New ICOHTEC Newsletter • No 38: December 2006

Editor: Stefan Poser

Editorial

Dear colleagues and friends,

The first chapters of the Newsletter offer to remember the last ICOHTEC Symposium and to look forward to next Symposium in Copenhagen, Denmark, 14 - 19 August 2007. Please find the minutes of the General Assembly held in Leicester 2006, the call for papers for Copenhagen and additional calls for papers of sections on our Copenhagen-Meeting.

The first call for papers of sections is dedicated to a well established field of research in the frame of ICOHTEC, the technical developments related to gunpowder. The second call is dedicated to technology and medicine, the third one to a playful approach to technology. These fields are new; thus we hope that you will enjoy them as much as the gunpowder-section. Beside the general theme and these topics there is the opportunity to submit proposals for sections and papers on your favoured subjects of research, as every year. The deadlines are 7th and 15th of January 2007. In the mean time our new homepage for the Copenhagen-meeting is arranged. Please find more information concerning the 34th ICOHTEC-Meeting on www.icohtec2007.dk

If you want to publish some information in the Newsletter - concerning conferences, research projects, jobs, new books, etc. - please let me know.
An obligatory reminder: If you have not done so, please hurry up to pay your annual - modest - subscription for 2006.

My best wishes to you and your family for Christmas and the New Year

Yours Stefan Poser

Contents
I. Minutes of the ICOHTEC General Assembly in Leicester
II. 1 Call for Papers ICOHTEC Symposium 2007
II. 2 Call for Papers ICOHTEC Symposium 2007
III. Forthcoming Conferences
IV. Fellowships and Scholarships
V. Recent Publications

I. Minutes of the ICOHTEC General Assembly

33th ICOHTEC Symposium in Leicester, UK, 17 August 2006, at 18:04 -19:53
Location: Great Lecture Room, Stamford Hall
Present in GA: 35 members

Minutes by Timo Myllyntaus

Report by the President
The President, Hans-Joachim Braun, opened the meeting. He welcomed members and thanked the local organizers, Alex Keller and his team, as well as the scientific committee that had managed to organise very interesting and coherent sessions from a large number of individual paper submissions. He also expressed his gratitude for those colleagues who had collected groups of experts and encouraged them to join their session proposals.
The President was pleased that calls for paper to ICOHTEC symposia continue to attract a considerable amount of paper and session proposals. Although the quality of these proposals has improved, the development has not been enough strong. He referred to initiatives to provide guidelines how to prepare better proposals and supported this kind of activity. Furthermore, he reminded colleagues that for more than a decade the ICOHTEC has been very dependent on individual members. Therefore, he stressed that while ICOHTEC has to satisfy the needs and expectations of its present members, it should work harder to recruit more, especially younger, members with high scholarly potential.

Election of the New Executive Committee
The Executive Committee had discussed in its meeting the election of the new EC but because not all members of the Executive Committee were present and not all of them have had a chance to express their opinions whether they are willing to continue or step down, it was found difficult to decide on the appropriate number of open posts. Because of these coordination problems, it was decided to postpone the election of the new executive committee to the ICOHTEC General Assembly in conjunction with the 34th ICOHTEC Symposium in Copenhagen in 2007.
The GA supported the Executive Committee's proposal to choose a temporary nomination committee (NC) chaired by the Vice-President James Williams. The election of other 2 - 4 members of the NC will be confirmed later. The Vice-President with the support of the rest of the NC and Alexander Herlea will ask the willingness of the present EC members to continue for the next two or four-year period (2008-2009 or 2008-2011). After these inquiries, the NC will prepare its list of nominees for the next election. The meeting of the Executive Committee in Copenhagen will discuss this list and the organisational reform of the EC before the election in the General Assembly.

The General Assembly agreed on these proposals.

Report by the Secretary General
The Secretary General, Timo Myllyntaus, said that at the Beijing symposium ICOHTEC agreed on the following strategic objectives:
1) To increase its membership by recruiting especially younger scholars and at the same time, to strengthen ICOHTEC's presence in Asia, Africa and Americas.
2) To improve publishing activities of the society. The edition of ICON needs revitalisation, The Newsletter could be developed further and in the long run, it would be necessary to consider also other types of publishing. Moreover, it is necessary to revive the old practice of publishing national reports on recent developments in the history of technology in the ICOHTEC Newsletter and possibly also in ICON. Reports on research topics in an international perspective would also be useful.
3) The homepages of ICOHTEC should be redesigned and their contents ought to be expanded. These pages should serve better the needs of the membership.
4) More efforts should be put to examining whether we have possibilities to improve our contacts to other societies close to our activities in the history of technology (the relationship with SHOT had always been very close) but also with scholarly organizations in neighbouring fields like the history of science, economic and business history or social and cultural history.
In the discussion, the reform of the ICOHTEC homepage was considered as the top priority and officers were asked to find an IT designer for this task. Cooperation with various societies was discussed. Most promising was seen links to the European Business History Association, the Secretary General of which, Harm Schröter, had proposed an "exchange in session organising".

Myllyntaus said that the General Assembly in Beijing in the previous year had decided to accept the proposal of the Technical University of Denmark to organise the 2007 symposium in Copenhagen. The Chairman of the local organising committee, Jan Tapdrup, gave a short but very informative report on the preparation of the following symposium. Then the GA discussed the venue options and decided to choose suggested premises in the centre of Copenhagen. Negotiations on the theme led to favour design as the focal point. The formulation of wording was given to the officers of ICOHTEC and the attending members of the LOC. They proposed the following title, Fashioning Technology: Design from Imagination to Practice, which was accepted. After some discussion, the GA elected the following persons to the Programme Committee: Bert Hacker (chair), Mats Fridlund, Ernst Homburg, Susan Horning, and James Williams.

After dealing with the issues of the 2007 symposium, Timo Myllyntaus reported on received proposals for the venues of forthcoming symposia in the years 2008 - 2011. The two candidates for the 2008 symposium host were the team of professor David Zimmerman from the Department of History, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada and the team of professor Boleslaw Orlowski, who proposed Augustowski Canal in Eastern Poland as a venue. After discussion, the GA unanimously decided to favour Zimmerman's proposal that was found well-structured and carefully prepared and it was also accepted with a suggestion that the main theme of the 2008 symposium should be decided in the General Assembly in Copenhagen.

