Library News for History of Science, Medicine & Technology

Spring 2013 talks at WU on the history of science, medicine, technology

Thursday, January 31, 4:30 pm, King Center, 7th floor Bernard Becker Medical Library. Dr. Adrianne Noe (Director of the National Museum of Health and Medicine) "150th Anniversary and Grand Reopening of the National Museum of Health and Medicine" 27th Historia Medica Lecture More info.

Tuesday, February 26, 12:10-1:30, Life Sciences 202. Tania Munz (Post-doctoral Fellow and Lecturer, Science and Human Culture Program, Department of History, Northwestern University) “Dancing Bees: Karl von Frisch and the Discovery of the Honeybee Dance Language” [History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine Seminars]

Thursday, March 7, 4:30 pm, King Center, 7th floor Bernard Becker Medical Library. Dr. Ken Winn (Former Missouri State Archivist, Jefferson City, MO) “A Cynic Admires an Eccentric: Mark Twain and WU’s Dr. Joseph McDowell” 28th Historia Medica Lecture

Tuesday, March 19, 12:10-1:30, Life Sciences 202. Christopher Pierson (Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville) “Homology, Multiple-realizability, and Developmental Biology” [History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine Seminars]

Tuesday, April 9, 12:10-1:30, Life Sciences 202. Gregory Yablonsky (Associate Professor of Chemistry, Parks College, St. Louis University, and Adjunct Professor, Department of Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis) “Grasping Chemical Complexity: Temporal Behavior” [History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine Seminars]

Thursday, April 4, Date changed to April 11 4:30 pm, King Center, 7th floor Bernard Becker Medical Library. Joseph Hanaway, MD (Assistant Professor of Clinical Neurology St. Louis, MO) "McGill University — Innovations in the North Commencing in 1821" 29th Historia Medica Lecture

Rescheduled Thursday, April 18: February 21, 4:30 pm, King Center, 7th floor Bernard Becker Medical Library. Mark E. Frisse, MD, MBA, MSc (Accenture Professor of Biomedical Informatics Vanderbilt Center for Better Health, Nashville, TN) "Information and Informatics from the Civil War" 30th Historia Medica Lecture.

Tuesday, April 30, 12:10-1:30, Life Sciences 202. Jim Griesemer (Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Davis) “What Salamander Biologists Have Taught us about Evo-Devo” [History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine Seminars]

Thursday, May 9, 4:30 pm, King Center, 7th floor Bernard Becker Medical Library. Dr. Alan J. McComas (Prof. Emeritus Division of Neurology, McMaster Univ.) “The Story of the Nerve Impulse” 31st Historia Medica Lecture

Dept. of Philosophy colloquia and Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Events

History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine Seminars

Center for the History of Medicine Upcoming Events

I'm happy to add more events if you let me know!

Fall 2012 talks at WUSTL related to history of science

Tuesday, September 18, noon-1:30, Life Sciences 202. Bert Hansen (Professor of the History of Science, Baruch College, City University of New York) “Wonders of Nature and Miracles of Medicine: Popularizing Science in Life Magazine, 1936-1972” History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine Seminars

Monday, October 1 4:00 PM, McDonnell 162. Scott F. Gilbert (Howard Schneiderman Professor of Biology Emeritus, Swarthmore College, and Finland Distinguished Professor, University of Helsinki) "We Are All Lichens: How Molecular Symbiosis Research is Causing The Demise and Reconstruction of Biological Individuality." The Thomas S. Hall Lecture (Biology Department)

Tuesday, October 2, noon-1:30, Life Sciences 202. Scott F. Gilbert (Howard Schneiderman Professor of Biology Emeritus, Swarthmore College and Finland Distinguished Professor, University of Helsinki) “Embryos and Art: The Political Uses of Embryos in the Art of Gustav Klimt, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Lennart Nilsson: Repression, Domination and Eros Among Cells” History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine Seminars

Friday-Saturday, October 26-27, Busch Hall, room 18; Keynote in Busch Hall, room 100. Graduate Conference on the History of the Body. More info and registration.

