Communiqué

Communiqué

№ 107. 2024 – 2025

Editors

• Kevin Kaiser, U. de Montréal
• Aaron Sidney Wright, Dalhousie U.

Cover Image

Canadian Museum of History, “Battle of Billings Bridge” associated materials, MCHCMH ARCHIVES DIGITAL 2023-H000.

CSHPS Officers

• President: Marga Vicedo, U. of Toronto
• Past President: Tara Abraham, U. of Guelph
• First Vice-President: Ingo Brigandt, U. of Alberta
• Second Vice-President: Delia Gavrus, U. of Winnipeg
• Secretary-Treasurer: Andrew Inkpen, Mount Allison U.
• Advisory Board: David Pantalony, Ingenium/Univ. of Ottawa; Lisa Gannett Saint Mary’s U.; Daniela Monaldi, York U.; Doreen Fraser, U. of Waterloo; François Claveau, Université de Sherbrooke; Vincent Auffrey, U. of Toronto
• Program Committee: Mélanie Frappier, King’s College (Chair); Eleanor Louson, Michigan State U.; Dani Inkpen, Mount Allison U.; Vincent Guillin, UQAM
• Local Arrangements:
• Nominating Committee: Elizabeth Neswald, Brock U.; Molly Kao, U. de Montréal
• Social Media Committee: Megan Krempa, U. of King’s College
• Graduate Student Committee: Emma Sigsworth, U. of Toronto .
• Web / List Manager: Allan Olley, Independent Scholar

Mots de les rédaction / Editors’ Letter

Nous somme heureux de vous présentez l’édition 107 de la revue Communiqué de la Société Canadien d’Histoire et Philosophie des Sciences (SCHPS/CSHPS) !

Celle-ci est le produit de la collaboration des divers membres de la société et mets en lumières différents enjeux et événement d’intérêt pour les membres. Avant de vous laisser explorer celle-ci, nous tenions à soulignons quelques points..

Un événement marquant cette année a été l'arrivée d'Aaron Wright en tant que coéditeur de Communiqué (Département d'histoire, Université Dalhousie, Nouvelle-Écosse). Aaron a apporté un vent de fraîcheur, notamment grâce à son engagement à ancrer davantage Communiqué dans les enjeux de la communauté (par exemple, en proposant de mettre en avant le sujet et le rapport du panel de l'an dernier sur « le backlash » en histoire et philosophie des sciences). Il a également mis en lumière certaines questions plus générales telles que l'accessibilité du Communiqué (pour les personnes malvoyantes, par exemple) et la viabilité du processus éditorial.

Bien que ces changements soient encore « en cours de réalisation », ils constituent des propositions plus que bienvenues et l'aide d'Aaron sur ces questions sera précieuse .

This issue theme is centered around the concept of “backlash” in History and Philosophy of Science (HPS). This concept, well-known in feminist activist and academic literature, refers to the reaction of dominant groups in society against progressive changes that improve the lives of marginalized people. Initially popularized during the US Civil Rights movement, the American journalist Susan Faludi influentially applied the concept in the 90s to a media counter-movement reacting to the advance of feminism. The concept has since been taken up to refer broadly to any counter-reaction to social progress or even, more broadly, to preventive intervention to limit such progress.

In HPS, the concept has been applied to different historical episodes (e.g. “science wars”), to explain the marginalization of feminist thought in the academic world, or to discuss the rise of populist anti-science movements.

More immediately, it has been used to address certain attacks and pressures experienced by researchers interested in social issues including in our CSHPS community during last year’s Congress.

In this issue 107 of Communiqué, we invited the community to explore the relevance and potential of this concept in the history and philosophy of science. You’ll find Lara Millman and Letitia Meynell’s report on their round-table at p. 9 and Jörg Matthias Determann’s text on the History of Women’s Activism in Science at p.14 that offers some reflections on the topic.

The cover image of this issue is a sign from the “Battle of Billings Bridge,” a February 2022 counter-protest—a backlash—which trapped the so-called “freedom” truck convoy on a bridge over the Rideau River in Ottawa. The convoy itself could be described as a backlash to the imposition of social restrictions during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. HPS scholars might find “We 🖤Science” both heartening and worrisome. It was an expression of the majority Canadian opinion that rejected the convoy. It was also an example of how the dynamic of backlashes can lead to the rejection of nuance and critical analysis. In this issue, Millman and Meynell’s discussion of the “Backlash” panel are exemplars of responding to a backlash without sacrificing our critical capacities, for instance in considering what makes campuses safe for all members of our academic community .

A final comment on some changes we made to the Communiqué are linked to our attempt to make it more accessible, within the existing infrastructure (Google Suite). Creating this issue in Google Docs allows for an HTML version to be published online, which is more accessible. Limitations to this system may be most evident in Docs’ poor capacity to handle figures and captions. We debated using the LaTeX document system, which is free, open source, and creates beautiful documents. Two considerations motivated our choice to use Docs. First, sustainability of publication for future editors, who may not be comfortable with LaTeX. Second, LaTeX is in something of a crisis as far as accessibility is concerned, because of the near-impossibility of producing accessible PDFs (in general), as the TeX Users Group explains. For both institutional continuity and accessibility, we chose to work with Google’s limitations. We hope the refreshed design appeals to a wide audience.

Kevin Kaiser est candidat au doctorat en Philosophie des sciences à l’Université de Montréal. Il travaille sur la conceptualisation et la mesure de l’interdisciplinarité en science et particulièrement en biologie.

Dr. Aaron Sidney Wright received his PhD from the IHPST at the University of Toronto in 2014 and he is currently an Associate Professor of History at Dalhousie and University of King’s College. His most recent book is More than Nothing: A history of the vacuum in theoretical physics, 1925–1980 (Oxford).

CSHPS President’s Report 2025

(Voir ci-dessous pour la version Française)

My term as CSHPS President comes to a close in just under two weeks, so this report will include some broad reflections on the past three years.