The 2009 symposium will be held in conjunction of the International Science History Congress (ISHC) in Budapest in cooperation with IUHPS/DHST. It was suggested that session proposals should be submitted to the secretary general by the GA in Copenhagen.

The GA discussed two proposals for the venue of the 2010 symposium. The first proposal received was put forward by the City of Tampere, Tampere Museums and the University of Tampere and the second one was suggested by the team headed by professor Boleslaw Orlowski from Warsaw. The bid of Tampere printed in the form of a leaflet supported by an illustrated broschure were circulated in the GA. The proposal of the Tampere team to host a joint conference of ICOHTEC and TICCIH aroused a lot of discussion. More detailed plans - especially on the scientific programme and practical arrangements - were asked from both bidders. As a result, the decision on the venue of the 2010 meeting was postponed to the Copenhagen Symposium.

Two candidates were interested to host the 2011 symposium. They were the above mentioned Polish team and the other was the "Croatian ICOHTEC Branch" headed by Ante Sekso Telento from Zagreb. Respectively, proposed venues are Augustowski Canal in Eastern Poland and Sibenik, a town of 50'000, on the Adriatic coast in Croatia. Because both these proposals were fairly vague and tentative, it was decided to ask these teams to supply more elaborated proposals by the next symposium.

Report by the Treasurer
Wolfhard Weber presented his report and mentioned that the printing costs of the ICON has risen during the past financial year. Nevertheless, the financial situation of the ICOHTEC is satisfactory.
The auditor R. A. Buchanan said that he had checked the ICOHTEC accounts and found everything in order. Buchanan confirmed the treasurer's statement and said that he wanted to congratulate the treasurer on his excellent job. On the basis of this, the GA accepted the ICOHTEC accounts.

Report by the Editor
Alex Keller said that after the last GA both ICON volumes 10 and 11 have been published. Furthermore, he assured that also volume 12 as larger and more expensive will be sent to members soon. The GA discussed how to develop ICON and how to arrange its editing in the future.
The President, Hans-Joachim Braun, thanked the editor for his report and closed the General Assembly.

II.1 Call for Papers - ICOHTEC Symposium 2007
The International Committee for the History of Technology's 34th Symposium in Copenhagen, Denmark, 14-19 August 2007
Deadline for proposals is 15 January 2007

Fashioning Technology: Design from Imagination to Practice is the symposium's general theme. While open to all proposals dealing with the history of technology, the program committee suggests the following subthemes for the consideration of session organizers and contributors:

- Consequences of design, purposeful and accidental
- National styles in design and technology: myth or fact?
- Embodying design in products
- Social and/or cultural values in the design of products, machines and systems
- Designers: craftsmen, engineers, artists, or something else?
- Fe/male designs: sex and gender in design
- Tweaking technology and products: users as designers
- Imaginary designs: unrealized, utopian and immaterial constructions
- Design history in the context of the history of technology
- Designing consumption from commodities to malls
- Reshaping spaces: landscapes, cityscapes and technoscapes
- The fashioned body: technologies of food, clothing and medicine
- Building technoscience: design in the laboratory

We urge contributors to organize sessions of three or more papers. Individual paper submissions will, of course, be accepted. Note: Membership in ICOHTEC is not required to participate in the symposium.

Special features of ICOHTEC's 34th Symposium include the annual Mel Kranzberg Lecture by a distinguished historian of technology, the traditional Jazz Night, several excursions, and a special plenary "Copenhagen Session" of invited scholars.

INDIVIDUAL PAPER proposals must include: (1) a 250-word (maximum) abstract in English; and (2) a one-page CV. Abstracts should include the author's name and email address, a short descriptive title, a concise statement of the thesis, a brief discussion of the sources, and a summary of the major conclusions. Please indicate if you intend your paper for one of the specified subthemes. In preparing your paper, remember that presentations are not full-length articles. You will have no more than 20 minutes to speak, which is roughly equivalent to 8 double-spaced typed pages. Contributors are encouraged to submit full-length versions of their papers after the conference for consideration by ICOHTEC's journal ICON. If you are submitting a paper proposal dealing with a particular subtheme, please indicate this in your proposal, and assist the program committee in assigning your paper to a session. Sessions organized by the program committee will not have a formal commentator but a "respondent" may be appointed to attend the session and give the first comment on the presentations. For more suggestions about preparing your symposium presentation, please consult the guidelines at the symposium web site: www.icohtec2007.dk

SESSION proposals must include, in addition to abstracts and CVs for each paper as described above: (1) an abstract of the session (250 words maximum), listing the proposed papers, and a chair, as well as a respondent (if desired), for each section; (2) and a one-page CV for each contributor, including chair and respondent. Sessions should consist of at least three speakers, and may include several sections of three speakers each, which might extend over more than one day.

Proposal submission
Proposals for individual papers and sessions can be entered on the website www.icohtec2007.dk under PROPOSALS after 1 October 2006. You may sign up for an e-mail service which reports back once the Integrated Digital Conference System for ICOHTEC 2007 is activated.

If web access is unavailable, proposals may be sent by fax to The Conference Office, ICOHTEC 2007 at +45 4588 3040. Otherwise they may be sent via regular mail postmarked not later than 1 January 2007 to The Conference Office, ICOHTEC 2007, DTV, Postbox 777, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark.

The program committee, chaired by Barton C. Hacker, will notify all who submitted proposal of their acceptance or rejection by 1 February 2007.

All questions should be submitted to icohtec07@dtv.dk

Graduate students members of the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) are eligible for travel support. Go to: http://www.shot.jhu.edu/Awards/icohtec2.htm

II.2 Call for papers for ICOHTEC-Sections

THE DESIGN OF SITES OF GUNPOWDER/EXPLOSIVES PRODUCTION: NATIONAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL INFLUENCES

Call for papers for an ICOHTEC-Section 2007 by Brenda Buchanan, Bath University

The subject of this proposed session will fit in well with the symposium sub-theme of NATIONAL STYLES IN DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY: MYTH OR FACT?
However, papers on other aspects of the history of gunpowder and explosives will also be welcome. The location of the major mid-eighteenth century gunpowder works at Frederiksvaerk, within reasonable travelling distance of Copenhagen, will be a special attraction in the Gunpowder Session.