Wednesday, October 31, 7-8:30 pm, Crown Room at Schlafly Bottleworks, 7260 Southwest Ave., Maplewood, MO; Rebecca Messbarger, Ph.D. Professor of Italian and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Director of Undergraduate Studies in Italian "The Lady Anatomist: From Household Dissections to Enlightenment Science" More info.

Wednesday, November 7, noon-1:30, Life Sciences 202. Charles T. Wolfe (Research Fellow, Centre for History of Science, Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences. Ghent University) “From Substantival to Functional Vitalism and Beyond: Animas, Organisms and Attitudes” History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine Seminars

Thursday, November 15, 4:30 pm, King Center, 7th floor Bernard Becker Medical Library. Thomas Danisi (author of Uncovering the truth about Meriwether Lewis) "A New Perspective on the Death of Meriwether Lewis" 25th Historia Medica Lecture More info

Thursday, December 6, 4:30 pm, King Center, 7th floor Bernard Becker Medical Library. Marion Hungt, PhD. "An Ever-Widening Sphere: Dr. Martha Eliot’s Career from St. Louis Children’s Hospital to the New Dealand the Second World War" 26th Historia Medica Lecture. Marion Hunt received an Olin Fellowship at Washington University for doctoral study in social welfare history. Her thesis analyzed the role of women managers who led St. Louis Children’s Hospital during its early years. The outbreak of World War I brought a major change. Women were permitted to join the house staff, replacing the men who left for military service. Among this pioneer group was Dr. Martha Eliot, a granddaughter of Washington University’s founder. In a long and distinguished career, she surmounted the prevalent prejudice against women physicians and shaped the development of pediatric public health. Refreshments will follow the lecture.

Tuesday, December 18, 4:15 pm, Wilson 214. Casey Helgeson, University of Wisconsin, Madison"Pattern as observation: Darwin's geographical distribution argument" PNP/Philosophy Colloquium

Dept. of Philosophy colloquia

Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Events

History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine Seminars

I'm happy to add more events if you let me know!

Spring 2012 talks at WUSTL related to history of science

Wednesday, January 25 Jay Odenbaugh (Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Philosophy, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon) “Searching for Patterns, Hunting for Causes: Robert MacArthur, the Mathematical Naturalist” Life Sciences Bldg, room 202, noon-1:30 (History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine Seminar Series)

Tuesday, February 7 Ruth Mostern (Associate Professor and Founding Faculty School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, University of California, Merced) "The History of the Yellow River: Empire, Engineering and Environment, 453 BCE - 1855 CE" McMillan Hall 149, 4 pm (Anthropology Department Colloquium)

Wednesday, February 8 P. Kyle Stanford (Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, University of California, Irvine) “Bush’s Nightmare: Changing Incentives and the Closing of the Scientific Mind”. Life Sciences Bldg, room 202, noon-1:30, (History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine Seminar Series)

Thursday, February 9 P. Kyle Stanford (see above) “The Difference between Ice Cream and Nazis: Evolution and the ‘Hard Problem’ of Moral Psychology” Wilson 214, 4:00 PM (PNP Colloquium)

Thursday, Febuary 23 Robert L. Grubb, Jr., MD (Professor Emeritus of Neurological Surgery and Radiology, WUSM) "Developing Academic Neurosurgery Leadership: The Legacy of Ernest Sachs and Henry Schwartz" King Center, 7th floor of the Bernard Becker Medical Library, 4:30 PM (23rd Historia Medica Lecture); a reception will follow the lecture. More info.