One of my goals as President was to facilitate interaction between graduate students and faculty, and our Montréal meeting included a new event for CSHPS: the Social Mixer. Our evening at Brutopia was a resounding success, and I hope this event is the start of a tradition.

During my term I have also sought to bolster graduate student representation in the society and plans for our meetings. Since 2023 we have had a Graduate Student Advisory Committee (GSAC), who have worked to represent student interests and needs. Grad student quiet/hangout rooms are now a part of CSHPS meetings, and a networking mailing list has been launched. This past year was quiet for GSAC, but the group has continued to discuss mentoring sessions, professional development activities (including life outside of academia). I hope despite how busy grad student life is that many of you will consider joining the GSAC for 2025-26.

Finally, we’ve made some small steps towards making the society more bilingual, by translating the program and ensuring as much communication from the society as possible appears in both French and English (thanks to Melanie Frappier for her translation assistance). Much more could be done on this front, and I hope this trend continues.

The Federation’s decision to have Congress 2025 take place at George Brown College meant we could not have an in-house Local Arrangements Coordinator who was also a CSHPS member. Although this was a challenge, we were fortunate to have been assigned George Brown professor Silvia Caicedo as our LAC. Silvia cheerfully and skillfully helped us with our planning for the conference and went above and beyond to ensure we had everything we needed. Communication was seamless. Thank you to Silvia—we could not have done this without you! I want to thank all the volunteers who made CSHPS 2025 happen, in particular our tireless Program Co-Chairs Letitia Meynell and Mélanie Frappier, as well as Megan Krempa, who assisted them. I also thank Lisa Gannett and Andrew Reynolds who co-organized a double session to commemorate Kathleen Okruhlik.

As the news about Congress 2026 unfolded in the past few weeks, and given the extra labour involved in liaising with the Federation to plan the conference, it is clear that we will need to do some serious thinking about our relationship with Congress. This is particularly important given the precarity of the Congress model in the face of massive budget restrictions in Canadian universities. Planning future CSHPS meetings in a post-pandemic world means we need to weigh the high value of in-person conferences—particularly for newer and emerging scholars where networking is much easier in person—with the environmental benefits and accessibility of online conferences.

I want to thank all members who have agreed to serve in various committee roles in CSHPS moving forward, particularly Andrew Inkpen, who will serve as Secretary-Treasurer, and Delia Gavrus, who joins us as 2nd Vice President. Thanks too to those who are about to finish their terms. I will be updating our position descriptions soon as well as the CSHPS Procedures Manual to facilitate those entering their new roles.

It's been an honour to help CSHPS navigate the realities of the past three years. First and foremost, I need to thank Paul Bartha who’s been unfailing in keeping me and CSHPS on track through several challenges. Our 2nd and 1st VPs, Ingo Brigandt and Marga Vicedo, have offered wise counsel for many difficult decisions. Letitia Meynell and Mélanie Frappier have deftly steered the Programme Committee collectively these past two years. To all of you—thanks for putting up with what at times were multiple frenzied emails per day. I offer my best wishes to Marga Vicedo who takes over as President following this meeting. I look forward to supporting you and the Executive as Past President and to help CSHPS evolve in ways that help the society and all of its members thrive.

Rapport 2025 de la présidente de la SCHPS Tara Abraham

(See above for English version)

Comme mon mandat en tant que présidente de la SCHPS touche à sa fin et se terminera dans un peu moins de deux semaines, ce rapport comprend quelques réflexions générales sur les trois dernières années.

Puisque l'un de mes objectifs en tant que présidente était de faciliter l'interaction entre les étudiants gradués et les professeurs, notre réunion à Montréal a inclus un nouvel événement pour la SCHPS : la rencontre sociale. Notre soirée à Brutopia a été un succès retentissant, et j'espère que cet événement marquera le début d'une tradition.

Au cours de mon mandat, j'ai également cherché à renforcer la représentation des étudiants gradués au sein de la société et dans la planification de nos réunions. Depuis 2023, nous avons un Comité consultatif des étudiants gradués (CCEG), qui a travaillé à représenter les intérêts et les besoins des étudiants. Les salles de repos/espaces détente pour les étudiants gradués font désormais partie des réunions de la SCHPS, et une liste de diffusion pour le réseautage a été lancée. Cette dernière année a été plutôt calme pour le CCEG, mais le groupe a continué à discuter des séances de mentorat et des activités de développement professionnel (y compris la vie en dehors du milieu académique). J'espère que, malgré l'emploi du temps chargé des étudiants gradués, beaucoup d'entre vous envisageront de rejoindre le CCEG pour 2025-2026.

Finalement, nous avons fait quelques progrès vers notre but pour une société complètement biligues, en traduisant le programme et en veillant à ce que le plus grand nombre possible de communications de la société apparaissent en français et en anglais (merci à Mélanie Frappier pour son aide à la traduction).

La décision de la Fédération d'organiser le Congrès 2025 au Collège George Brown a eu pour conséquence, l’impossibilité d’avoir un coordinateur d’arrangements locaux membre de la SCHPS. Bien que cela ait été un défi, la chance à jouer en notre faveur qu’en Silvia Caicedo (professeure à George Brown) a été assignée comme notre coordinatrice des arrangements locaux. Silvia nous a aidés avec enthousiasme et compétence dans la planification de la conférence et a fait bien plus que ce qui était attendu d’elle pour s'assurer que nous avions tout ce dont nous avions besoin. La communication a été fluide. Merci à Silvia—nous n'aurions pas pu y arriver sans toi ! Je tiens à remercier tous les bénévoles qui ont contribué à la réussite de la SCHPS 2025, en particulier nos infatigables co-présidentes du programme, Letitia Meynell et Mélanie Frappier, ainsi que Megan Krempa, qui les a assistées. Je remercie également Lisa Gannett et Andrew Reynolds, qui ont co-organisé une double session en hommage à Kathleen Okruhlik.