Please contact Dr. Brenda Buchanan, ssxbjb@bath.ac.uk and submit an abstract by 7 January 2007.

Designing the Body: Technology and Medicine
Call for papers for an ICOHTEC-Session 2007 by Hans-Joachim Braun, Helmut Schmidt-University Hamburg (organizer)

This is a fashionable topic and is present in the media all the time: some surgeon, often of dubious medical expertise, makes a mess of a beauty operation; the disappointed and furious patient claims compensation. But it is not only the history and ethics of this kind of surgery which offers itself to scholarly investigation in a session on medical technology. To start with, the body is fashioned by artificial insemination but also by artificial limbs or organ transplantations.
In a wider context there are other issues which are part of this session's theme:
- designing noninvasive imaging technology for diagnostic purposes
- designing new surgical instruments or pharmaceuticals for therapy
- possible national (and definitely cultural) "styles" of designing medical technology
- relevant ethical issues
- relationship between surgeons, scientists, engineers and (big) business
- gender and medical technology
- medical technology failures
- designing surgeries and hospitals
- alternative medicine
These are only some topics which come to mind when thinking about the theme of the session. Offers for contributions are welcome.

Please contact Prof. Dr. Hans-Joachim Braun, hjbraun@hsu-hh.de, and submit an abstract by 7 January 2007.

PLAYING WITH TECHNOLOGY: SPORTS, TOYS AND AMUSEMENT PARKS

Call for papers for an ICOHTEC-Session 2007 by Nikolaus Katzer, Helmut Schmidt-University Hamburg, and Stefan Poser, Technical University Berlin, Germany

Both technology and play have crucial functions in human life. They have strongly influenced the development of societies. During the last decades technology-based play has become more and more important: (i) The so-called leisure society has begun to take shape. Supply of and demand for games increased; the leisure industry is still growing. (ii) Elements of play can be found in fields of work and applications of play in working processes (as in programming computers) are growing as well. (iii) Simulations and virtual worlds - which are close to play in some way - are becoming more important.

The idea of the session is to analyse mutual influences of technology and play. The approach is based on a broad comprehensive understanding of play. To connect play and gratification enables us to investigate the following main areas:
1. Sports and leisure as well as
2. Toys and (children's) play,
3. Technology based festivities, annual fairs and amusement parks and
4. Elements of technology-based play in fields of work.
The main emphasis of this section will be on technology-based play in sports; contributions on other fields of play are welcome as well.

The main questions are:
1. How important is technology for play in general?
2. How important is a playful, joyful approach for the development, acceptance and appropriation of technology?
3. In which way has technology-based play influenced the development of society?

In sports, sophisticated technological equipment of the sportsmen is absolutely necessary to win a game. Numerous technical solutions have been developed. There are new materials and new technologies as well as traditional ones developed in a special manner. In some modern sports like roller skating or snowboarding some sportsmen identify themselves with their equipment in such a way that the result comes close to a symbiosis.
In children's rooms one can find numerous models of machines that represent technology and technological processes. They are mirrors of the technological and societal development. For several kinds of play and for some games (like, for example, the game boy), technology is needed. So, especially since the beginning of industrialisation, not only kitchens and workshops but also children's rooms have become a kind of technotope.
In amusement parks technology is presented to the visitors, too: bikes, cars and models of aeroplanes can be found on roundabouts, scooters mediate an idea of the freedom to run a car and owners of a fair business at about 1900 presented their steam engines (to run a roundabout e.g.) proudly to public. Mechanised rides as Ferries wheels and especially roller coasters are in fact sophisticated technological constructions with the aim to encourage emotions by means of physical experience.
The mutual influences which result from these developments seem to be very useful to analyse questions of acceptance and appropriation of technology as well as questions of technological and industrial development. It will be interesting to approach the subject from an interdisciplinary perspective. Scholars from various disciplines are welcome to contribute.

Please contact us - Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Katzer, nikolaus.katzer@hsu-hh.de and Dr. Stefan Poser, poser@ztg.tu-berlin.de - and submit an abstract by 7 January 2007.

The early deadline will enable the organizers to submit the concepts of the whole sections to the ICOHTEC Program Committee in time.

III. Forthcoming Conferences

4-6 January 2007
British Society for the History of Science Postgraduate Conference
British Society for the History of Science, Durham (UK)
Durham University
CFP: Deadline passed

The next British Society for the History of Science (BSHS) postgraduate conference will be hosted by the Department of Philosophy in collaboration with the Centre for the History of Medicine and Disease at Durham University, from Thursday 4th to Saturday 6th January 2007. The annual BSHS postgraduate conference is an opportunity for postgraduates, from the UK and abroad, researching within the history of science, technology and medicine to present their research.

Please contact the Organising Committee: bshs.pg2007@durham.ac.uk
Conference homepage: http://www.dur.ac.uk/bshs.pg2007/bshspg2007.html

6-8 April 2007
MEPHISTOS 2007
Call for Papers Deadline January 1, 2007

MEPHISTOS is an international, interdisciplinary conference devoted to the History, Philosophy, Sociology and Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Medicine-organized by graduate students and for graduate students. We invite graduate students of all levels, working in any field of science studies, to apply. MEPHISTOS is a premier opportunity for young scholars to present papers, participate in discussions, and develop collaborations with others. The graduate community of the University of California, Los Angeles is proud to host the twenty-fifth annual MEPHISTOS conference on April 6-8, 2007.

The MEPHISTOS Organizing Committee welcomes proposals for individual papers written by graduate students examining issues related to the History, Philosophy, Sociology, and Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Medicine. Applicants should not, however, feel constrained by the above-listed disciplinary approaches. We welcome paper proposals from all disciplinary fields. Further, applicants should not feel restricted to the modern and contemporary time period only as we strongly encourage paper proposals devoted to early modern, ancient, medieval and renaissance periods as well.

