Call for Papers: Giants and Dwarfs in Science, Technology and Medicine. 48th Symposium of ICOHTEC in Prague, Czech Republic, 25 – 31 July 2021

Call for Papers

Giants and Dwarfs in Science, Technology and Medicine

48th Symposium of ICOHTEC in Prague, Czech Republic, 25 – 31 July 2021

The International Committee for the History of Technology will hold its 48th symposium as part of the 26th International Congress of the History of Science and Technology (ICHST) https://www.ichst2021.org/

Deadline for proposals is 10 January 2020

(this call for papers in PDF format)

The general theme of the Congress is “Giants and Dwarfs in Science, Technology and Medicine” and ICOHTEC encourages proposals for sessions dealing with the history of technology within this broad framework. The programme committee offers the following sub-themes for the consideration of session organizers and contributors, but welcomes proposals on a wide spectrum of topics related to the general Congress theme in the context of history of technology.

1. Gender and Technological Systems
2. Class, Poverty, and Technology
3. Technology Usage by Minorities and Small States in a Global World
4. Migration and Transportation
5. Maintaining Technological Systems, Large and Small
6. Politics, Protest, and Big Technology
7. Technological Teams
8. Global Military Technologies and Societies
9. Art and Play – Technologies and Protest
10. Environmental Change and Energy Systems
11. Assistive Technologies and (Dis)ability Studies
12. Sustainability and Economies of Scale
13. Traditional Engineering and new IT Technologies
14. Workers in Post-industrial Society
15. Medical Technologies

We urge contributors to organize a full session of three papers, or multiple related sessions of three papers each, with a named chair for each session. Session organizers should reflect diversity and, consistent with the diversity of this international conference ICHST has asked that there be two organizers from different countries for each session. Individual paper submissions may be considered if deemed appropriate, but full sessions are strongly preferred and will be given priority. The programme committee encourages the organizers of sessions to announce their plans to compile sessions and communicate with potential collaborators through H-NET and other networks such as social media. ICOHTEC offers to publish an organizer’s call for an ICOHTEC session on our conference page (send them directly to s.lotysz@gmail.com). Calls concerning any topic of HoT are welcome. It is also possible to propose sessions unrelated to the general Congress theme.

We especially encourage graduate students and early career researchers to participate in the symposium and submit their proposals. Limited travel grants will be available; for further information go to: http://www.icohtec.org.

SESSION proposals must include: (1) an abstract of the session (350 words maximum), listing the proposed papers (see individual paper proposal guidelines below), the two organizers from different countries and the chairperson; (2) abstracts for each paper (250 words maximum); (3) a one-page CV (maximum) for each contributor and chairperson.

Sessions should consist of at least one set of presentations (90 minutes time slot) and they may include three or four papers in each, which might extend to a series of successive sections over more than one day. Each individual section should have a chairperson.  Proposing a commentator – instead of the fourth presenter – is also possible. The programme committee reserves the right to relocate papers to different themes and add papers to sessions. We also encourage proposing roundtables and other “new” as well as innovative, experimental session formats. Whatever the session format will be, organizers and chairs are expected to reserve enough time for general discussion between the presenters and audience.

Individual paper abstracts should include the author’s name and email address, a short informative title of the paper, a concise statement of the thesis, a brief discussion of the sources, and a summary of expected conclusions. In preparing your paper, remember that presentations are not full-length articles. You will have no more than 15-20 minutes speaking time, which is roughly equivalent to 6-8 double-spaced typed pages. Contributors are encouraged to submit full-length versions of their papers after the congress for consideration by ICOHTEC’s journal ICON.  If you are submitting an independent paper proposal dealing with a particular sub-theme, please indicate this in your proposal.

PROPOSAL SUBMISSIONS

Submit all session and individual paper proposals to:  www.prague2021.icohtec.org.

The final deadline for all submissions is Friday 10 January 2020. Please check updated instructions on submissions at our website: http://www.icohtec.org/.

Please pay close attention to the instructions, particularly the word length of submitted documents.

PROGRAMME COMMITTEE:

Susan Schmidt Horning, Chair (USA)
Florian Bettel (Austria)
Roberto Cantoni (Spain)
Jiri Janac (Czech Republic)
Fanxiang Min (China)
Peeter Müürsepp (Estonia)
Jan Musekamp (USA)
Jaroslav Svelach (Czech Republic)
Ewelina Twardoch (Poland)
Ruth Schwartz Cowan (USA)