Happy Summer!

We hope you are all having a happy, productive, and restful (if that’s your thing) time this summer. Please see the announcements below from various GECC officers, CoDI, and other news we thought you would appreciate reading.

Seeking panelists for HSS New Orleans GECC professionalization roundtable on improving grad student professional development

The GECC mentorship subcommittee is hosting a roundtable at HSS New Orleans about professional development opportunities for grad students. We are seeking a variety of perspectives for panelists in this conversation including from faculty members (TT, teaching track, and contingent are all welcome) and are especially interested in hearing from later career scholars, graduate program directors, and other department leaders. If interested or if you have any questions about our roundtable, please email roundtable moderator Ellie Louson below. Preference will be given to scholars in roles or with levels of experience not yet represented in our panel, and who are attending HSS in person (although zooming in is a possibility). Presenting in another HSS session will not preclude you from joining us! Full abstract below:

Improving Professional Development in History of Science Graduate Training

Graduate training in the history of science is primarily designed to prepare graduate students for academic careers involving research and teaching duties. Programs face the dual challenge of meeting their students’ professional development (PD) needs for a difficult academic job market and their desire for PD that supports broader career interests and skills development. What kind of PD opportunities do graduate students want? What valuable opportunities might students not know they need? How can faculty and administrators in graduate programs support graduate students’ professional development, both within and in parallel to the curriculum, given changes in the higher education landscape? In this interactive workshop, participants will hear from a panel of speakers, including current and recent students, faculty members, and administrators/GPDs, about designing professional development opportunities that usefully anticipate the uncertainty of the academic job market and reflect realistic and relevant goals and support for graduate students. Participants will be able to share their goals and experiences in mentored small groups. The session will end with a facilitated discussion/Q&A period.

News from CoDI

In 2025, the Committee on Diversity and Inclusivity will focus on advancing accessibility in all forms at the HSS. We invite you to join us in making this possible. Here are three tips on accessibility from the HSS Guide to Inclusivity that will improve your presentations at the annual meeting, and indeed in any context:

Be sure to make your presentations accessible for d/Deaf and hearing-impaired people. Both Google Slides and PowerPoint have built-in closed captioning features that transcribe the speaker’s and audience members’ words onto the screen.

Ensure that the colors you use on your slides are friendly for the colorblind. There are online apps—for example Vischeck (see below) which will check each slide to ensure that it is accessible. Colors on opposite sides of the color wheel work best together (red/blue, yellow/purple). Here’s a helpful accessibility color palette. 

If a microphone is available, please make sure to use it consistently.

And here is an essay by HSS member Nicole Schroeder on accessibility that appeared in Inside Higher Ed, October 5, 2022.

Job Opportunity: Assistant Professor in the History of Science & Technology at Texas State University

We will endeavor to send to you any HSTM job listings that come our way. The first to be announced for this hiring cycle is in sunny San Marcos, Texas, located about halfway between Austin and San Antonio. The announcement is as follows:

The Department of History at Texas State University invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the History of Science & Technology with a focus on Western Europe and/or its empires (period specialization open). Preference will be given to candidates with experience in Applied History/Digital Humanities. The successful candidate will be expected to teach survey courses in Western/world civilizations and specialized undergraduate and graduate courses in the History of Science & Technology, to direct graduate theses and serve on graduate committees, and to participate actively in departmental programs, service, and governance. This position is part of a cluster hire in the History of Science & Technology.

A PhD in History or a related field (e.g., History of Science and Technology or European Studies) is required by the time of appointment. Candidates must demonstrate an active research agenda in the History of Science & Technology with a focus on Western Europe and/or its empires.

Preference will be given to candidates with experience in Applied History/Digital Humanities and to those who demonstrate an active research agenda with a scholarship record that complements the existing strengths of the History Department.

Appointment date August 16, 2026. Salary is commensurate with experience. To guarantee full consideration, application materials must be received by October 1, 2025. Only applications submitted for this specific posting through the Texas State University website will be accepted and considered.

HSTM CFPs for Renaissance Society of America (RSA) 2026 Conference in San Francisco

The RSA’s newly appointed discipline representative for Medicine and Science Dr. Melissa Reynolds sent out calls for papers for three HSTM panels at the 2026 Renaissance Society of America conference which will be held in San Francisco on 19-21 February 2026. If you are interested in proposing a paper to any of these panels please click the associated button below.