Past papers and discussions have addressed the following issues: Health and Normalcy; Measurement, Evidence, and Representation in Science and Medicine; Technology and Society; Narrative and Science; Knowledge-Making, Knowledge-Forgetting; Religion and Science; Science in the Media; Science and Gender; Science and Art; Ancient Studies of Science; Sciences for the Environment; Non-Western Science; Information Technology; Philosophy of the Mind and the Body.

All interested applicants please submit a Cover Letter, including your department and university affiliation and contact information, and an Abstract (200-300 words, separate attachments in Word, RTF or plain-text format preferred) by email to: mephistos@ucla.edu

DEADLINE is January 1st, 2007

More information is available at our web site, http://mephistos.bol.ucla.edu/, and questions may be directed to Gustavo Garza at mephistos@bol.ucla.edu or to Daniel E. Crosby, dcrosby@ucla.edu

11-13 May 2007
Technik und Wissen, Technology and Knowledge
Wissenschaftliche Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Technikgeschichte GTG
Annual Meeting of the German Association for the History of Technology GTG
TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Germany
Deadline of the cfp: 12 January 2007

It is impossible, to develop and even to use technical devices without knowledge. And knowledge seems to become more important in science-based societies. Thus analyzing different kinds of knowledge and mutual influences between knowledge and technology is an interesting task - not only for historians. On the annual meeting of the GTG different approaches to knowledge and technology will be discussed.

Please find more information on
http://www.gtg.tu-berlin.de/mambo/ index.php?option =com_content&task=view&id=416&Itemid=233
Please contact Dr. Frank Dittmann, Deutsches Museum Muenchen, f.dittmann@deutsches-museum.de

25 and 26 May 2007
The European Union in Search of Political Identity and Legitimacy
Florence, Italy
Call for papers - Deadline passed

This international conference is the concluding event in the activities pursued for the past two years by a research network (Jointly Executed Research Project 5.2.1) of twenty institutes all across Europe within GARNET, an EU Network of Excellence under the Sixth Framework Programme.

We have been studying political identity and legitimacy in the European Union because these elements are relevant to its contribution to regional and global governance. But the Union has so far failed in its attempt to become a full-fledged polity, the French and Dutch referenda on the Constitutional Treaty and other developments have signalled the absence of a strong feeling of belonging together among citizens and elites, and the still insufficient credibility of the European institutions. Internal and even more international factors however keep and will keep the polity question in Europe alive. What a political identity of the Europeans, as different from the social and cultural one, may mean, how a substantial legitimacy of the EU institutions can be made credible across the continent, and which processes must be fostered if the present democratic deficit(s) is (or are) to be addressed -- these are the main problems underlying our project.

Please find a link to research materials on the Garnet website:
http://wi-garnet.uni-muenster.de/Event_ View.169.0.html?&tx_ calendar_pi1[f1] =52&cHash=704ca15786
Please contact:
Professor Furio Cerutti, Dip. di Filosofia, Universita di Firenze: polphil@unifi.it

28-30 May 2007
Annual Conference - Canadian Society for History and Philosophy of Science (CSHPS)
Deadline February 1, 2007

The Canadian Society for History and Philosophy of Science (CSHPS) will hold its annual conference as part of the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences (CFHSS) at the University of Saskatchewan. The program committee invites abstracts for individual papers or proposals for sessions. For details, see
http://www.yorku.ca/cshps1/confinfo.html.

21-23 June 2007
Travelling Knowledge
2007 BI-ANNUAL ANGLO-DUTCH-GERMAN WORKSHOP
London
Call for Papers- Deadline passed
Institut für Geschichte der Medizin der Robert Bosch Stiftung
Faculteit der Culturrwetenschappen der Universität Maastricht
Centre for the History of Medicine and Humanities Research Centre at the
University of Warwick
Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College
London, London

The production, migration, internationalisation, and indigenization of knowledge have been much discussed in the history of science and psychology. Far less attention has been paid to the exchange, transfer, and circulation of medical and biomedical knowledge, skills, and technologies between regions, nations and empires. Nor has much interest been taken in the agents and agencies involved in these transportations. This workshop seeks to address this relatively neglected topic. Put simply, it asks 'how exactly does 'medicine' travel?' In particular, it seeks to explore how locally produced knowledge and practices are distributed, exchanged, and shared, and to what effect. How does medicine differ from science in these respects - does the attachment to patients make a difference? What are the problems of translation, literally and metaphorically?

Please contact Robert Jütte, robert.juette@igm-bosch.de
Homepage www.igm-bosch.de

5-9 June 2007
'Environmental connections: Europe and the wider World'
4th ESEH Conference
Fourth Conference of the European Society for Environmental History
Call for Papers - Deadline 1 June 2006

The European Society for Environmental History invites proposals for panels and posters for its upcoming 4th conference in
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
The ultimate question for our generation concerns the sustainability of human activities within the ecological carrying capacity of the earth. In the past this question emerged on various spatial scales, but nowadays it has become very relevant on the global scale. Understanding the past is a prerequisite for facing the future. This applies to questions of sustainability more than for many other subjects. Research in environmental history makes an important contribution to understanding the past by collecting and processing information about the complex relationship between humans and nature over a long span of time.
With this congress we encourage members of the scholarly community from all over the world to increase our knowledge basis on environmental issues seen from a long-term perspective. This will contribute to constructing new worldviews about the interactions between humans and nature in the past and the present. In this way, we hope to motivate educators, policy makers and entrepreneurs to devise attitudes, policies and corporate responsibility for the future of our planet and us.
The challenging theme for the 4th conference of the European Society for Environmental History in Amsterdam, hosted by the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam is
'Environmental connections: Europe and the wider World'.
Proposals for panels, papers and posters are invited, in particular for the following strands: - history of exchange of biota, i.e. plants, animals and other organisms (both intentional and unintentional) - history of exchange of environmental techniques and practices (in particular regarding water, such as for flood control, drainage, irrigation, preparation of drinking water, cleaning of waste water) - history of climate change - history of environmental ideas, movements and organisations - history of monitoring the resources of the earth.
One strand remains open for other topics.
Submission of abstracts: 1 February 2006 - 1 June 2006
For information: eseh2007@mccm.nl.
Please, note that travel grants will be available to contributors of the next ESEH conference. Instructions below and at: http://www.let.vu.nl/conference/eseh/educationalGrants.html
In addition, the local organisation committee would also like to draw your attention to the fact that Amsterdam is very full in June 2007, because there is a very large competing conference and it is a high season for tourism. Consequently, you are urged to make hotel reservations AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, or you have to take a risk to be lodged in another town.

