Commission on the History of Chemistry
and Molecular Sciences
To the officers of DHST Commissions and Sections
Dear Colleagues,
I would like to bring to your attention an important recent publication of the International Science Council (ISC), to which the DHST is affiliated through our parent organization, the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology. Titled "Protecting Science in Times of Crisis," the working paper addresses the plight of scholars caught in the middle of the many ongoing conflicts and wars ravaging across the world. It can be accessed on this link.
Woefully, it is very likely that members of the communities represented by the Commissions and Sections that you lead may be under threat right now, or have been forcibly displaced, or have lost access to archives and livelihoods, among many other dire situations. If you think the DHST Council can help in any way, please let us know. Also, if you have ideas about ways in which our 2025 New Zealand congress could get involved, don't hesitate to reach out.
Sincerely,
Thomas Haddad
Assistant Secretary-General
DHST
Please find below a call for a session for the upcoming History of Science Society (HSS) Annual Conference taking place in Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico, 7-10 November 2024.
Additional information about HSS and the full CFP can be found here.
Proposed session for History of Science Society Annual Meeting, Mérida, Mexico, 7-10 November 2024; co-sponsored by the HSS Forum on History of Chemistry, the Commission on the History of Chemistry and the Molecular Sciences and the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry.
A central task for the history of chemistry is to understand the processes that have promoted an exponential expansion of chemical knowledge over the past two centuries, while creating a discipline that exhibits a vast, multifaceted range of interactions with its social context. Lying at the border of academic science and industrial technology, chemistry produces both major benefits and risks for society and has dramatically shaped the disposition of the world’s resources.
The analysis of the processes that have created modern chemistry is now nuanced by the increasing amount of historical data and computational power, which provide an opportunity for multidisciplinary approaches to the history of chemistry. In fact, new insights on the history of chemistry and new methods and tools for its practice are emerging from scientists and scholars from mathematics, computer sciences, physics and linguistics, among other disciplines. These multidisciplinary approaches do not come alone, but are enriched by the epistemic frameworks of each contributing discipline, which nuance those of the history of science.
The aim of the proposed session is to bring historians and practitioners of these multidisciplinary approaches to the history of chemistry together to contrast their results and methods, and to promote a multidisciplinary dialogue for the sake of the history of chemistry. We believe that through this discussion, researchers and scholars can gain a more holistic understanding of complex historical phenomena and can also avoid oversimplifications or biases inherent in single-discipline approaches.
We are, in particular, interested in addressing the following questions:
This session welcomes contributions from researchers across various disciplines in the history of science, as well as in chemistry, computer science, linguistics, mathematics, physics, and sociology. By fostering collaboration among diverse fields, we aim to gain comprehensive insights into the multifaceted nature of the historical unfolding of chemistry.
We invite scholars and researchers to submit abstracts addressing any of the aforementioned topics or related areas within the history of chemistry. Submissions may include empirical studies, theoretical frameworks, methodological advancements, or interdisciplinary perspectives. We encourage innovative approaches and welcome contributions from both established academics and early-career researchers.
If you are interested in participating in this session, please send your name, affiliation, email address and the topic of your presentation to Guillermo Restrepo (restrepo@mis.mpg.de)by 8 April 2024. At a later date, organizers will request a title and an abstract, but they are not needed at this stage.
Regards,
Guillermo Restrepo
Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences
Leipzig, Germany
Interdisciplinary Center of Bioinformatics
Leipzig University, Germany
Dear representatives of members, commissions and sections,
I am very happy to forward to you the Call for Symposia of the ICHST 2025 congress in New Zealand. Please do not hesitate to share this call widely in your own local and global communities. The Organizing committee, chaired by Hugh Slotten, is doing a wonderful work and we are very much looking forward to the congress,
With best wishes,
Liesbeth
The organizing committee invites you to submit a Symposia to be considered for presentation at the conference in Ōtepoti Dunedin, 29 June - 5 July 2025.
We invite Symposia submissions on any topic in the history of science, technology and medicine, but we especially encourage proposals that address aspects of the conference theme, across all periods, and from a variety of methodological and historiographical approaches.
Symposia proposal submissions will close on Monday 1 April 2024.
The theme of the 27th ICHST is “Peoples, Places, Exchanges, and Circulation."
For more information and to download your symposia proposal template, please visit the conference website.
Key Dates
Call for submission of symposia proposals: Now open
Deadline for submission of symposia proposals: 1 April 2024
Call for stand-alone papers opens: 1 April 2024
Registration opens: 11 July 2024
Deadline for submission of stand-alone paper proposals: From 1 October 2024
Deadline for submission of paper abstracts within symposia: From 1 November 2024
Early bird registration closes: 3 April 2025
Program released online: From 1 May 2025
Final date for registration: 1 May 2025
Congress opens: 29 June 2025
The 13th International Conference on the History of Chemistry (13ICHC) organized by the Working Party on History of Chemistry ( WPHC - link) of the European Chemical Society (EuChemS) will take place on May 23–26, 2023 in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. The CHCMS sponsors the conference through grants to early career scholars. More information here.)
The Symposium “A Half-Century of the History of Chemistry: Past, Present and Future” co-organized with Japanese Society for the History of Chemistry (JSHC) will take place on Sunday July 9, 2023, in Tokyo, Japan. This conference is organized on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the JSHC. More information here.
Through its Conversations on the History of Chemistry, the CHCMS aims to start a discussion around the
future of the history of chemistry and the molecular sciences. We will host a series of online roundtables, during which speakers from different career stages will meet to share their thoughts, introducing a general discussion to which the
audience is invited to take part.
Our full programme for 2023 may be found here.
Each session will focus on a specific theme, questioning the different methodological approaches to the history of chemistry and the molecular sciences, its importance for a
variety of audiences, and its relation to other disciplinary areas.
The first few roundtables will take place on Zoom in the coming two months. Please register here to receive the links and attend. For any other questions, feel free to contact the CHCMS secretary Sarah Hijmans at
sarahnhijmans@gmail.com.