SESSION 19
Omnischambles? How to
create, implement and avoid
policy.
Room: Roberts 421
Chair: Mujeeb Khan
Andrew Black
To vaccinate or not to vaccinate?
That is the question: Britains
troubled history with measles and
its vaccines.
Stuart Butler
Barbados is Cheaper than
Norfolk: Policy-making without
consent in the Black Arrow
Programme 1964-1971

Ale Materna
The Rothschild Family and the
Science During Industrialisation in
the Central Europe (1830-1918)
Hannah Elizabeth
Railways, Steelworks,
Shipbuilding and Coal Mining in
Is this perhaps too controversial
Moravia and Austrian Silesia
even for us? The production and
dissemination of AIDS education
packs for children by the Family
Planning Association in the late
80s & early 90s

14:00-14:30

SESSION 20
Science & Environment
Room: Roberts 508
Chair: Stefano Sandrone
Matthew Holmes
Another Plea for Sparrows:
Economic Ornithology in the
British Press, 1850-1914
Paul Smith
Horticultural and agricultural
research stations in the UK,
1910-1930: a feast of variables.
Sophie Greenway
Growing well: Dirt, health and the
home gardener in mid-twentiethcentury Britain

LUNCH BREAK
Roberts 422

14:30-15:00

CLOSING REMARKS BY DR CHIARA AMBROSIO

Roberts 106

15:30-17:00

OPTIONAL EXCURSION TO SCIENCE MUSEUM

Meeting Point: Roberts Foyer G02

END OF CONFERENCE DAY 3

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DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY STUDIES

STS wants people to think about science differently. We want to understand science as a
force in modern society. We want to understand what underpins its successes and failures.
We want to understand its boundaries and concentrations. We want to know why while
people sometimes love science, and sometimes hate it, they increasingly use science to
do things in our lives.
Staff
18 core academic staff
3 research or teaching fellows
4 professional services staff
Research Areas
history and philosophy of science
science policy and governance
science communication and public engagement
Department History
In 1921 University College London established the first university department in Britain in
the field of history and philosophy of science. The Department has offered graduate
degrees since then, and many leading scholars in this field began their careers with
degrees from UCL. In 1993 an undergraduate BSc programme was launched, with an
expanded staff that also included scholars in science communication and science policy.
To reflect the widening interdisciplinary nature of our work, the name of the Department
was changed in 1996 to the Department of Science and Technology Studies (STS). STS is
unique in the UK in combining in one department teaching and research in history and
philosophy of science with social studies of science (including science policy, public
understanding of science and science communication).
In 1924 STS launched its first Masters degree. In 1987 postgraduate teaching in our
department was merged with similar activities at Imperial College London and the then
Wellcome Institute to create the London Centre for the History of Science, Medicine and
Technology. At its inception, this was the only such programme in the UK. A decade later,
staff were boasting, "we lead the field in feeding outstanding students into PhD
programmes and research careers." Our most recent masters programme launched in
2013, offering 2 degrees together with diplomas and certificates.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/sts

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THANK YOU FOR ATTENDING

BSHS POSTGRADUATE CONFERENCE 2015
AT UCL STS

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