7 - 10 June 2007
Inventing Europe: Technology and the Making of Europe, 1850 to the Present
European Science Foundation EUROCORES Program
and Call for Papers for the
Third Plenary Conference of the Tensions of Europe Network
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Deadline: 5 January 2007

The European Science Foundation (ESF) and the Foundation for the History of Technology in the Netherlands are jointly organizing the Launch Conference of the ESF EUROCORES Programme Inventing Europe in conjunction with the Third Plenary Conference of the Tensions of Europe Network (ToE). The ESF EUROCORES Programme Inventing Europe and ToE strive, through collaborative research and coordinating efforts, to promote studies of the interplay between technical change and European history. Instead of focusing on national histories, the emphasis of both initiatives is on transnational technological developments that have shaped and are shaping Europe. For scholars interested in the role of technology in European history this event will provide a unique opportunity not only to present and discuss current and envisaged new research, but also to create new networks and plan coordinated activities for some years to come.

We encourage scholars from all disciplines who study subjects related to the areas below to submit abstracts for the research sessions and roundtables organised by the Tensions of Europe network. These areas are drawn from the Inventing Europe themes (see http://www.esf.org/inventingeurope) and the Tensions of Europe Intellectual Agenda (see www.histech.nl/tensions ).

Overall Theme of the Conference
The conference seeks contributions that will treat technological change as an entry point into the contested practice of Europeanization. Four general areas to be explored are:
" Building Europe through Infrastructures, or, how Europe has been shaped by the material links of transnational infrastructure
" Constructing European Ways of Knowing, or, how Europe became articulated through efforts to unite knowledge and practices on a European scale
" Consuming Europe, or, how actors reworked consumer goods and artefacts for local, regional, national, European, and global use
" Europe in the Global World, or, how Europe has been created through colonial, ex-colonial, trans-Atlantic, and other global exchanges
" Synthetic methodological or historiographical explorations of the role of technology in transnational European history

Sessions formats
The Program Committee welcomes proposals that address the overall conference themes in the following two formats:
" Research sessions with three papers based on original research, and an invited commentator. Because the conference encourages debate, appropriate time for discussion should be allocated to the commentators as well as the members of the audience. The papers will be pre-circulated to all conference participants. Conference participants are expected to have read the papers thus presentations should be brief.
" Roundtable sessions with an open agenda or one paper to start-off the discussion. The sessions will host no more than six discussants including the organizer and the chair. The organizer is responsible for preparing a dialogue paper to stimulate debate, and if relevant, supplementary material. Ideally, the dialogue paper will be a brief piece that poses a number of historical problems and/or questions related to the conference theme that will be addressed in the debate. While the organizer should propose discussants, the Program Committee may make additional suggestions. The chair may decide either to limit the conversation to invited roundtable discussants or to allow the audience to ask questions and enter the debate.

Research sessions will be allotted a minimum time slot of one and a half hours, and roundtable discussions one hour.

Deadlines and Time-line
The deadline for session and roundtable proposals is JANUARY 5, 2007. The session abstracts (maximum 600 words) should be submitted by the organizers together with the abstracts for the individual presentations (maximum 500 words each). To propose a roundtable, please submit a list of invited participants and an abstract (maximum 600 words). When giving the proposal a digital file name, please include the organizer's last name, and either RS for research session or RT for round table. The abstracts should be sent to the Program Committee by email to TOE@tue.nl . Please direct queries to the Program Committee Coordinator, Donna C. Mehos (d.c.mehos@tue.nl).

The Program Committee will inform the session organizers about its decisions no later than March 1, 2007. Tensions of Europe is seeking travel funding for those who have no opportunity to participate otherwise. Costs of Inventing Europe participants will be borne by ESF. More information will become available at the conference website www.histech.nl/tensions.

Papers and roundtable discussion texts must be submitted to the Program Committee by May 1, 2007 because they will be distributed to all conference participants before the conference on a CD and made available on the website.

Note for scholars who proposed a project to the Inventing Europe EUROCORES programme:

At the conference, researchers funded by Inventing Europe will present their Collaborative Research Projects (CRP) in plenary sessions under a format that encourages debate. Additional EUROCORES Programme-related working meetings will aim at structuring future Inventing Europe networking activities such as intra-CRP meetings, plenary CRP meetings, and Scientific Committee meetings (see programme for details). This conference provides the additional opportunity to respond to this call to propose research and roundtable sessions with colleagues outside of CRPs--ToE network participants and others. For more information, contact Rüdiger Klein (inventingeurope@esf.org).

For the ESF EUROCORES Programme Inventing Europe,
Rüdiger Klein, Programme Coordinator; ESF Department Head Humanities
and
For the Program Committee for the Third Plenary Conference of Tensions of Europe,
Johan Schot, Chair, Eindhoven University of Technology
Donna C. Mehos, Coordinator, Eindhoven University of Technology
Mikael Hard, Darmstadt University of Technology
Per Högselius, Lund University
Dagmara Jajesniak-Quast, Centre for Research in Contemporary History, Potsdam
Tom Misa, Charles Babbage Institute and University of Minnesota

13-17 June 2007
Past and Futures of Water
5th IWHA-Conference
The International Water History Association (IWHA) fifth biennial conference
Tampere, Finland
Cfp: New deadline 31 January 2007

The conference program addresses diverse topics related to water history and futures, and will provide an excellent opportunity for scholars and practitioners from a variety of disciplines and different parts of the world to meet and discuss the many fascinating aspects of water history.
Please find further information at: http://www.envhist.org/

6-7 July 2007
Minds, Bodies, Machines Conference
London
Call for Papers - Deadline 28 February 2007

