Science, Society and the State (1870–1935) – call for papers

Science, Society and the State, 1870–1935 will be held in the School of Humanities at The University of Nottingham on Friday 4 September 2015.

The years of 1870–1935 saw a number of seminal breakthroughs in the fields of science and medicine. This was also a period in which links between science and the modern state, and the place of science in society, became increasingly significant. Universities expanded, and the new disciplines of clinical psychology, sociology and anthropology began to emerge. Ideas of eugenics, race, sexology and psychological suggestions proliferated and interacted with both popular and intellectual culture. European medical and scientific practices were imposed in a colonial context, where they came into contact with non-Western ideas of healing.

The aim of this interdisciplinary postgraduate conference is to address the histories of science and medicine under the rubric of power, knowledge and control. We invite papers that address the process by which certain subjects became the focus of medical and scientific attention, and in particular how science became inscribed onto popular consciousness. We also invite researchers working on the inter-relationship between colonial and metropolitan state practices, and the use of medical knowledge on subject populations. We hope to bring together postgraduates and early career researchers working in any area of the history of science and medicine, with any geographical focus.

Confirmed keynote speakers: Dr Pratik Chakrabarti, University of Manchester and Professor David Edgerton, King's College London.

Possible themes are not limited to but may include:

• Science and the formulation of state policies
• State authority and the pathologised subject
• Popular understandings of science and medicine
• Science/medicine and national identity
• The economics of science and medicine
• The relationship between science and religion

We welcome proposals for both 20-minute papers, and for panels of three papers.

Please send proposals of 250 words, along with a brief CV, to Richard Bates and Siobhan Hearne by 6 July 2015.

Call for papers .