Tuesday, March 6 M. Susan Lindee (Professor and Chair. Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania) “Leroy Matthews and the Cleveland Comprehensive Treatment Program for Cystic Fibrosis, 1957-61” McDonnell 162. (Thomas S. Hall Lecture)

Wednesday, March 7 M. Susan Lindee (see above) “Learning to Lie: Militarization of Scientific Knowledge in the Twentieth Century” Life Sciences Bldg, room 202, noon-1:30 (History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine Seminar Series)

Wednesday, March 21 Massimo Pigliucci (Graduate Center and Lehmann College, City University of New York). "A Fresh Look at the Problem of Demarcation between Science and Pseudoscience and Why It Matters." Life Sciences Bldg, room 202, noon-1:30 (History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine Seminar Series)

Thursday, March 22 Massimo Pigliucci (see above) "The Various Meanings of 'Theory' in Biology" Rebstock Hall 322, 4 pm (Ecology, Evolution and Population Biology Program Seminar)

Wednesday, April 4 David Sepkoski (Associate Professor of History, University of North Carolina, Wilmington) “Re-reading the Fossil Record: Why did Paleontologists Invent ‘Paleobiology’?” Life Sciences Bldg, room 202, noon-1:30 (History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine Seminar Series)

Thursday, April 12 Robert Feibel (Professor of clinical ophthalmology and visual sciences, WUSM) "Simon Pollak and Ophthalmology in St. Louis during the Civil War" King Center, 7th floor Becker Medical Library, 4:30 pm (Historia Medica Lecture Series)

Dept. of Philosophy colloquia

Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Events

History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine Seminars

I'm happy to add more events if you let me know!

WU School of Medicine Outlook magazine now digitized

Becker Library has added the full run of the WU School of Medicine magazine "Outlook" to its digital repository.
More information
Issues of Outlook magazine, 1964+

Exhibit: Deadly Medicine - Creating the Master Race

The exhibit, Deadly Medicine - Creating the Master Race, is now available at Becker Medical Library. It runs through October 30. More info: Deadly Medicine - Creating the Master Race | Exhibit highlights biomedical travesties of the Holocaust.

Fall 2011 talks on history of science at WU

August 31: Medicine Gone Awry. Speaker: Stephen Lefrak. 4-6 pm. Moore Auditorium (Medical Campus) More info **

September 8: Historia Medica Lecture: "The Lessons I Learned in Mengele's Lab." Speaker: Eva Mozes Kor. 4-6 pm. Moore Auditorium (Medical Campus) More info **

September 21: “Was the Concept of Race Invented in the Nineteenth Century?” Speaker: Ron Mallon. noon-1:30. Life Sciences Building, room 202.

September 21: "Why the World Will End (Or Won't) in 2012: The Western Roots of the Maya Apocalypse" Speaker: Matthew Restall. 3:30-6 pm. Busch Hall, room 18. More info.

September 22: "Deadly Medicine...Beyond the Era of National Socialism" Panel Discussion. Speakers: Gerald Early, Jennifer Kapczynski, Erin McGlothlin, Robert Sussman, Frederick Sweet. 5:30-7:30 pm. Moore Auditorium (Medical Campus) More info **

October 12: “Darwinism Old and New: Theories of Heredity and Variation from Ernst Haeckel to Paul Kammerer” Speaker: Sandor Gliboff. noon-1:30. Life Sciences Building, room 202.

October 20: "Blood Will Out: Kinship, the Body, and Popular Medicine, 1750-1860" Speaker: Mary Fissell. 4 pm, Busch Hall, room 100. Reception following in Busch 18. More info. This is keynote for Graduate Conference on the history of the body.

October 21-22: Graduate Conference on the history of the body, 10:30-5 Friday, 10-1:15 Saturday, Busch 18.

October 26: “Do Women in Science Really Make a Difference? Case Studies from Animal Behavior and ...Random Musings” Speaker: Zuleyma Tang-Martinez. noon-1:30. Life Sciences Building, room 202.

October 27: "Deadly Medicine in Perspective" Symposium. Speakers: Garland Allen, Hedy Epstein, William Schneider. 4-6 pm. Moore Auditorium (Medical Campus) More info. **

November 16: “The Birth of ‘Information’ in the Brain: Single-Neuron Electrophysiology and the Vacuum Tube” Speaker: Justin Garson. noon-1:30. Life Sciences Building, room 202.