This interdisciplinary conference, convened by Birkbeck's Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies, University of London, in partnership with the Department of English, University of Melbourne, and software developers Constraint Technologies International (CTI), will take place on 6-7 July 2007 at Birkbeck College, Malet Street, Bloomsbury.
The two-day conference will explore the relationship between minds, bodies and machines in the long nineteenth century. Recent research on the Enlightenment's frontier technologies has established that era's preoccupation with developing machinery that could simulate the cognitive and physiological processes of human beings. According to some critics, however, these Promethean ambitions were shelved during the nineteenth century, when the android as artefact was relocated to the realm of the imagination, where it became a threatening figure. According to this reading, the android as scientific project and a figure of possibility only re-emerges in our own era. The aim of this conference is to test this claim by exploring the continuities and discontinuities in the imagining of the human/machine interface in the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries.
The conference organisers - Hilary Fraser (Birkbeck), Deirdre Coleman (Melbourne) and Paul Hyland (CTI) - invite proposals for papers that examine the intersection of minds, bodies and machines during the long nineteenth century. Topics include: the virtual and the real; technologies of the sublime; evolution and machines; techniques of communication; technologies of travel; medical technology; miniaturisation; self-reproduction; and spiritualism.
The conference programme will include plenary addresses, seminars and workshops. Confirmed speakers include: Dr Caroline Arscott, Professor Jay Clayton, Professor Steven Connor, Professor Iain McCalman, Professor Peter Otto, Professor Kevin Warwick and Dr Elizabeth Wilson.
A selection of papers arising from this conference will be published in the online journal 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century.
Abstracts for papers of 20 minutes, as well as details of expected audio-visual needs, should be submitted no later than 28 FEBRUARY 2007. Please send proposals by email to submissions@mindsbodiesmachines.org.

8-11 July 2007
The Society for Philosophy and Technology 2007 Biennial Meeting,
Charleston, South Carolina
Deadline for proposals, 1 January 2007

The Society has sponsored conferences on philosophical aspects of technology since the late 1970s. Conferences are held every other year, rotating between North America and Europe. The Society welcomes a broad range of papers from various philosophical perspectives and schools. This year, the program committee especially invites submissions on the conference theme of technology and globalization, but submissions on all aspects of philosophy and technology are welcome, including work on emerging technologies, such as biotechnology, genetics and philosophy, nanotechnology and information technology. For details, see http://www.spt.org/.

3-5 August 2007
The 2007 IEEE Conference on the History of Electric Power
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, USA
Deadline for paper proposals: 1 March 2007

This is the sixth in a series of conferences sponsored by the IEEE History Committee and the IEEE History Center at Rutgers University. The conference will be held on the campus of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, home to the Edward Weston Papers, in Newark, New Jersey, USA. This is close to the Edison National Historic Site, which is undergoing major renovation and is soon to reopen. The profound role electric power has had in shaping the modern world, from Edison's first central station in 1882 to the present, makes this a vital topic of historical study. We expect that at this conference, as at our earlier conferences, we will have a congenial group of engineers, historians, museum curators, and others, dozens of fascinating papers, plenty of time for informal discussion, and some interesting excursions. Conference papers will deal with all aspects of electric power and its applications from the 19th century to the present.

Please submit abstract and 1-page c.v., either electronically or in paper form, to
Frederik Nebeker, IEEE History Center,
Rutgers University, 39 Union Street, New Brunswick NJ 08901, USA;
f.nebeker@ieee.org
The deadline for paper proposals is 1 March 2007. Additional information will be posted on the IEEE History Center Website at www.ieee.org/web/aboutus/history_center/.

14-19 August 2007
Fashioning Technology: Design from Imagination to Practice
ICOHTEC Symposium 2007
The International Committee for the History of Technology's 34th Symposium in Copenhagen, Denmark (see above)

5-7 September 2007
CFP: Politics of Fear in the Cold War
Hamburg
Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung
CFP, Deadline: 1 January 2007
Politics of Fear in the Cold War
Part IV of a Conference Series "Between 'Total War' and 'Small Wars': Studies in the Societal History of the Cold War"

I
The societal history of the Cold War is inseparably bound up with the atom bomb and the threat of the potential use of this weapon. Put more precisely: with the fact that both sides possessed a weapon capable of destroying all life. The politics of the bomb were embedded in a structural dilemma. For the sake of self-preservation the military use of atomic weapons had to be renounced. Intimidation of the enemy and maintenance of one's own credibility, however, required that signals be given to the other side that one was capable and willing to employ such a weapon. Necessity, if not ineluctability, demanded an ambivalent and delicate mixture of political principles: calculability to whatever extent possible, incalculability to whatever extent necessary. In other words: The promise and guarantee of security had become precarious-and with them the configuration of the future as well as the very possibility of configuring it. For four decades this was the hallmark of every one of the countless crises of confrontation between blocs. "Staging the danger" and "sounding the all-clear signal," "state of emergency" and "détente" were inseparable components of the period's politics.
For that reason a discussion of the problem of "Fear in the Cold War" is crucial. An international conference held by the Hamburg Institute for Social Research, from September 5-7, 2007, will be devoted to this topic with consideration of the following questions:

The first question posed deals with the social manifestations and political staging of fear in the nuclear age. Put more precisely: with the interrelationship and symbiosis of "being afraid" and "instilling fear," with the instrumentalization and acceptance of fear among the general public. It is thus presumed that the problem of "Fear in the Cold War" is not solely a matter of a purposeful political strategy. In addition, there is also the perspective of mental and sociopsychological attitudes, including the willingness to be frightened.

The second question posed addresses the modalities of dealing with fear, the reciprocal linkage between fear-creating scenarios and the promise of security, of insecurity on the one hand and of a demonstration of strength on the other; or the problem of how fear and its staging are connected with the demonstration and verification of power, including the cultivation of fantasies of power and omnipotence. It is thus presumed that a staged condition of fear is not compatible over time with the necessity of social cohesion and integration. To that extent, the existence and staging of a threat demands its own counterproposal. Responses are sought to the question of the nature of such a counterplan, of its political, communicative and aesthetic forms of expression.

Third, it is of importance that the methodological implications and premises of the topic be ascertained and that contributions that take us even further in this regard be included. These should also deal with the discussion that has arisen over the last few years. This presumes of course that this discussion still requires methodological enhancement and refinement. The conference should therefore also be a forum for the exchange of innovative concepts and for a discussion of methodological desiderata.