Compte tenu des nouvelles concernant le Congrès 2026 ayant émergées au cours des dernières semaines, et compte tenu du travail supplémentaire nécessaire pour collaborer avec la Fédération dans l'organisation de la conférence, il est clair que nous devons réfléchir sérieusement à notre relation avec le Congrès. Cela est particulièrement important étant donné la précarité du modèle du Congrès face aux restrictions budgétaires massives dans les universités canadiennes. Planifier les futures réunions de la SCHPS dans un monde post-pandémique signifie que nous devons peser l’importance des conférences en présentiel—particulièrement pour les chercheurs émergents, pour qui le réseautage est bien plus aisé en personne—avec les avantages environnementaux et l'accessibilité des conférences en ligne.

Je tiens à remercier tous les membres qui ont accepté de servir au sein des comités de la SCHPS, en particulier Andrew Inkpen, qui assumera la fonction de secrétaire-trésorier, et Delia Gavrus, qui nous rejoint en tant que deuxième vice-présidente. Merci aussi à ceux dont le mandat touche à sa fin. Je mettrai bientôt à jour les descriptions des postes ainsi que le manuel des procédures de la SCHPS afin de faciliter la transition pour ceux qui occupent de nouveaux rôles.

Ce fut un honneur d'aider la SCHPS à naviguer les réalités des trois dernières années. Je tiens avant tout à remercier Paul Bartha, dont le soutien infaillible a permis à la SCHPS (et à moi-même) de faire face à plusieurs défis avec succès. Nos vice-présidents, Ingo Brigandt et Marga Vicedo, ont offert des conseils avisés pour de nombreuses décisions difficiles. Letitia Meynell et Mélanie Frappier ont brillamment dirigé le Comité du programme collectivement ces deux dernières années. À vous tous—merci d'avoir supporté ce qui, à certains moments, ressemblait à une avalanche quotidienne de courriels frénétiques. J'adresse mes meilleurs vœux à Marga Vicedo, qui prendra la relève en tant que présidente à l'issue de cette réunion. Je suis heureuse d’avoir l’opportunité de soutenir Marga et le comité exécutif, en tant que présidente sortante et de pouvoir aider à l'épanouissement de la SCHPS et de tous ses membres.

Dr. Tara Abraham is Associate Professor in History of biomedicine, psychiatry and American science at University of Guelph. She was president of CSHPS from 2024 to 2025.

News

Hadden Prizes for 2024

In Montreal, the Hadden Prizes and (Graduate Student Merit Awards) for 2024 were awarded to Clarisse Paron (Dalhousie) for “Are the New American Pediatric Obesity Guidelines Eugenic? Eugenic Logics and the Medicalization and Pathologization of Children’s Bodies” and Olivier Grenier (UQAM) for “The complexity of education and epistemic pluralism: three challenges.”

Congratulations!

Isaac Newton's beer mug in 3D

Working in conjunction with the Royal Society Library and with the permission of the family who own the artefact, Steven Dey of ThinkSee3D has produced two 3D models of Isaac Newton's wooden pint flagon, which he gave to his Trinity College, Cambridge chamber-fellow John Wickins.

The 3D models will also be of interest to those who study early modern drinking vessels and drinking culture. While ceramic and pewter flagons have survived in greater numbers, pre-1800 wooden flagons are relatively rare.

These 3D models are of course used increasingly in museological settings and help both with conservation and remote accessibility.

The cost of this scan was covered by the University of King's College through the Newton Project Canada.

We Need to Talk About the Backlash: What Is to Be Done?

Acronyms

• CSHPS – The Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science
• CSWIP – The Canadian Society for Women In Philosophy (now the Canadian Society Working for Inclusion in Philosophy)
• CPA – The Canadian Philosophical Association
• FHSS – The Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Introduction

In the current political climate, there is a groundswell of voices attacking “woke-ism,” “gender ideology,” “cancel culture,” and critical race theory that particularly target academics and academic institutions. Troublingly, the vilification of voices from these (and other progressive) perspectives is not simply external to the university, but is sometimes proffered by our own colleagues, often in the name of academic freedom. A number of scholars who speak up about controversial social justice issues—particularly those who are women, Black, Indigenous, people of color, or people with minoritized gender or sexual identities—have experienced threats and personal attacks. An extreme recent example is the violent attack on a professor teaching a philosophy of gender course at the University of Waterloo in the summer of 2023.

On June 19 at the 2024 Congress for the Humanities and Social Sciences, CSHPS, the CPA, and CSWIP co-hosted a panel to address these issues, We Need to Talk About the Backlash—What is to be Done? This panel comprised feminist philosophers (from junior scholars to administrators) with expertise in critical race theory, academic freedom, characterizations of misogyny, belief change, coded (hate) speech, equity interventions in institutions, and education. Presentations were given in the first two hours of the session and the last hour was reserved for discussion.

While feminists and other progressives are often characterized as opponents of academic freedom, this is a troubling misrepresentation. Academic freedom is highly prized among feminist scholars and other progressives, but it hardly deserves the moniker “academic” if it is not informed and constrained by academic integrity, basic ethics, political astuteness, and scholarly care and accountability. This was the spirit of the discussion.

This report recounts their presentations. It identifies insights into the current problem, assesses some responses, and discusses the fundamental values that emerged throughout the panel. The point of this report, like the panel itself, is not to create a final authoritative proposal but to outline the current landscape and identify opportunities, issues, pitfalls, and problems that various institutional approaches to addressing these issues might create.

Overview of key points

This section provides an overview of key insights that were shared by panelists or emerged through the discussion.

Understanding the problem

“Stochastic terrorism is the use of mass communications to stir up random lone wolves to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable.”—Hamm & Spaaij, 2017

• The backlash is not only anti-feminist and anti-progressive, but also anti-intellectual, particularly targeting the humanities and social sciences, where the theories grounding these movements are often developed.
• Examples include the “anti-woke” backlash targeting Critical Race Theory and gender education. This is often enacted through the use of racist coded language in both political and educational settings.
• Ideological narratives about identity grounding the backlash are often held dogmatically and are resistant to challenges or charitable argumentation (as is evident in many anti-trans interventions).
• Concerns about cancel culture and free expression are treated as a more significant threat than stochastic terrorism.

