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Vol. 50, No. 1 January 2021 Newsof the lHistoryetter of Science Society Table of Contents Sarton Medalist Jim Bennett Sarton Medalist Jim Bennett at the HSS Virtual Forum at the HSS Virtual Forum 1 Editor’s note: One of the highlights of our 2020 virtual forum—an event with many highs—was the Sarton Medal Plenary session honoring the 2020 recipient, Jim Bennett. This year’s plenary took the form of a fascinating and Lysenko, Once Again 14 engaging conversation between the medalist and a distinguished panel of historians of science, assembled by the organizing Interview with an Editor 16 committee—Karen Rader, Sarah Qidwai, and Jean-François Gauvin (with a little help from the Newsletter). Paola Bertucci anchored the session and introduced the interlocutors—Jahnavi Phalkey, Erich Weidenhammer, Anna Toledano, Innovations in Education: Tim Boon and Jean-François—and Robert Bud offered closing remarks. Both for those HSS members who missed the Digital Projects in History 19 session or for those who wish to revisit it, here is an edited version of the session. Member News 21 Introduction by Paola Bertucci, Yale University: Jim used to come into the classroom, de facto the museum’s basement, a seventeenth-century alchemical HSS News 25 It is my great honor and pleasure to chair this plenary laboratory, with instruments in his hands. The session, and introduce the 2020 Sarton Medalist, Jim objects at first looked indecipherable. As he began Notes from Our Bibliographer 31 Bennett. Jim is a pioneer of the so-called material turn disassembling them, explaining the various functions, in the history of science and technology. In his roles emphasizing the high level of craftsmanship, the News from the Profession 33 as a scholar, curator, and teacher, he has taught us to various hands from makers to owner and users, the look beyond texts to recognize the often invisible labor, instruments went through over time, it became clear both intellectual and manual, that is constitutive of the that by studying the history of science, through human activities we call science and technology. His artifacts, we were focusing on historical actors’ work has bridged the worlds of the museum and the practices and ways of knowing that are often invisible academy, bringing the most current historiographical in textual accounts. It is this approach, which centers debates to general audiences. on instruments and moves outward to address deep I was lucky to be among the first cohort of graduate questions about the nature of scientific knowledge and students, when Jim launched a Master of Science degree practice, that distinguishes Jim’s contributions to our at the University of Oxford in history of science. The discipline. program was physically based in the History of Science I could list the many highlights from Jim’s distinguished Museum at Oxford, where he was the director. That one career from his curatorships at Greenwich, Cambridge, year of study, literally, changed my intellectual trajectory. Oxford, London; numerous collaborations with other And I know, I’m not speaking just for myself. museums of the history of science across Europe; Continued on Page 2 History of Science Society Newsletter Sarton Medalist Jim Bennett, cont. History of Science Society Executive Office History of Science Society his many publications. I could discuss how Jahnavi Phalkey (Founding Director, 440 Geddes Hall his instrument-focused scholarship reshaped Science Gallery, Bengaluru, India): University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN 46556 conversations about the Scientific Revolution. Jim, it’s a pleasure and a privilege to participate in Phone: 574-631-1194 But most of all, I wish to emphasize the fact that the celebration of your work. There are some of us E-mail: [email protected] Web site: http://www.hssonline.org/ he has trained generations of students who have trying to walk in your footsteps and trying to learn Subscription Inquiries then moved on to become professors or curators what it might be like in the twenty-first century University of Chicago Press around the world. And who keep practicing to work across public spaces and see what we can Phone: 877-705-1878 E-mail: [email protected] what he has taught us: thinking with scientific actually make of it. My question for you is, what is Or write: University of Chicago Press, instruments. the one most important thing, to your mind, that Subscription Fulfillment Manager, PO Box 37005, is lost to the history of science when scholars do Chicago, IL 60637-7363 Jim’s scholarship and museum work demonstrate Moving? not engage with objects/instruments and continue Please notify both the HSS Executive Office and that excellence in our discipline doesn’t manifest instead with textual sources and oral history? the University of Chicago Press. itself exclusively through publications. Historians Editorial Policies, Advertising and Submissions of science are not necessarily