II
We are asking for proposals for papers that address at least one or possibly more of the following aspects:
1. Political and military elites
What role does fear play in images of the world, of its politics and society, held by the elite in decision-making positions?

2. The political instrumentalization of fear
Under what conditions is fear instrumentalized, for what political purposes and with what societal intentions? What is the relationship between real and constructed scenarios of menace? What political styles and what legitimizing rhetoric are formed from them? What is thematicized and in what way? And: When and under what preconditions is such an instrumentalization rejected? How does one define limits in dealing with fear? To what extent does a "politics of fear" establish order, self-assurance and cooperation, to what extent is it detrimental to those political goals? What role does the contribution of the media play in this regard?

3. Counterproposals for fear
What promises of security are evoked by or counterposed to fear? What is the relationship between talk about fear and the proposal that one need not fear? What forms of expression do such counterproposals take on?

4. Societal interaction with fear
Is there a willingness to accept fear and how does one decode that willingness? What traditions and societal self-images are conspicuous? What is accepted and by whom? Who are the mediators? In what social practices (like denunciation) is social acceptance of fear reflected? Where are the limits of social acceptance? Which counterproposals do critics (peace and anti-nuke activists, disarmament advocates) make use of? Is playing with fear also a component of the political counterproposal to fear?

5. Cycles in the political and social interaction with fear
What can be concluded about the cyclical tendencies of a politics of fear and attempts to restrict it? And what's about its lasting effects? What traces and vestiges remain afterward?

III
The topic is incorporated within the larger context of a global societal history of the Cold War, in which particular weight will be give to comparative studies of the nuclear powers and/or societies under the "nuclear umbrella" of the superpowers. Therefore the focus will be on papers dealing with the USA, Western and Eastern Europe, Japan, and the Soviet Union.
The conference will be held in English.
All interested parties should apply by e-mail with a 1 to 2 page abstract in English, plus a brief CV, including a list of publications, by January 1, 2007. This should be mailed to: Uta.Balbier@his-online.de

It is expected that invitees will submit a paper up to 20 pages long on their proposed topic by June 1, 2007. The Hamburg Institute for Social Research will cover the costs of travel and accommodations.

For further information please contact: Dr. Uta Andrea Balbier, Uta.Balbier@his-online.de

28 -30 September 2007
Praxis der Theorie / Theory and Practise
90th Annual Meeting of the Society for History of Medicine, Science and Technology DGGMNT
Wuppertal, Germany
Deadline for proposals 30 April 2007

In which way was research practised? In the History of Science, Medicine and Technology it makes sense, to analyse mutual influences between theories and practise. To which degree theories had been influenced by different practise of research?

Please find more information on: http://www.dggmnt.de/tagungen/Wuppertal2007.html Please contact: Dr. Sabine Schleiermacher, sabine.schleiermacher@charite.de

18-21 October 2007
SHOT-Meeting, Society for the History of Technology
Washington, D.C.
Deadline of the call for papers: March 16, 2007
The 2007 meeting, which convenes 18-21 October 2007 at the Capital Hilton in Washington, D.C., will kick off SHOT's two-year fiftieth anniversary celebration http://www.historyoftechnology.org/fiftieth.html and launch its second half century around the unifying theme "Looking Back, Looking Beyond."
Planning is well underway. The meeting will feature a special day-long workshop reviewing accomplishments and challenges in the history of technology; a three-generation plenary session; a luncheon honoring da Vinci medalists; and a rich offering of gatherings, entertainment, and sessions.
Please find the call for papers and an invitation for proposals for other events on
http://www.historyoftechnology.org/annualmtg/2007SHOT_cfp.pdf

25 - 28 October 2007
Mobility, History Heritage and Design
Fifth Annual (Jubilee) Conference on the
History of Transport, Traffic and Mobility (T2M)
Helmond, The Netherlands
Deadline for abstracts: 31 March 2007

This is a first Call for Papers for the fifth international T2M conference, with the theme 'Heritage and Design,' to be held in Helmond (near Eindhoven), in the Netherlands. After our successful conference in Paris this year (with 175 attendants), individual paper and entire session proposals are now invited, either on the conference theme, or on any other topic from the broad domain of transport and mobility history.

Both 'Design' and 'Heritage' direct our attention to the artefact and its context of production, use and re-use, in the latter case either as a museum exhibit or as an object of leisure consumption by 'amateurs.' However looked upon, recent scholarship in both Design History and Public History has pushed the 'user' or 'mobility consumer' into the centre of our analysis. Whereas the former studies the interaction between producers and consumers, the latter develops concepts of presenting transport and mobility as a lens to our current joys and chagrins in an increasingly 'liquid world' (Baumann). Submissions are invited, not only on what engineers know and how they know it (Vincenti), but also on the 'doings and sayings' (Schatzki) of the user and consumer. Recently, especially national and transnational (European) governments discovered the importance of making mobility history a part of cultural heritage. This conference, therefore, provides a platform for historians of technology, museum curators and design historians to join the debate about the cultural and material turn in mobility history, nurtured by T2M since its foundation. Because T2M wishes to provide a meeting space for all transport and mobility historians, proposals not directly related to the conference's main theme are welcome, as well.

Participants are encouraged, though not required, to organize panels either on the conference theme or on any other topic from the broad domain of transport and mobility history. A panel consists of a chair and normally up to three speakers and a commentator.
The deadline for abstracts and a short cv (English only) is 31 March 2007: maximum one page for individual papers or one page per presentation within a session proposal, including a CV per person of max. 1 page as well. Session proposals should be accompanied by a separate one-page overview of the session, including chair and commentator and their CV's. Please send proposals to: submissions@t2m.org.

Submitters will be notified by 30 April 2007 whether their proposal has been accepted by the Programme Committee, and will then be requested to send in a full paper by 1 September 2007 at the latest. A CD-ROM will be sent beforehand to all participants so as to facilitate only short presentations with an emphasis on debate and discussion. Registration deadlines will be provided during the month of April 2007. At that time the registration fee will be known (and will not be higher than € 120 for non-members of the association).