Barriers to education

“Learning is a constitutively vulnerable thing to do. To learn is to linger with the things you don’t know, to be open to having your perspective shifted …. That vulnerability becomes even more salient in courses and disciplines related to anti-oppression.”—Dr. Shannon Dea

• The existence of stochastic terrorism makes students and teachers feel unsafe.
• Anxiety and a sense of not belonging are barriers to effective teaching and learning as well significant stressors with possible health implications for teachers and learners.

The roots of the current problem

“Anti-CRT backlash “troubles this myth we have that education is the great equalizer. How is it the case that education equalizes the terrain when Black children are being sent home from school in police cars?”—Dr. Laura Mae Lindo

• Political and institutional histories inform the present.
• These histories are particular and their effects are intersectional. So, for instance, the anti-Black racist violence experienced by Black scholars and students is distinct from the colonial violence faced by Indigenous scholars and students (people who are Black and Indigenous thus experience intersectional violence). Both anti-Blackness and colonialism intersect with gender, creating particular challenges for Black and Indigenous women and other non cis-male genders.

Institutional responses to stochastic terrorism

Sometimes universities appear to be more interested in managing liabilities rather than addressing fundamental issues; they then intervene in ways that perpetuate the very problems they claim to be trying to address.

Increased campus security or police on campus

This is a carceral response.

• Carceral responses often make people who are already the targets of institutional violence less safe (consider members of racialized and Indigenous communities).
• When increased security makes people who are already vulnerable feel less safe, this amplifies barriers to teaching and learning (with possible health implications).
• The sense of security produced for those who do not experience carceral responses as threatening is false as carceral approaches provide little actual protection from stochastic terrorism because of its unpredictability.

Reduced online information about classes and instructors

This creates barriers to access and is contrary to the spirit of openness that characterizes a public education system.

University statements condemning violence

Often the language used in such statements is coded in different ways for different groups and may serve to antagonize those it intends to support.

• Terms like “gender ideology” and “freedom of expression” are regularly used as dogwhistles in rhetorical spaces that support stochastic terrorism.

Efforts to respond to stochastic terrorism must be sensitive to how it and related forms of political violence work.

Values

Here we list the key values that were expressed and informed much of the discussion.

Academic freedom and freedom of expression

• Academic freedom includes the freedom to teach and learn. All students and professors have this right.
• Academics should retain the phrases “freedom of expression” and “academic freedom” to describe social justice-oriented work, both academic and activist.

The importance of the wellness of all students, staff, and faculty

• For instance, violence against Black students is often seen as an exception to an otherwise harmonious and peaceful normality, despite evidence that the normality is racist violence. In such a light, the dismantling of white supremacy in our universities becomes a priority.

Philosophical tools

• It is important to recognize the tools of argumentation and critical engagement with an awareness of their dangers and limits. For instance, negotiation and cooperative argumentation hold value for social justice activism insofar as they can improve both uptake and understanding compared to adversarial argumentation. However, adversarial argument can be an empowering tool for identity oppressed people, especially when they have been excluded from spaces where this is the primary means of engagement.
• Anti-colonial, critical race, feminist, and other analytic strategies provide political, structural, and institutional awareness of how messaging and policies affect those in the classroom.
• Knowledge of histories of advocacy have something to teach us in the present; in this way, contemporary advocacy becomes part of a continuing movement.

Panel participants

Dr. Shannon Dea is Dean of Arts at the University of Regina. She is known for her work as a feminist philosopher as well as her regular column, “Dispatches on Academic Freedom,” in University Affairs.

Dr. Margaret Robinson, Indigenous Studies; English; Sociology and Social Anthropology (Dalhousie University) is a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Reconciliation, Gender, and Identity.

Dr. Stephanie Kapusta, Philosophy; Gender and Women’s Studies; Law, Justice and Society (Dalhousie University) is an expert on trans philosophy.

Dr. Jennifer Saul (Waterloo University) is Waterloo Chair in Social and Political Philosophy of Language. Her book, Dogwhistles and Figleaves: How Manipulative Language Spreads Racism and Falsehood, was recently published by Oxford University Press.

Dr. Moira Howes, Philosophy (Trent University), spent years as the Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at Trent University and works on argumentation.

Dr. Laura Mae Lindo, Philosophy and Gender and Social Justice (University of Waterloo) is an expert in critical race theory and pedagogy and was also Waterloo region’s first black MPP.

Dr. Carla Fehr (co-chair and organizer of session), Professor, Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy, and Gender and Social Justice Advisor (University of Waterloo).

Dr. Letitia Meynell (co-chair and organizer of session), Professor of Philosophy and Gender and Women’s Studies (Dalhousie University).

Lara Roth Millman is a Doctoral student in Philosophy at Dalhousie.

The full report is available on the CHSPS website.

Preserving the History of Women’s Activism in Science

Within days of Donald Trump’s inauguration as 47th President of the United States in January 2025, a federal webpage of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory changed history. A section of Rubin’s biography entitled “She advocated for women in science” suddenly disappeared and then reappeared in a stripped-down form. The altered text sought to downplay, if not hide, that Rubin was an activist as well as scientist. Also gone was the observatory’s page on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).^[1]

Despite Trump’s purge of DEI, Rubin’s advancement of women in science is unlikely to be forgotten. Her papers, a total of 86,000 items, are preserved by the Library of Congress.^[2] Her life is also narrated in numerous publications, including a book published by Harvard University Press.^[3] However, for many younger and less prominent activists, their records are in greater danger. Most of Rubin’s papers are, indeed, papers, as they are for many people of her generation (Rubin lived from 1928 to 2016). Yet, scientists who came after her left records that were more digital and ephemeral. As in the case of the webpage of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, digital texts can be easily altered or removed altogether, often with few traces outside the Internet Archive. Numerous people have also consciously deleted online data about their activism, including entire social media accounts. Many of my own contacts among politically engaged scholars have disappeared from Twitter since Elon Musk took over the platform and rebranded it as X, for example.

