Perspectives on Science

This seminar in the Economization of Global Health series focuses on the origins, production and reception of one of the major moments in the economization of global health: the World Bank's World Development Report 1993: Investing in Health (WDR93). Our speakers, both internationally recognized economists, played key roles in this venture: Dean Jamison was the lead author of the report, while Abd...

Sebastián Gil-Riaño examines how scientific articulations of human diversity have been used to both legitimize and confront notions of race and racism in the modern world. Find this podcast and more in the Consortium's series on racial science at: www.chstm.org/video/101

Sadiah Qureshi recounts the history of the exhibition of displayed peoples in nineteenth-century Britain, and how these shows contributed to the formation of anthropology. Find this podcast and more in the Consortium's series on racial science at: www.chstm.org/video/101

In this podcast episode, we talk with Jonson Miller, author of Engineering Manhood: Race and the Antebellum Virginia Military Institute. In Engineering Manhood, Jonson Miller explores the development of the Virginia Military Institute and the engineering profession in the Antebellum United States. Miller delves into the ways in which VMI was a node in the struggle for political representation amon...

John Jackson discusses the legacy of nineteenth-century racial science on twentieth-century scientific investigation, the challenge to racial science made by population genetics and anthropology, and the ways in which the pseudoscience of race continues to inform twenty-first century debates. Find this podcast and more in the Consortium's series on racial science at: www.chstm.org/video/101

Rana Hogarth talks about how white physicians "medicalized" blackness in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and how African-Americans pushed back against this endeavor. Find this podcast and more in the Consortium's series on racial science at: www.chstm.org/video/101

This event looks at the profound health inequities around giving birth, further laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic. Discussions with experts include how slavery and the history of reproductive medicine intersect, the impact that medical racism has on Black birthing people from slavery to freedom, engagement in the national reproductive justice movement, and recent efforts to address racial inequit...

Follow along with Professor Mary Fissell as she discusses her research on Aristotle's Masterpiece, a late 17th century sex, midwifery, and childbirth manual popular in England and America from its publication until well into the 20th century. Dr. Fissell explores the ways in which readers used their copies of the book to record births and vows of love and companionship, performing a similar functi...

Join Fellows of the Consortium and Jan Golinski, Thomas Misa, and Keith Wailoo, the respective presidents of the History of Science Society, Society for the History of Technology, and the American Association for the History of Medicine, as they discuss the challenges of the present moment and what the future holds for their organizations. They discuss the organizations' new initiatives, the roles...

What is the relationship between technological change and economic development? Do the roots of the 'knowledge economy' lie in sixteenth century Europe? Explore these issues and more beginning with an in-depth look at Johannes Stradanus's Nova Reperta [ca. 1590], an engraved series of prints depicting inventions such as the printing press, gunpowder, and guaiacum, a plant used to treat syphilis. J...

Kavita Sivaramakrishnan reflects on public engagement, political history, and the COVID-19 crisis in India. Find this podcast and more in the Consortium's series on COVID-19 at: https://www.chstm.org/video/74

Mary Augusta Brazelton talks about the COVID-19 crisis along with the history of public health and modernization in China. Find this podcast and more in the Consortium's series on COVID-19 at: https://www.chstm.org/video/74

Marcos Cueto discusses the COVID-19 crisis in Brazil. Find this podcast and more in the Consortium's series on COVID-19 at: https://www.chstm.org/video/74

Amir Afkhami discusses the history of epidemic disease in Iran, including the current crisis. Find this podcast and more in the Consortium's series on COVID-19 at: https://www.chstm.org/video/74

Cindy Connolly, Patricia D'Antonio, and Julie Fairman discuss the role of nurses and the nursing profession in the history of pandemics. Find this podcast and more in the Consortium's series on COVID-19 at: https://www.chstm.org/video/74

Catherine Burns explores the COVID-19 crisis in South Africa in the context of the history of HIV/AIDS. Find this podcast and more in the Consortium's series on COVID-19 at: https://www.chstm.org/video/74

On July 20, 1969, American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon. Fifty years later, five nations have sent spacecraft to the Moon and private enterprises are increasingly engaging with its exploration. The advancement of space science, the allure of profiting on lunar resources, and ideas for a permanent human presence on the Moon are raising attent...

Elena Conis examines how we use history, especially of the polio epidemics, when we discuss the COVID-19 pandemic. Find this podcast and more in the Consortium's series on COVID-19 at: https://www.chstm.org/video/74

Nancy Tomes reflects on the experience of being a historian of medicine during the COVID-19 epidemic, and interdisciplinary efforts to respond to the outbreak. Find this podcast and more in the Consortium's series on COVID-19 at: https://www.chstm.org/video/74

Dora Vargha talks about the role of international institutions during a pandemic. Find this podcast and more in the Consortium's series on COVID-19 at: https://www.chstm.org/video/74

Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis provides us with an introduction to the history and evolution of infectious disease. Find this podcast and more in the Consortium's series on COVID-19 at: https://www.chstm.org/video/74

In this podcast, we discuss the history of vaccines and public health with Dora Vargha, author of Polio Across the Iron Curtain: Hungary's Cold War with an Epidemic. Dora Vargha uses a series of polio epidemics in communist Hungary to understand the response to a global public health emergency in the midst of the Cold War. Dora Vargha was a 2010 to 2011 Dissertation Research Fellow and 2015 to 201...

In this podcast episode, we talk with James Poskett, author of Materials of the Mind: Phrenology, Race, and the Global History of Science, 1815-1920. Phrenology was the most popular mental science of the Victorian age. From American senators to Indian social reformers, this new mental science found supporters around the globe. Materials of the Mind tells the story of how phrenology changed the wor...

Kathryn Olivarius recounts how epidemics have exacerbated social and economical inequalities. Find this podcast and more in the Consortium's series on COVID-19 at: https://www.chstm.org/video/74

In this episode, we talk with Joseph Martin, author of Solid State Insurrection: How the Science of Substance Made American Physics Matter. Joseph Martin tells the story of how solid state physics challenged and redefined some of the core ideals of American physics, and in the process played an essential role in sustaining the prestige physics enjoyed in Cold War American society. Find this podcas...