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for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology

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This listserv will contain full announcements.  Shorter versions and links to details will be provided in future.
Please send me items to post to the list that would be of interest to Society members:  position announcements, postdoctoral announcements, grant and funding opportunities, conference announcements, calls for papers, and brief queries on research topics.  

Thanks!

Anya Plutynski
Listserv Moderator, International Society for
History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology

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Anya Plutynski, Secretary, ISHPSSB

The Underwood International College of Yonsei University invites applications for a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine to teach at the International campus in Songdo, Incheon, located within the greater Seoul metropolitan region. Those who specialize in East Asia are especially encouraged to apply. Candidates should have strong research credentials and a firm commitment to undergraduate liberal arts education.

 

Teaching responsibilities are 6 credit-hours (2 classes) per semester. At least one of these classes will count towards the science literacy requirement of the program. The preferred starting date is March 2012. Compensation includes competitive salary, health insurance and other benefits, fully-subsidized housing (for up to 6 years), and a generous relocation and start-up package.

 

Yonsei University's Underwood International College is a highly competitive program at South Korea's most prestigious private university, and combines the intimate atmosphere and low student-faculty ratio of a liberal arts college with the resources of a major research university. All instruction is in English, and the student body represents over 25 different countries. As part of Yonsei University’s continuing effort to increase faculty diversity, we are only accepting applications from non-Korean citizens.

 

Interested applicants should send a short letter of application, dissertation abstract, and c.v. by email: ([log in to unmask]). Review of applications will take place from September 30, 2011. Short-listed candidates will be asked to submit 3 letters of recommendation, a writing sample, and sample syllabi. For additional information, please contact Prof. Michael Michael ([log in to unmask]). Prospective applicants are also encouraged to look at our website at http://uic.yonsei.ac.kr.

List members may be interested in a new exhibition at Cambridge University Library running until 23 December 2011:

***Books & Babies: Communicating Reproduction***

7 July–23 December 2011
(Closed 29 August and 12–18 September inclusive)
Monday-Friday 09.00-18.00, Saturday 09.00-16.30, Sunday closed
Admission Free

The London underground displays posters for fertility clinics, directed at both women and men. Picture books teach children the facts of life. We are always reading about reproduction. Reproduction also describes what communication media do — multiply images, sounds and text for wider consumption. This exhibition is about these two senses of reproduction, about babies and books, and the ways in which they have interacted in the past and continue to interact today.

Before reproduction there was generation, a broader view of how all things come into being than the fusion of egg and sperm. Before electronic media there were clay figurines, papyrus, parchment, printed books and journals. The interactions between communication media and ideas about reproduction have transformed the most intimate aspects of our lives.

/Books and Babies/ traces these interactions from ancient fertility figures and medieval manuscripts to the birth of Louise Brown following in vitro fertilization in 1978. The media sensation that surrounded her arrival illustrates how modern reproductive ‘miracles’ have been publicised worldwide. The research with Patrick Steptoe and Jean Purdy that led Robert Edwards to win the Nobel Prize reveals the varied roles of communication within and around the laboratory.

The exhibition opens with a chronological story of the books and other objects that have been central to communicating reproduction from ancient times to the present day. We move from theories of human generation to the modern dilemmas of reproductive choice and population control, and from handwritten documents to digital media. Other elements pursue particular themes: communication in reproductive research, the long life of a single advice manual (/Aristotle’s Masterpiece/), the evolutionary epic of the ‘Ascent of Man’, ‘Extraordinary Births’ as news, and the rise of ‘Population Arithmetick’.

For a taster: <http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/exhibitions/Babies/>

Funded by a Wellcome Trust Strategic Award in the History of Medicine on 'Generation to Reproduction' <http://www.reproduction.group.cam.ac.uk/>.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Origins of Mind is a forthcoming volume in the Springer Book Series in Biosemiotics. Abstracts (of ~150 words) are solicited by September 15*; formal invitations to contribute to the book will be sent by October 1. The final book manuscript will be sent to Springer in June 2012.
 
Book précis:
Origins of Mind will address a question that is fundamental to both science and philosophy: how and why did organic mindedness come to exist in the natural world? Researchers in the life and mind sciences will be invited to contribute papers that present or critique either comprehensive theories on the origins of organic mindedness, or accounts of the origins of specific cognitive capacities, e.g., mental representation, meaning-making, language and other forms of symbolic communication, moral behavior, creativity, etc.
 
*If you already submitted an abstract for the book proposal, you do not need to submit anything at this time. The book’s table of contents will be decided, and formal notification of inclusion in the book will be emailed, by October 1.
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Liz Stillwaggon Swan, PhD
History & Philosophy of Science Fellow
Center for the Humanities
Oregon State University
www.lizswan.com
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 **************************** End of announcements **************************

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Anya Plutynski
Listserv Moderator, International Society for
History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology
<http://www.ishpssb.org/>

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