Politics, Power, Patronage: Funding Medicine and Science in the Renaissance

This CFP invites proposals for 15- to 20-minute papers that consider the entanglements that bound financial or political capital to the production of medical or scientific knowledge in the Renaissance. Papers may consider how Renaissance practitioners navigated these entanglements: how they weathered changing dynastic or political regimes; how they leveraged their knowledge-making in service to private or corporate enterprise; or, how they sought to insulate the endeavor of knowledge-making from the instability of these systems of power. Alternatively, they might explore knowledge-making practices that resisted the disciplining forces of politics, power, and patronage, or examine Renaissance practitioners who participated in or imagined knowledge-making outside of these structures. Finally, papers might survey the material legacies of these entanglements: how did the production or deployment of scientific objects, illustrations, or instruments make visible the negotiated relationship between knowledge, money, and power?

Medicine and Science in the Early Modern Pacific I: Latin American and Asian Connections

co-organized with Sebestian Kroupa (McGill)

This CFP invites proposals for 15- to 20-minute papers attending to the importance of Latin America and Asia-Pacific Worlds to the development of Renaissance-era medical and scientific knowledge. With the establishment of the Manila-Acapulco galleon route in the late sixteenth century, the Pacific crossing joined the world at the seams, becoming a crucial conduit in increasingly global movements of people, goods, and knowledge. These exchanges were shaped by interactions among a multiethnic cast of actors, including European colonisers, Indigenous agents, Chinese merchants, Islamic seafarers, religious missionaries, and enslaved labourers. This panel seeks to broaden the geographical focus of the Pacific Ocean to incorporate the worlds of both the Pacific and Maritime Southeast Asia and beyond, including Latin America. This wider scope will allow for an exciting, boundary-shifting dialogue between Pacific, Asian, and Latin American historians. Papers that emphasize Indigenous knowledges and challenge the dominance of European epistemologies in the history and practice of medicine and science are especially welcome, as are papers that consider the material and cultural aspects of the production of medical and scientific knowledge.

Medicine and Science in the Early Modern Pacific II: Indo-Pacific Worlds

co-organized with Wenrui Zhao (Utah)

This CFP invites proposals for 15- to 20-minute papers that explore Renaissance science and medicine through the lens of the Indian and Pacific Ocean worlds. Precious metals aboard Spanish galleons flew through Manila, along with mining and metallurgical knowledge. European medical practitioners encountered unfamiliar diseases and diverse healing traditions while cultivating and experimenting with a variety of materia medica. Moreover, knowledge-making in this vast, interconnected space involved a wide array of actors, such as missionaries, merchants, artisans, healers, and sailors. Europe’s engagement with the Indo-Pacific region was shaped by trade, religious missions, political conquest, and voluntary and involuntary migration. While these connections fostered the production of scientific and medical knowledge, they also entailed processes of appropriation and erasure of knowledge systems. Topics may include but are by no means limited to: the roles of visual and material cultures in medical and scientific knowledge-making; the relationship between indigenous knowledge and European epistemologies; networks of collaboration and exchange; political economies and labor conditions underpinning knowledge production.

CFP: Southern Association for the History of Medicine and Science (SAHMS) Virtual Student Conference

Students whose work engages the history of medicine and science: We’d love to read your ideas for our 2025 virtual conference, focusing entirely on graduate and undergraduate scholarship. We welcome papers concerning all historical periods and places. The organizers are eager to read abstracts for deeply argued papers in addition to ones about methods you’re trying out, questions that have you stumped, or new material you have recently encountered and want to talk through with a group.

The deadline for submissions is Friday, 11 July 2025.

The Program Committee will notify you as to whether your paper is accepted no later than August 15, 2025. Selected presentations will be delivered via Zoom and should be no more than 15 minutes. All participants and attendees are responsible for paying a membership fee of $30.

That’s all from us with the GECC Communications Committee. If you have any announcements that you’d like us to include in our July newsletter please send it in to us with the Google Form linked below.

Sincerely,

The GECC Communications Committee