While activists often have valid reasons for retreating from commercial platforms, including bullying and surveillance, they should find ways to maintain records of their struggles. Before deleting social media accounts, they should ideally save information about their networks and exchanges so that future generations of advocates and historians can learn from them. Moreover, scholars of women’s history should not wait for female scientists to be dead and their papers transferred to institutional archives. Instead, they should partner with them already during their lifetimes and advise them on how best to preserve documents about their work in science and society.

Figure 1: Vera Rubin (second to left) among fellow scientists Anne Kinney, Nancy Grace Roman and Kerri Cahoy at the conference Women in Astronomy and Space Science 2009: Meeting the Challenges of an Increasingly Diverse Workforce in College Park, Maryland (courtesy of Meg Urry.)

Vera Rubin is best known for contributing evidence for the existence of dark matter through studies of galactic rotation curves. The observatory named after her will engage in pioneering astronomical work regardless of whether diversity, equity and inclusion are mentioned on its website. However, the history of DEI efforts by Rubin and others are still worth preserving in themselves, and urgently so. Dark matter may remain a mysterious and unsolved problem in physics. However, women and their history of struggle in science must remain visible.

Jörg Matthias Determann teaches history at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar. He is the author of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Astronomy: A Modern History (Springer, 2023). He thanks Jeanne Vaz for countless conversations about gender and academia.

Circulating Knowledge: 20 Years On: Conference Report

The “Circulating Knowledge: 20 Years On” conference took place August 7-10, 2024, at the University of King’s College in Halifax (Kjipuktuk), Nova Scotia (Mi’kma’ki). This conference served as an extension of the Circulation of Knowledge conference, which took place in August 2004, which set out challenges to the then-dominant centre-periphery models of the origins and dissemination of scientific knowledge. “Circulating Knowledge: 20 Years On” intended to re-examine the circulation of knowledge through fostering international collaborative exchange along the themes of “research”, “translations”, and “pedagogy”.

Fully hybrid, the conference welcomed dozens of scholars from all corners of the world—from Norway to Thailand, Brazil to Venezuela, China to Australia, and many more. The conference opened with the unveiling of the Circulating Knowledge Virtual International Exhibit, led by David Pantalony, Joshua Nall, Dani Inkpen, and Paige Crosby.

The virtual exhibit serves to highlight objects and materials that represent the circulation of knowledge.

Kicking off the conference was a plenary session by James Secord, connecting back to the 2004 conference, where he gave the keynote address on his “Knowledge in Transit” paper. Entitled “Seven Questions for the History of Science”, Secord reflected on the changing landscape of the history of science. Other plenary speakers of the conference included Elise Burton, Fa-Ti Fan, Sarah Qidwai, Arun Bala, Lesley Cormack, Hyunhee Park, and Geoff Bil.

The special event for the conference was given by Mi’kmaw Elder Dr. Albert Marshall, entitled “Etuaptmumk (Two-Eyed Seeing) – walking together with Indigenous and Non-Indigenous knowledges”. The event took place at the Dalhousie Art Gallery and was so well-attended it was standing-room only. It was made possible due to the generous support of the Department of Humanities of Cape Breton University and the Dalhousie College of Sustainability.

The conference also featured a special symposium, “Exploring the Relevance of Needham’s Legacy for Global Science Studies: Problems and Prospects”, which brought together scholars to discuss Joseph Needham’s legacy and his iconic work Science and Civilisation in China. The symposium was sponsored by the Joseph Needham Foundation for Science & Civilisation.

There was a truly global and diverse set of topics and sessions that occurred—too many to highlight in this write-up. But for a brief taste of the session topics, some session titles included Agricultural Knowledge, Modes of Translation, Piracy and Plagiarism, and Imagery and Translation in China. Though my attention was taken up by ensuring the Zoom sessions were working well (which at times had me running between different sessions!), the consensus I found was that the quality and level of presentations were overall excellent.

Figure 1: David Pantalony speaking at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, by Dani Inkpen.

The conference would not have been such a success without the spearheading work from Mélanie Frappier and Gordon McOuat. We are also indebted to those involved on the program committee, local organizing committee, and the virtual exhibit curatorial committee. The conference would not have run as smoothly without the help of student workers who helped run the Zoom sessions: Morag Brown, Alan Iturriaga, Milo Fowler, Henry Leitch, Katie Blatt, and Shayle Didur-Simon.

The conference was co-sponsored by the Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science, the British Society for the History of Science, the History of Science Society, the International Union for History and Philosophy of Science (Division of History of Science and Technology), and the Joseph Needham Foundation for Science & Civilisation. The conference and virtual exhibit would not have been possible without funding from SSHRC as a continuation of the Cosmolocal project.

Nearly all sessions have now been posted to the Situating Science YouTube channel (with apologies for the Imagery and Translation in China session, which due to technical issues was not recorded properly). You can watch the sessions and panels on the Situating Science YouTube page.

Megan Krempa is a Master of Journalism student at University of King’s College, a graduate of the History of Science and Technology Program at King’s, and manages the CSHPS social media accounts

Figure 2: The Circex “Circulating Knowledge: 20 Years On” virtual exhibit, Collection page.

Canadian contributions to the 2025 International Congress of History of Science and Technology

The 27th International Congress of History of Science and Technology was held from 29 June to 5 July 2025, as a hybrid event hosted by the University of Otago, Dunedin, Aotearoa (New Zealand) and virtually; this was the first meeting in this part of the world. Scholars from Australasia and Asia had a notably strong presence. The Congress meets every four years, and is organized by the Division for the History of Science and Technology (DHST) of the International Union for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (IUHPST), an international organization affiliated with UNESCO. It was a large gathering which expected up to 1,000 participants and ran as many as 20 parallel sessions.