November 18:“An Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted, and the Miracle Drug, Cocaine” Speaker: Howard Markel. 9:15-10:15 am. Clopton Auditorium, Wohl Clinic Bldg Basement. This is the 22nd Hartmann Lecture / Pediatric Grand Rounds. Howard Markel, MD, PhD, is the George E. Wantz distinguished professor of the history of medicine and director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan. The historian is the author, co-author or co-editor of 10 books. Professor Markel will also be speaking at 7 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 18 in Maryville Auditorium. The talk is free and open to the public. His appearance is part of Maryville Talks Books, a lecture series by noted authors held in cooperation with Left Bank Books, St. Louis Public Radio-KWMU, and HEC-TV.

November 30: “Wonders of Nature and Miracles of Medicine: Popularizing Science in Life Magazine, 1936-1972” Speaker: Bert Hansen. noon-1:30. Life Sciences Building, room 202. Postponed. This talk will be rescheduled in Spring, 2012.

** Event related to the exhibit Deadly Medicine - Creating the Master Race, August 8-October 30, Becker Medical Library.

I will add to this post as I learn about additional events. Contact Ruth Lewis if you have additions. Thank you.

Upcoming library classes

The library will have introductory classes in Zotero and Mendeley (popular, free bibliographic management software) and several other subjects. For more information and to pre-register, please see http://wulibraries.doattend.com/.

Spring 2011 talks on history of science at WU

Jan. 20, 4:30 pm, Becker Medical Library, King Center: Small Computers in Biomedical Research: The Developers and their Machines, Ancestors and Progeny. Jerome R. Cox More info

Feb. 10, 4-6 pm, Location change to Laboratory Science Building Room 250; Duncker Hall, Hurst Lounge: Astrology and Politics in the Background to the Galileo Affair. Michael H. Shank. Rava Memorial lecture. More info

March 23, 4-5:30pm, Graham Chapel: Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Sponsored by the Office of Community Affairs, with support from WU Libraries, the WU Diversity Program, the Women's Club, the Afircan and African American Studies Program, Education, the Law School, and others.

March 24, 12-1:30 pm, (Busch Hall, Room 18): History and Philosophy of Science Brown Bag. Jonathan Sadowsky (Dr. Theodore J. Castele Associate Professor of Medical History, and Chair, Department of History, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland): "Electroconvulsive Therapy and Medical Culture in Comparative Perspective."

March 31, 4:30 pm, (King Center, 7th floor, Bernard Becker Medical Library): 21st Historia Medica lecture. Memory Elvin-Lewis (Professor of Microbiology and Ethnobotany in Biomedicine at Washington University): "AIDS before AIDS in St. Louis: If the Shoe Fits - A Retrospective Discovery." A reception will follow the lecture.

April 1, 11am-noon, free webinar from AAAS: "Through History's Lens: How history contributes to a better understanding of science" -- A panel of historians and scientists will give examples of how history has helped our human understanding of the natural world. The hour will include a unique opportunity to see important historical scientific artifacts from Harvard's Putnam Gallery and the NIH's Stetten Museum. The panel will also discuss what science is learning now that could shape the future. Preregistration required.

CANCELED: March 17, date change now: April 7, 12-1:30 pm, (Life Sciences Bldg, Room 202): History and Philosophy of Science Brown Bag. David Sepkoski (Associate Professor of History, University of North Carolina, Wilmington):"Re-reading the Fossil Record: Why did Paleontologists Invent 'Paleobiology'?"

April 7, 4 pm, (Steinberg Hall Auditorium): Andrew Stewart. Annual John and Penelope Biggs Lecture in the Classics. Stewart is a world-renowned authority on Greek sculpture, ancient art and architecture, and archaeology, and is known for his ability to place the creation of art in relation to the political, social, cultural, and intellectual issues of their day.

If you know of others, I am happy to revise this posting. Please email rlewis@wustl.edu with info. Thank you.

Jan. 20th talk at Becker Library: Small Computers in Biomedical Research

Jerome R. Cox, Jr., senior professor of computer science, will speak on “Small Computers in Biomedical Research: The Developers and their Machines, Ancestors and Progeny” at 4:30 pm, Jan. 20 at the King Center, 7th floor, Becker Medical Library. More information.