Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn - Napoli

What	Title	When
Corsi	From Generation to Reproduction - Knowledge and Techniques from the Renaissance to the Present Day	28.06.2009	05.07.2009

Who

XI Summer School on the History of the Life Sciences  

Directors: Janet Browne (Harvard), Christiane Groeben (Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Naples), Nick Hopwood (Cambridge), Hans-Jörg Rheinberger (Berlin)

Funding: Wellcome Trust, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn

 

 

 

Ischia Summer School
This week-long summer school provides advanced training in history of the life sciences, a lively international field that offers a long-term perspective on some of the most significant ideas, practices and institutions in the world today. The event attracts expert faculty and well-qualified students for a combination of lectures, seminar discussion and student presentations in a historically rich and naturally beautiful setting. We aim to encourage exchange of ideas across disciplinary boundaries, national cultures and historical periods. English is the working language and readings are circulated in advance. We can accommodate up to 25 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, and also accept established researchers seeking to enter a new field. The biennial school, which looks back on a distinguished tradition of association with the Stazione Zoologica, was revived in 2005 after a break of some two decades and again ran successfully in 2007. It is held in Villa Dohrn, the current Laboratory of Functional and Evolutionary Ecology and former summer house of the founder Anton Dohrn, situated above the port of the gorgeous island of Ischia and overlooking the Gulf of Naples. 

Introduction to the theme
Since World War II ‘artificial insemination’, ‘the pill’, ‘replication’, ‘in vitro fertilization’, ‘embryo transfer’ and ‘cloning’ have made news and become household words across the globe. Reproductive biology continues to produce profound innovation and face intense public debate. This summer school goes behind the headlines to take a longer and broader view. Within a pluralistic framework that highlights key historiographical resources and questions, rather than particular answers, we focus on knowledge and techniques from the Renaissance to the present day.
For futher information 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Faculty and programme
The directors will introduce the theme and lead discussions. Each faculty member will give a talk of up to 30 minutes, with equal time for discussion, and organize a one-hour seminar discussion. This will provide the lecture experience that some students particularly value plus plenty of opportunities for interaction and participation, which will be enhanced by student presentations and general discussions, some open, some focused on particular questions. English is the working language and readings will be circulated in advance.

Helen King (University of Reading, UK)
Lecture:  ‘How the parts of generation in men and women do differ’: using the classical heritage
Seminar:  What things are required for the procreation of children? Recipes and techniques in early modern Europe

Mary Fissell (Johns Hopkins University, USA)
Lecture:  Something borrowed, something blue: Aristotle’s Masterpiece and reproduction
Seminar:  Cheap print and vernacular sexuality: problems and methods

Renato Mazzolini (University of Trento, Italy)
Lecture:  The perception of albinism in the eighteenth century
Seminar:  Las castas: interracial crossing and social structure

Jürgen Schlumbohm (Göttingen, Germany)
Lecture:  Expert and lay knowledge of pregnancy: a man-midwife and his patients around 1800
Seminar:  Nature and art in the rise of man-midwifery

Staffan Müller-Wille (University of Exeter, UK)
Lecture:  Yeast, barley, beans: Wilhelm Johannsen and the origin of genetics
Seminar:  Reproducing purity around 1900

Jean-Paul Gaudillière (CERMES, Paris, France)
Lecture:  From preparation to risk management: the trajectory of sex hormones in the twentieth century
Seminar:  Writing the history of sex hormones: from laboratory practices to gender and business or vice versa?

Susan Lindee (University of Pennsylvania, USA)
Lecture:  1,500 deletions, and counting: cystic fibrosis, genetic testing and the technology of uncertainty
Seminar:  Moments of truth in genetic medicine

Christina Brandt (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany)
Lecture:  Reproduction, replication and reprogramming: cloning in twentieth-century life sciences
Seminar:  On the history of the ‘clone’: concepts and practices in twentieth-century life sciences and culture

Martin Johnson (University of Cambridge, UK)
Lecture:  Research into IVF: funding and controversy in the UK
Seminar:  UK legislation to regulate IVF, 1974 to 2009

In addition, there will be a welcoming reception and other social events, and we will take one day for a trip to Naples to visit the main Zoological Station, a major international institution of biology since 1872, to see its historical collections (a great specialist library for history of biology and important archive), laboratories and famous aquarium.
All participants should be present for the full week in order to facilitate discussions. 28 June and 5  July are travelling days, with no lectures or seminars scheduled.

Cost
There is a small charge for students of 300 Euros each. This will cover hotel accommodation and all meals, but students will need to pay for their own trip to Ischia.

The directors will consider requests to waive the fee from qualified students, especially from developing countries, who are unable to raise the money themselves and whose institutions cannot provide it. These must be supported by a detailed financial statement and a letter from the applicant’s head of institution.

Timetable
November 2008  Announcement and call for applicants
31 January 2009 Deadline for applications
March 2009  Students to be notified of outcome
31 May 2009 Registration fees and/or registration forms [choice: students or faculty]

Procedure
Applications are to be sent by e-mail to the following address: bvmallinckrodt@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de or by mail to: 
Birgitta v. Mallinckrodt
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
Boltzmannstr. 22
D-14195 Berlin
Germany

Applications  should include:
1. a brief cv,
2. a statement specifying academic experience and  interest in the course topic (max. 300 words),
3. a letter of recommendation.