I participated virtually so my comments here will focus on that side of things. I am based in Kjipuktuk, Mi'kmaki (Halifax, NS) and my family commitments precluded a trip to the Congress. The hybrid format enabled my participation at all, and judging from viewing several other symposia, the virtual option greatly increased the depth and breadth of the presentations. The virtual infrastructure was professionally managed and worked well for my own presentation and most others that I saw. The system allowed for chat messages between attendees (which did not seem much used); it did not have a virtual informal meeting space (no loss in my experience). I was required to prerecord and upload my talk, which provided reliability for the audience. During my session, watching myself speak past 1 a.m. local time required some fortitude, but I was able to participate in the live question and answer period via Zoom. The session effectively integrated local voices and remote presenters from Europe and Canada, for which I give top marks to the organizers. Readers who attended in person, or otherwise, are welcome to write to the Communiqué with additional observations.

I unofficially surveyed the program and abstracts for contributions from Canadian institutions, or from speakers I recognized as CSHPS members, 17 of which I overview below. (The online program search function was not intuitive. My apologies for any omissions.) Canadian contributors spanned the field from undergraduates to full professors and were distributed throughout the program sessions. Some conference symposia were dedicated to particular countries (such as China, Japan, and India) or regions (such as Latin America and Asia); there were no symposia specifically dedicated to Canada or North America. Canadian contributions treated a wide range of geographies, relatively evenly. (In the attached charts, “none” refers to a primarily methodological contribution.) On the other hand, the historical focus was strongly weighted to the modern period, within which only one presentation foregrounded the nineteenth century and all others the twentieth or twenty-first century.

One set of contributions focussed on disciplinary formations, both in the sciences and the history of science itself. Dani Inkpen's (Mt Allison) “Scribbling the Field: The glaciological notebooks of William O. Field” connected the material qualities of field notebooks to the development of twentieth-century glaciology. At sea level, Jennifer Hubbard (TMU) argued that early fisheries science in North America should be understood as an extension of broader Imperial-Colonial projects. Using case studies from New Zealand and Southeast Asia, Geoff Bil (U Delaware / U Victoria) illuminated the struggles of ethnobotany to establish itself as an “interdiscipline” between the human and natural sciences. My own contribution—part of a symposium marking the 100th anniversary of Quantum Mechanics—argued that the increasing independence of theoretical physics from experimental evidence was due in large part to their use of so-called paper tools for idealization and approximation. Daniella Monaldi (York U) reported on the project to publish the edited collection Women in the History of Quantum Physics: Beyond Knabenphysik (Cambridge UP), and analyzed both the importance of women to the development of modern physics as well as the place of women in its history. In another analysis of the diversity of the field, Sarah Kalmanovitch, an undergraduate student at McMaster, studied History course outlines to establish the “geographic trends in undergraduate history of science course curricula”—she asked whether students learned history related to their own geographies. Many symposia at ICHST are sponsored by official Commissions and Divisions that are structured according to a scientific discipline, such as the Commission for the History of Ancient and Medieval Astronomy, and disciplinarity continues to be an important subject—and institutional structure—of historians' investigations.

Do we still call it social construction? Several presentations analyzed the interaction of social, cultural, and religious context and the development of science and medicine. Continuing the theme of disciplinarity, Frank Stahnisch (Calgary) considered the impact of the cultural background of émigrés from Weimar Germany to North America on the development of neurology and rehabilitation medicine after World War II. Alexey Kozhevnoikov (UBC) argued for the influence of physicists' political worldviews and experience of social collectives in the development of quantum theories of condensed matter and many-particle systems. In the only Canadian contribution on Early Modern sciences, Mary Yearl (McGill) presented on the interaction of astronomy and religion in “William Mount's 1583 almanack and perpetual calendar”; she argues that astronomical precision was an antidote to errors, even in divinity. The pointed, often acronymous, debates over the social construction of scientific knowledge in the 1980s and 1990s took place in an environment of heavy government (especially military) support for “big science.” The valuable contributions at ICHST did not as a rule emphasize constructivism; and I wonder what effect the recent attacks on organized science in the United States will have on historians' positions going forward.

The question of the interaction of diverse knowledge systems also animated studies of technology in history. Nnamdi Steven Nnake presented on material from his doctoral research at McMaster on “Radio and the Telegraphic Origins of Broadcasting in Nigeria.” He situates the social transformations of electronic communication in earlier telegraphic technologies, and argues for technology-in-use and user-oriented models for evaluating the interactions of imperial agendas and Indigenous practices. Lee Johnson, reporting on their undergraduate thesis at Mt Allison, explored technological exchanges between British mountaineers and Himalayans in the 1930s to reconsider the meaning of “expertise.” Sarah Symons (McMaster) demonstrated how the diffusion of timekeeping technology—Ancient Egyptian water clocks—can help to reconstruct the process of astronomical knowledge transfer in the ancient world. Spanning ancient and modern worlds, Dirk Schlimm (McGill) proposed a method for comparing mathematical systems across time and culture, which is abstracted from a computational technology, the abacus.

Sajjad Nikfahm Khubravan (PhD McGill 2022) won a 2023 Division of History of Science and Technology Dissertation Award for “The Reception of Ptolemy's Latitude Theories in Islamic Astronomy.” His study establishes the importance of an overlooked area of the history of Islamic astronomy over an 800 year span, and includes 15 new English translations of primary source texts from Arabic and Persian.

Canadian contributions seem aligned with the broader Congress theme of “peoples, places, exchanges, and circulation.” There were four plenary sessions: on Southern Māori astronomical knowledge; on History of medicine in the Pacific; on Pacific nuclear history and activism; and on the past and future of the History of Science in a dialogue with Roy MacLeod. They shared an aspiration to global topics, a bias toward modern events, and intellectual focus on disciplinarity and the interactions of Indigenous and colonial actors.

