Spontaneous Generations


A new on-line journal for historians and philosophers of science has published its first issue.  Spontaneous Generations is peer-reviewed and interdisciplinary in focus.  Each issue will include research articles, short editorials, and focused discussion on selected topics.  The journal is currently accepting on-line submissions.  

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A Novel History of Psychology

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BOOK REVIEW: Vanessa L. Ryan, Thinking Without Thinking in the Victorian Novel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012) ——————————————— Science and (the study of) literature are growing closer together. From  Stanford's Literary Lab  and a recent New York Times piece on the Digital Humanities  to reading Austen in an MRI machine  and so-called " Literary Darwinism ," there's both controversy and a certain cache (and maybe even a little cash) in bringing scientific techniques and the study of literature closer together. This is your brain on Austen ( http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/september/images/mri_reading_news.jpg ) So what about the study of science and the study of literature? History of science, say, and literary history? The short answer is that it's happening in English departments, but not so much in History. Why? More on that below. Work on the interplay between science and literature has been dominated by scholars of the Victorian novel. G...
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The Strength of American Materials -- An Environmental History of Engineering Science

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From the Franklin Institute's General Report on the Explosions of Steam-Boilers     One of the many pleasures of writing "Tocqueville's Ghost" for HSNS ( discussed on AmericanScience here ) was revisiting Ann Johnson's  “Material Experiments: Environment and Engineering Institutions in the Early American Republic,” from Osiris  in 2009. It's a fascinating essay and makes a convincing case for rethinking the sort of science and engineering going on at West Point and in the Corps of Engineers in the early nineteenth century. Johnson shows how the West Point/Corps project adapted the French Polytechnique model in research as well as teaching, creating in the process a very productive "research school." She shows how prominent men of science like Alexander Dallas Bache carried on later celebrated work (most prominently his steam-boiler experiments, above) that owed much to their time working with Joseph Totten and the Corps of Engineers at Fort Adams. ...
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PLUTOPALOOZA! The Secret Science Club presents Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson on Wednesday, March 18 at 8 pm @ the Bell House, $3 cover charge

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photo by David Gamble COUNTDOWN TO RE-LAUNCH . . . Hold on to your wigs and keys, science scenesters! Union Hall and the Secret Science Club have been overwhelmed by audience demand---so it is now official: The Secret Science Club is moving from Union Hall to Brooklyn’s big new Bell House ! PLUS, the Secret Science Club is debuting its first-ever "theme song," written and performed by the Dead River Company . Check it out LIVE before the Neil deGrasse Tyson lecture. Special Event! Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson blasts off from the Bell House with a lecture on the "Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet," $3 cover The icy little world known as Pluto is billions of miles from Earth. Yet, when the International Astronomical Union demoted Pluto to the status of dwarf planet in 2006, the reaction was out of this world. Defiant T-shirt slogans, and pity-filled songs all raged against Pluto’s sad fate. Hell hath no fury like a planet (and its fans) scorned. ...
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