Off to Pittsburgh

I’m in Ann Arbor, waiting for a ride to Pittsburgh, where we’re having the annual meeting of the History of Science Society.

Remember that my paper, and our great panel on “To Market:  A new look at the medical marketplace” is at 3:30 pm tomorrow (Friday Nov 7)!  Jeremy Greene, Debby Levine and I will be speaking, and Gwen Kay will give a comment.  I woke up at two in the morning today with the pressing realization that my talk (“Apologia for quackery”) needed lolducks, so expect them.

The HSS Graduate and Early Career Caucus has a great series of events planned for the meeting, which I’m pasting below.

Final Schedule of GECC Events at HSS

GECC-Sponsored Session
From Dissertation to Book: A Roundtable on First-Time Scholarly Book Publication
Friday, 12-1:15pm – check program for location information
Read more about the session in the full announcement on the blog.

GECC Happy Hour
Friday, 7:30-9:30 The Church Brew Works
The first ever GECC happy hour is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 7 from 7:30 to 9:30 at The Church Brew Works.  GECC volunteers will be standing by after the HSS reception to organize
transportation to one of Pittsburgh’s unique watering holes.   After refueling, we’ll head back to the hotel for the Grad Student party.  Visit the the blog for more information.
**Bring small bills to share the cost of a short cab ride** (it’s a short bus ride too!-sf)

HSS Graduate Student Party
Friday, 9:30-11pm
This annual event is sponsored by HSS, so drop in after happy hour to meet and mingle.

GECC Business Meeting
Saturday, 12-1:15 pm Carnegie III—Conference floor.
Beverages provides; bring your lunch, your concerns and interests as a grad student or early career scholar and help plan the future of the GECC.

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GECC Business Meeting Agenda
1. Welcome and review of last year’s accomplishments
2. Discussion of the status of the GECC and budget
3. Election of 2008-2009 officers
4. Discussion on the new mentorship program
5. Proposals for next year’s GECC sessions – come with ideas!
6. Membership Communication
a. listservs
b. special interest groups
c. what the GECC can do to build diversity within HSS membership
1. international members
2. undergraduate outreach
d. conference networking: roommates etc
e. membership directory – do we need one?
7. Open discussion of member concerns/ideas
8. Hydra journal announcement

 

HSS preliminary program

Are you coming to Pittsburgh in November? The History of Science Society will be meeting with the Philosophy of Science Society Nov 7-9, 2008 in Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood.

The session I organized, F26, To Market: A New Look at the Medical Marketplace, will take place Friday afternoon at 3:30 pm. You can check it out on the preliminary program (note: we’ve had some personnel changes in the session that the program doesn’t yet reflect; our final panel includes Deborah Levine, Jeremy Greene and me, and will be commented by Gwen Kay.)

Also, for emerging professionals, we’ll be having the second ever meeting of the Graduate and Early Career Caucus at Friday lunchtime. Show up and meet fellow early career folks and get stuff done.  It is also likely that we’ll be sponsoring a happy hour. GECC is also sponsoring a session on publishing:

From Dissertation to Book: A Roundtable on First-Time Scholarly Book Publication
HSS 2008, Pittsburgh, PA
Friday, 12-1:15pm

*Jacqueline Wernimont, Brown University
*Roger Turner, University of Pennsylvania
Karen Darling, The University of Chicago Press
Doreen Valentine, Rutgers University Press
Marguerite Avery, The MIT Press

*session organizer

Dissertations are written to demonstrate advanced mastery of a discipline and are an important step toward full participation in the scholarly community. The dissertation is often the first extended piece of scholarship produced by a student, and it is likely to have been conceived and executed within constraints shaped by the student’s institution and its faculty. Moving from dissertation to book involves shedding these constraints and revising the work to make it valuable to a broader readership. At this roundtable, editors from the University of Chicago Press, MIT Press, and Rutgers University Press will share their insights into particular issues in first-time scholarly book publishing, including understanding the difference between a book and a dissertation, finding and working with an editor, submitting a book proposal or manuscript, and the future of the print monograph in scholarly publication. In addition to participant presentations, there will be time devoted to discussing pre-submitted questions, as well as questions that arise during the session. The Graduate and Early Career Caucus is sponsoring this session, which will be chaired by GECC co-chair Jacqueline Wernimont.  Please submit advance questions to Jacqueline Wernimont (Jacqueline_Wernimont@brown.edu) by October 27th, 2008.

Looking for other familiar historians presenting at HSS? Here is my exclusive and probably not complete list of papers from Minnesota HSTM students, alums and faculty at HSS 2008, based on a glance through the preliminary program. Each person’s name is followed by the session number (coded as follows:  day (F, S, Su) and number in that day).

Hiromi Mizuno F2

David Sepkoski F3

Megan Barnhart F5

Deepanwita Dasgupta F21

me F26

Al Martinez F29

Tania Munz F30

Christine Manganaro S3 (don’t miss this awesome talk about the science of race in Hawai’i!)

John Jackson S3

Ioanna Semendeferi S12

Georgina Montgomery Su1

Michael Reidy Su4

Requests for emendations are encouraged.

I also counted exactly 3 history of medicine sessions, though a number of sessions have one Hmed paper included. Not a huge deal, since it’s obviously not the focus of the conference. I may yet go through and count all the independent scholars and public historians.  Stay tuned and see you in Pittsburgh.