Dear All, 

We are looking for a number of additional participants for a symposium on the
interactions and intersections of science and medicine, and their respective
historiographies, to be held at the 24th ICHSTM in Manchester, July 2013
(http://ichstm2013.com/). The details of the symposium and speakers already
signed are available below.

If you are interested in participating in this symposium please contact us
([log in to unmask]) before 15th September 2012. Please, include a paper
title, abstract (max. 2500 characters) and affiliation details. Thank you.

All the best,

Josep

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Josep Simon
Université Paris Ouest
http://www.u-paris10.fr/jsp/fiche_annuaireksup.jsp?CODE=22715&LANGUE=0
http://www.ihmc.uv-csic.es/cv.php?id=14&idioma=Ing
http://www.uoa.gr/step
http://www.pickeringchatto.com/physics
****

SYMPOSIUM ‘Science X Medicine: Promiscuous Objects, Entangled Problems’
Organized by Josep Simon (Université Paris Ouest) & Mónica García (Universidad
del Rosario).
24th ICHSTM, Manchester, 22-28 July 2013 

‘Science’ and ‘Medicine’ are two objects of study characterized by great
complexity and covering a large territory. But historians have traditionally
considered that their boundaries could be clearly defined, at least with regard
to each other. This distinction is still conventional, shaped by divided
academic, intellectual and historical traditions. In this framework, for
instance, the making of ‘modern medicine’ is explained through a simple
narrative stressing the introduction in the nineteenth century of laboratory
science in medical practice as ‘Science’ applied to ‘Medicine’, characterized
instead by clinical practices, and thus subordinated to the former. A more
symmetrical image of the science/medicine nexus is currently being prompted by
the study of contemporary developments such as biomedicine. Yet, this growing
scholarship has not reshaped yet the basic science/medicine framework. The
question is complex, since historical actors themselves have often built their
own scientific or medical identities, in opposition to each other. However, it
is increasingly visible that these two areas are far more promiscuous than
conventionally held. They can in fact be characterized by a large number of
entangled problems, mediating instruments and shared spaces. 

This symposium is connected to recent calls to overcome the aforementioned
opposition (Warner 1985 & 1995; Pickstone, 2000; Sturdy, 2011; Pickstone &
Worboys, 2011). A major aim is to bring together different approaches used in
the study of science or medicine to understand situations involving promiscuity
and entanglement in scientific and medical practices. Some guiding questions
are: What is the role of technology in the making of scientific disciplines and
medical specialisms? What is the role of quantification in creating scientific
and medical objects of inquiry? How have physics, chemistry, engineering, and
medicine shaped each other? How were perceived the different standards of proof
in medicine and in the physical sciences? What were the major spaces of exchange
and trading zones between science and medicine? 

This symposium presents case studies dealing with objects and problems across
science and medicine in national and transnational contexts between the 19th and
20th centuries. Among these, Stefan Pohl (Universidad del Rosario) deals with
the making of ‘race’ in Colombia, through interdisciplinary research on
nutrition. Mónica García (Universidad del Rosario) shows how bacteriology and
statistics shaped medical and epidemiological research in Colombia. José R.
Bertomeu Sánchez (Universitat de València) discusses how chemical and medical
methods configured forensic practice in French toxicology. Ximo Guillem
(Universitat de València) analyzes the development and problematization of
pesticide treatments by medical and scientific experts in England and Spain .
Josep Simon (Université Paris Ouest) discusses the role of technology in the
making of ‘medical physics’ as a discipline in France and Mexico. 
Comments to the symposium papers will be provided by Steve Sturdy (University of
Edinburgh).