The conference will coincide with the internationally-renowned Dutch Design Week in nearby Eindhoven (with 60,000 visitors expected). The city of Helmond, on 15 km from Eindhoven, will support this event by organizing its own exhibition dedicated to design and heritage. This year, T2M celebrates its fifth consecutive annual conference. In cooperation with the city of Helmond a special social program is in the making dedicated to the efforts of the local and regional authorities to turn a small industrial town into a post-modern (and controversial) marvel of town planning and architecture within a European context. Part of this is the attempt to make the region around Eindhoven into one of the European hot spots of mobility design and heritage. Participants to this jubilee conference are therefore encouraged to bring their spouses and partners to make the conference into a truly memorable event.
For information on previous conferences and the T2M association, and for any other information, see www.t2m.org. Further details of the 2007 conference will be posted there in due course.

31 October -1 November 2007
"Making Science Global: Reconsidering the Social and Intellectual Implications of the International Polar and Geophysical Years"
Smithsonian Institution
Deadline: December 31, 2006

The program committee invites papers for a possible two-day conference examining the impetus for (and the impact upon) science, society, and culture of the International Polar Years (IPYs) of 1882-83 and 1932-33, and the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58, as well as how this perspective might be useful for planners of the current IPY in 2007-2008. We intend to explore the origins of these efforts, their political dimensions, and their consequences. Proposals for papers should include a title and abstract, as well as curriculum vita. For details, contact David DeVorkin, devorkind@si.edu, Roger Launius, launiusR@si.edu, and James Fleming, jfleming@colby.edu

2-3 November 2007
Sound in the Era of Mechanical Reproduction
Hagley Library, Wilmington, Delaware
Call for papers - Deadline 31 March 2007

The Center for the History of Business, Technology and Society invites proposals for empirically based historical papers that analyze sound in commercial, technological, and legal environments since the late 19th century. Our principal interest is in papers that explore the integration of sound with the commercial practices of music, radio, film, and television, and the commercial engineering of sound in social environments such as shopping and the workplace. Proposals can consider the legal and cultural implications of innovations in technology and business practices, such as the impact on the political economy of sound and notions of sound and sound-based products as property. We also encourage papers that explore sources of innovation in sound and music (especially from communities and/or business enterprises defined by ethnicity, race, or region), as well as those focusing on the transnational circulation of sound-related technologies and business practices. Proposals should be no more than 500 words and accompanied by a short cv. Deadline 31 March 2007. To submit a proposal or to obtain more information, contact Carol Lockman, clockman@Hagley.org.

IV. Fellowships and Scholarships

IEEE Fellowship in Electrical History-Academic Year 2007/2008
Deadline: 15 February 2007

The IEEE Fellowship in Electrical History supports either one year of full-time graduate work in the history of electrical science and technology at a college or university of recognized standing, or up to one year of post-doctoral research for a scholar in this field who has received his Ph.D. within the past three years. This award is supported by the IEEE Life Members Committee. The stipend is $17,000, with a research budget of $3,000.
Candidates with undergraduate degrees in engineering, the sciences, or the humanities are eligible for the fellowship. For pre-doctoral applicants, however, the award is conditional upon acceptance of the candidate into an appropriate graduate program in history at a school of recognized standing. In addition, pre-doctoral recipients may not hold or subsequently receive other fellowships, but they may earn up to $5,000 for work that is directly related to their graduate studies. Pre-doctoral fellows must pursue full-time graduate work and evidence of satisfactory academic performance is required. These restrictions do not apply to post-doctoral applicants.
The Fellow is selected on the basis of the candidate's potential for pursuing research in, and contributing to, electrical history. Application forms are available on-line at http://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/fin_support.html. The deadline for completed applications is 15 February 2007. This completed application packet should be sent to the Chairman, IEEE Fellowship in Electrical History Committee, IEEE History Center, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 39 Union Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8538. Applicants will be notified of the results by 1 June 2007.
The IEEE Fellowship in Electrical Engineering History is administered by the IEEE History Committee and supported by the IEEE Life Members Committee.

IEEE History Center Internship-2007
Deadline: 1 March 2007

Scholars at the beginning of their career studying the history of electrical technology and computing are invited to contact the Center to be considered for a paid Internship at the Center's offices on the Rutgers University campus in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
The intern program seeks to provide research experience for graduate students in the history of electrical and computer technologies, while enlisting the help of promising young scholars for the Center's projects. The Intern generally works full-time for two months at the History Center on a Center project that is connected to his or her own area of interest. This time is usually during the summer, but other arrangements will be considered. Interns are also encouraged to consult with the Center's staff and its associates, and guided to research resources in the area. The internship is designed for those near the beginning or middle of their graduate careers, but advanced undergraduates, advanced graduates, and -- on rare occasions -- recent Ph.D.s, will also be considered. Special consideration is often given to scholars from outside the United States who might not otherwise have an opportunity to visit historical resources in this country.
The stipend paid to the intern is US$3,500, but additional funds might not be available to defray travel costs, depending on the intern's circumstances. This internship is supported by the IEEE Life Members Committee.
There is no formal application form. To apply, please mail a curriculum vitae showing your studies in electrical history along with a cover letter describing the sort of project you would be interested in doing (see contact information below). The deadline for contacting the IEEE History Center is 1 March 2007.

Send information to Internship, IEEE History Center, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 39 Union Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8538, ieee-history@ieee.org. Electronic submissions welcome.

V. Recently published Books

Reinhold Bauer: Gescheiterte Innovationen. Fehlschläge und technologischer Wandel. Campus, Forschung, Vol. 893. Frankfurt/M. 2006.

Most of innovations are economically unsuccessful for various reasons. Nevertheless historians analyze quite often only the successful innovations. In result, the picture of the technical development they draw is quite different from the results of research in respect to failed innovations.

Sacha-Roger Szabo: Rausch und Rummel. Attraktionen auf Jahrmärkten und in Vergnügungsparks. Eine soziologische Kulturgeschichte. Bielefeld 2006.

The book is dedicated to experiences on annual fairs and in amusement parks from a sociological point of view. The author contributes to research on mutual influences of technology and play.