desk-bound JB: It is difficult to choose one thing. My first The History of Science Society Newsletter is published in January, April, July, and October, scholars. Excellence in the history of science thought was that it’s difficult to imagine a scholar and sent to all individual members of the Society. can be and is found, in museum curatorships, now who would determine not to engage with The Newsletter Editor is Neeraja Sankaran. The objects and instruments as a matter of principle. format and editorial policies are determined collaborative exhibitions and catalogs, digital by the Editor in consultation with the Society projects, and inspiring teaching. Museums have So I must be careful not to fight old battles or Editors. All advertising copy must be submitted continue outdated debates. in electronic form. Advertisements are accepted enormous potential for reaching broad audiences, on a space-available basis only, and the Society and sparking and informing conversations about reserves the right not to print a submission. The An idealist position of that sort was still possible rates are as follows: Full page (10 x 7”), $625; current issues surrounding science, medicine, and when I first became involved in the late 1960s, Two-thirds page (6.625 x 7”), $450; Horizontal technology. As this virtual forum demonstrates, Half page (10 x 3.5”), $375; Horizontal or Vertical when there was a strand of opinion that science Third page (6.625 x 3.5” or 3.25 x 7”), $275; younger generations of historians of science in its finest expression was essentially and Sixth page (3.25 x 3.5”), $150. The deadline for insertion orders is six weeks prior to the month of are eager to participate in such debates. The admirably cerebral, an activity of the intellect. publication and should be sent to info@hssonline. recognition of Jim Bennett’s work through the Once science reached that level, the idea was org. Please send photographs in a jpeg format, in the highest resolution possible (minimum 4MB) Sarton Medal is an encouraging message to many that whatever means had been used to get there, to maintain quality during sizing and printing. graduate students who are considering jobs, could be regarded as contingent and incidental, The deadline for news, announcements, and job/ fellowship/prize listings is firm: four weeks prior beyond or along academia. It shows them that of interest to antiquarians but not intellectual to the month of publication. Long items (feature their expertise can be used in different contexts, historians. Odd as it may seem, this was quite stories) should be submitted eight weeks prior to the month of publication. Please send all and to much effect. a liberating impulse at the time, as it released material to the attention of the Executive Office: historians of science from the confined narrative [email protected]. Continued on Page 3 © 2021 by the History of Science Society 2 History of Science Society Newsletter • January 2021 History of Science Society Newsletter Sarton Medalist Jim Bennett, cont. of empirical discovery and, being too narrow with them, to teach through them, to train century, best known in the traditional account and unrealistic in itself, in time opened the door others in their use, and so on, and therefore all as the person to whom Rheticus addressed the to consideration of other currents of thought this falls to our concern. This recognition brings Narratio Prima, the first published account of and activity—social, political, technological, knowledge of different areas into our toolkit—of the Copernican system, published before De commercial, and so on. the manufacturing culture, of contemporary Revolutionibus. Schöner had a printing press fabricating skills and specialisms, their gathering and was a maker of globes, including the first Paradoxically, becoming a museum curator meant into clusters and traditions, the available material matching pairs of celestial and terrestrial globes, that an idealist philosophy survived a bit longer resources in the period, and so on. characteristic of the contemporary discipline of in my world, gaining new vigor in aspects of the cosmography—a discipline largely astronomical science-center movement. I recall the challenge Perhaps I have to admit that I cannot name that had a much more active hold on 16th- that collections of objects were all very well for “the one most important thing” we lose by not century practice than planetary theory. In the antiquarians but that “the science” was not to engaging with the material, because what we then Oxford museum I had the care, remarkably, of be found there. The science lay elsewhere, in a miss is a general sensibility, an openness to a whole a celestial globe from the Royal Astronomical realm whose register was called, innocuously aspect of scientific practice. Also, I don’t want to Society’s collection, which was made in Schöner’s enough, “understanding,” a realm of concepts say that this sensibility is enhanced only through workshop.