A series of symposia posed a (rhetorical?) question: History of Science in crisis? One area of contention was the degree to which the histories we tell engage with the content of the science itself, or the process of discovery. Some panelists held that a lack of focus on scientific detail contributed to a feeling that our discipline lacks cohesion; or of decline in certain subfields; or of disconnection with scientists and science educators. There is a more-or-less explicitly stated sense of conflict between technical detail and the imperative to globalize and diversify our narratives, and to connect to audiences in History (proper) or policy. For the purposes of this overview, working mostly from abstracts, it is not possible to evaluate presentations on this score. But on an optimistic reading, synthesis is possible. Roy MacLeod pointed to Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer’s Leviathan and the Air Pump (1985) as History of Science that impacted general political History, and yet the book surely attends to the messy process of discovery. In recent Canadian work, I think of Max Liboiron’s (2021) Pollution is Colonialism, which presents both an Indigenous, particularly Métis, framework for understanding pollution and an internalist, conceptual history of pollution science. The presentations at ICHST 2025 show Canadian scholars continuing to shape the discipline, across its multiple ongoing dialogues.

Aaron Sidney Wright is co-editor of the Communiqué.

New Books

Jennifer Saul. Dogwhistles and Figleaves: How Manipulative Language Spreads Racism and Falsehood. Oxford University Press, 2024

It is widely accepted that political discourse in recent years has become more openly racist and more accepting of wildly implausible conspiracy theories. Dogwhistles and Figleaves explores ways in which such changes--both of which defied previously settled norms of political speech--have been brought about. Jennifer Saul shows that two linguistic devices, dogwhistles and figleaves, have played a crucial role. Some dogwhistles (such as “88”, used by Nazis online to mean “Heil Hitler”) serve to disguise messages that would otherwise be rejected as unacceptable, allowing them to be transmitted surreptitiously. Other dogwhistles (like the 1988 “Willie Horton” ad) work by influencing people in ways that they are not aware of, and which they would likely reject were they aware. Figleaves (such as “just asking questions”) take messages that could easily be recognized as unacceptable, and provide just enough cover that people become more willing to accept them. Saul argues that these devices are important for the spread of racist discourse. She also shows how they contribute to the transmission of norm-violating discourse more generally, focusing on the case of wildly implausible conspiracist speech. Together, these devices have both exploited and widened existing divisions in society, and normalized racist and conspiracist speech. This book is the first full-length exploration of dogwhistles and figleaves. It offers an illuminating and disturbing view of the workings of contemporary political discourse. (From the publisher)

Aaron Sidney Wright. More than Nothing: A History of the Vacuum in Theoretical Physics, 1925–1980. Oxford University Press, 2024

This book is a history of how it came to be that our best physical theories of particles, gravity, and spacetime are theories of the vacuum, of empty space. Today, physicists calculate “vacuum expectation values,” predict the influence of “vacuum fluctuations,” and describe universes and black holes composed of dynamic, yet empty, spacetime. More than this, vacuum physics seems paradoxical. Physicists depict the vacuum as by turns placid and roiling; as a rippling sheet and a crashing sea. More than Nothing provides new interpretations of seminal advances in the history of relativistic quantum theory, including Paul Dirac’s positron theory and Richard Feynman’s and Julian Schwinger’s Quantum Electrodynamics. It provides sustained analysis of understudied figures, including John Wheeler’s geometrodynamics, Roger Penrose’s diagrammatic methods, and Sidney Coleman’s false vacuum. These studies analyze physicists’ diverse interests. This reveals surprising connections between positron theory and mathematical beauty; between fluctuations and Marxian philosophy; between the psychology of “impossible objects” and drawings of black holes; and between symmetry breaking and science fiction. The development of the physics of the vacuum was inseparable from the development of aesthetics, art, psychology, fiction—from culture. By analyzing scientific practice—as documented in notes, correspondence, drawings, laboratory notebooks, and published material—this book shows that physicists chose to center the vacuum because of its utility. Over and again, theorists found the vacuum useful. (From the publisher.)

CSHPS 2024 Annual General Meeting Minutes Montreal, June 21, 2024

In attendance: Allan Olley, Clarisse Paron, Ellie Louson, Ernie Hamm, Isaac Record, Ingo Brigandt, Ava Spurr, Victoria Fisher, Mark Alliksaar, Greg Rupik, Erik Nelson, Andrew Lopez, Matthew McLaughlin, Tyler Paetkau, Melanie Frappier, Paul Bartha, Tara Abraham, Lesley Cormack, Tyler Paetkau, Letitia Meynell, Rachel Katz, Pierre-Olivier Methot, Mark Solovey, Marga Vicedo, Carlo Calvi, Olivier Grenier, Alan Iturriaga, Jennifer Coggan. Owen Chevalier, Pat Finnigan, Andrew Reynolds, Camille Ferrier (Federation), Karine Morin (Federation), Lana Galbraith (Federation)

CSHPS President Tara Abraham calls meeting to order.

1. Adoption of agenda

• Moved by Isaac Record. Second by Tyler Paetkau. Motion passes.

2. Adoption of 2023 AGM minutes

• Moved by Lesley Cormack, seconded by Isaac Record. Motion passes.
• Comment from Tara Abraham: Executive Committee will follow up on some of the ideas from both the 2023 and 2024 AGMs.

3. President’s Report (Tara Abraham)

See report for details.

Highlights

• Reminder: Circulating Knowledge: 20 years on, Aug 7-10 at King’s College. Contact Melanie Frappier for details.
• Thank-you messages: volunteers, Executive, Advisory Board, UQAM, CSHPS Community and many others for support with a very challenging Congress 2024.
• Important decision: how do we handle hybrid/in-person conferences moving forward?

Discussion.

Lesley Cormack: we need to hear from Congress reps

Ernie Hamm: stressed importance of an in-person event

[Discussion of support from the Federation during run-up to Congress 2024]

4. Remembering Kathleen Okruhlik (Andrew Reynolds and Letitia Meynell)

Acknowledged passing of Kathleen Okruhlik, past CSHPS president 2010-13 and beloved mentor to many students. Details from her life and career. Important roles in CSHPS and at Western University; Western has created a memorial page where we may leave comments. She was of great importance in feminist philosophy and feminist philosophy of science. Postcards (women in science) will be collected and sent to her husband, Jim Brown.

5,6. Secretary & Treasurer Reports (Paul Bartha)

Secretary report highlights

• Continued increase in membership (exceeding 2019 levels). Bulk membership initiative recruited 38 grad students and 4 new undergraduate members.

Treasurer Report highlight

• Slight surplus, balance just over $30,000. However, we face pressure from inflation and an end to the funding of student travel bursaries from Lesley Cormack. In order to continue the bursaries, we propose a modest fee increase (item 7).

Discussion

Lesley Cormack: clarification about grant funding for student travel.

Lesley Cormack: we need to keep an eye on costs and benefits of continued participation in Congress.

Letitia Meynell: catering costs would have been up 25% over 2023 event. General discussion of costs and benefits of participation in Congress.

• Motion to approve reports: Tara Abraham; seconded by Letitia Meynell. Motion passes.

7.  Membership fee increase (Paul Bartha)

Summary

• $5 for graduate/ independent/ underemployed and $15 for regular members. The student increase keeps pace with 20% inflation in past 5 years. The regular increase will help to maintain the travel bursary program.
• Bulk membership fee for graduate students will rise to $25.
• Question: should we introduce separate category for undergraduate membership?

Discussion

Just one student category? Is increase adequate to cover cost of bursaries?

• Consensus: one student category is adequate.
• Consensus: fee increase may not be adequate but we will review next year.

Motion to approve fee schedule: Tara Abraham; seconded by Isaac Record. Motion passes.

8.  Programme Committee Report (Letitia Meynell)

See report for full details.

• Thanks to those who attended. Multiple thank-yous for help with challenge of moving to UQAM, organizing hybrid sessions, etc.
• Number of submissions is down from 2023. We need more French, more History of Science. Suggestions and discussion welcome.

Discussion

• More participants should consider proposing sessions rather than individual papers. Use CSHPS list-serv (gaggle) to pitch session ideas.
• More effort to advertise CSHPS conference at other events.
• Consider asking instructors to encourage their grad students to submit papers to CSHPS.
• EasyChair may not be worth it. Plan for 2025: use Google Forms for submissions, hire a student to help with organizational tasks.

9. Hadden Prize (Tara Abraham)

Hadden Prizes and (Graduate Student Merit Awards) awarded to Clarisse Paron (Dalhousie) for "Are the New American Pediatric Obesity Guidelines Eugenic? Eugenic Logics and the Medicalization and Pathologization of Children’s Bodies" and Olivier Grenier (UQAM) for "The complexity of education and epistemic pluralism: three challenges"

[At this point, representatives of the Federation spoke. See summary under Item 16: Congress 2025]

10. Communiqué report (Kevin Kaiser)

See report. Communiqué now plans one issue/year, next projected for fall 2024.

11. Webmaster report (Allan Olley)

Report highlights: New website and list-serv continue to function well. List-serv using gaggle.mail. Send him news, updates, announcements.

12. Social Media Report (Ellie Louson)

See report for full details.

• The committee continues to share relevant content through social media channels. There are lots of ideas to reinvigorate these channels, but the committee seeks interested people.

13. Graduate Student Advisory Committee (Rachel Katz)

See report

• Focus in 2023-4 was on reviving this new committee.
• Major idea: grad-specific email list or What’s App group. Please share thoughts with the committee.
• Major objectives: growth of grad community in HPS and STS (even if mainly virtual).
• Possible initiative: regional events that could include HPS / STS grad students even if not in CSHPS. This could help build the graduate student community, with more frequent meetings.
• More general objective: use CSHPS as a networking hub.
• Request: funding for grad student lunch or dinner.
• Call for one new member: write if interested.

14. Nominating Committee Report (Melanie Frappier)

See report for names of nominees and continuing officers.

• Still needed: Local Arrangements Coordinator for George Brown 2025 (likely to be appointed by George Brown College).

Motion to approve report and elect officials named in the nominating committee report: Ernie Hamm; seconded by Lesley Cormack. Motion passes.

15. Further nominations from the floor and election

Call for nominations. None made.

16. Congress 2025: information and discussion

Part I

General discussion led by Federation reps (Karine Morin, Lana Galbraith, Camille Ferrier)

• Karine Morin: unprecedented issues for Congress in 2024, but clear message of past 5 years (including pandemic) is that Congress has to change
• Large-scale meetings remain valuable: Federation will launch into discussions of Congress 2025 and beyond, inviting input and participation.
• Congress 2025 at George Brown College (first time at a college): advantages to extending Congress to the larger community including colleges.

Discussion

Lesley Cormack: important for humanists to get together. We’ve been in crisis mode since 2020. Major challenges remain, but it is important to maintain Congress for highlighting work of humanists and social sciences, and fostering connections.

Letitia Meynell: we should prioritize our academic mission. Congress should consider a “bottom-up” approach to the “Big Thinking” series, so that keynote speakers come from the member societies.

Camille Ferrier (in response): “Big Thinking” is interdisciplinary programming. Many speakers are members of participating associations. The Federation supports the associations in many ways.

Karine Morin (in response): it’s good to have featured speakers, but agrees with Meynell’s point that there could be more engagement with organizations. Similarly: perhaps there could be more recognition of grad students and early career scholars.

Melanie Frappier: Congress should find ways to cut costs, make more accessible to participants w/o support from institutions, especially if the intention is to expand to the colleges.

Part II

Discussion by CSHPS members of Congress 2025

• Congress 2025: Toronto (George Brown College). Federation will assign LAC.

Discussion.

Question: Should we have two keynote speakers? What should be the priority and procedures for identifying keynote speakers?

Rachel Katz: We appreciate keynote speakers who attend other talks and are very involved in the event.

Tyler Paetkau: Invite existing members of CSHPS community.

Ingo Brigandt: further reflections about importance of interaction between keynote speakers and graduate students.

[Unable to hear additional comments]

17. Other business

None

Tara Abraham called meeting to a close

Submissions

Communiqué  relies on and welcomes your updates and contributions!

Email the editors at cshps.communique@gmail.com

Figure 1: “Update Your Address” by Randall Munro, XKCD Comics CC2.5. (Transcript.)