2026 Joint ESHS & HSS Meeting, Edinburgh, Scotland, 13-16 July 2026

 2026 Joint ESHS & HSS Meeting, Edinburgh, Scotland, 13-16 July 2026

Call for Proposals: 2026 Joint Meeting of the European Society for the History of Science (ESHS) and History of Science Society (HSS)

Title: Shifting Perspectives: Plural Worlds, Contested Sciences

Location: University of Edinburgh, Scotland

Dates: 13-16 July 2026

Organized by:

The History of Science Society (HSS)

The European Society for the History of Science (ESHS)

With support from

The British Society for the History of Science (BSHS)

Deadline for submitting proposals:   Friday 1 December 2025, 11:59 pm PST (Abstract Submission Site to come)

Link to the full Call For Proposals is available here<https://hssonline.org/page/2026cfp>

Oleksandra Buzko: Maria Viazmitina. Archaeological Expedition to Parthia.

Олександра Бузько: Марія Вязмітіна. археологічна експедиція у Парфію.Kyiv,  Видання Інституту археології НАНУ, 2025. // Oleksandra Buzko: Maria Viazmitina. Archaeological Expedition to Parthia.Kyiv,  Видання Інституту археології НАНУ, 2025.

[Українська версія нижче]

 This bilingual book, in Ukrainian and English, is the result of Oleksandra's research into the life, work, and scientific legacy of the outstanding Ukrainian archaeologist Maria Vyazmitina, based on materials from the archaeologist's personal archive at the Institute of Archaeology.

This publication is important for both Ukrainian science and world archaeology, as it allows the global scientific community to access archival materials from archaeological expeditions to Central Asia in the 20th century, highlights the contribution of Ukrainian archaeologists to this field, contributes to the study of women archaeologists in a global context, and presents a study of the archaeology of Ukraine during the Soviet period in its historical context.

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 Ця книга-білінгва, українською та англійською, є результатом дослідження пані Олександрою життєвого і творчого шляху та наукової спадщини видатної української археологині Марії Вязмітіної, на матеріалах персонального архіву археологині в Інституті археології.

Це видання є надзвичайно важливим як для української науки,  так й для світової археології, оскільки воно робить доступними для світової наукової спільноти архівні матеріали археологічних експедицій до Середньої Азії 20 століття, висвітлює вклад наших археологів в цю наукову сферу, вносить свою лепту у дослідження теми жінок-археологинь в світовому контексті, та є дослідженням археології України радянського періоду в історичному контексті.

CFP: ‘Power Couples? Collaborations at work and at home, c. 1750-1914’

 CALL FOR PAPERS:

‘Power Couples? Collaborations at work and at home, c. 1750-1914’ workshop

Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany

11-13 May 2026

In recent decades, there has emerged an important wave of scholarship by historians, philosophers, literary scholars, biographers, and sociologists (amongst others), which has unveiled the crucial ‘hidden’ intellectual, social, and domestic labour women have provided throughout history in helping to make the careers and public reputations of their male colleagues, family members, and partners. This scholarship has illuminated the myriad harmful ways women’s historical labour has been effaced, during their lifetimes, in the subsequent historiography, and in archival institutions. The reasons why female accomplishments have long been marginalised in public consciousness has often been discussed under the term ‘Matilda Effect’—a concept that has also gained traction in wider public discourse.

However, a key phenomenon within collaborative cultures remains strikingly under-researched: the role played by couples whose collaborations were openly acknowledged, and the impact they have had on the making of modern political, intellectual, professional, academic, and religious cultures. As such, this international workshop will bring together scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and career stages to explore this phenomenon. Our focus is the period spanning the mid eighteenth century to the early twentieth century, a period marked by notable changes in women’s rights, access to education, religious thinking, means of travel and mass communication, as well as the development of modern professions, civil society, and the nation-state. In particular, the workshop is interested in historicising the roots of the term ‘power couple’. Although this term originated in Anglophone contexts in the 1980s, the preceding centuries had already seen an unprecedented growth of couples attempting to carve out new public reputations together, be this in politics and social reform, universities, religious contexts, business ownership, the arts, medicine, and across a range of other fields.

The workshop seeks to explore the following questions: 1.) How did different couples organise and maintain their collaborative work and domestic lives? 2.) How did gender, race, ethnicity, and class shape collaborative endeavours? 3.) What similarities and differences were there between queer collaborating couples and those in legal marital partnerships? 4.) How were collaborations shaped by different local, national, and global contexts? 5.) What synergies were there between different fields and networks? 6.) To what extent did couples who collaborated seek to promote greater equality in their wider, respective areas of work?

During the workshop, participants will discuss their different methodological approaches including biographical, quantitative, and digital methods, and will examine diverse source materials, such as correspondence, periodicals, publications, diaries, and photographs.

We very much welcome ‘work-in-progress’ papers and suggestions for non-traditional ways of discussing this topic. A peer-reviewed publication of the workshop’s outcomes is also planned.

The deadline for submissions of interest is 1 September 2025.

The organisers are Dr Sven Jaros (sven.jaros@geschichte.uni-halle.de) and Dr Zoe Thomas (z.thomas@bham.ac.uk). Please email both organisers by this date with a rough title and a document of approximately 250 words about what you would like to discuss at the workshop. We are currently applying for funding for travel and accommodation for participants. Please let us know if you require this to attend. We are also hoping to make elements of the workshop hybrid, although in person attendance is preferred.

Call for papers: Technological Optimism in 1970s and 1980s Popular Culture: Innovation, Creativity, Prosperity, and Freedom

 Call for papers: Technological Optimism in 1970s and 1980s Popular Culture: Innovation, Creativity, Prosperity, and Freedom - Mainz 04/2026

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This conference seeks to explore the cultural and intellectual roots of technological optimism in the 1970s and 1980s, decades that tend to be better known for their pervasive undercurrents of pessimism about threats to the natural environment and human well-being. Nonetheless, significant technological advances continued, and transformative visions of progress gained traction, paving the way for the techno-utopianism of the 1990s. We aim to examine how the popular culture and creative expression of the era captured and amplified positive beliefs in technology’s power to foster innovation, creativity, prosperity and freedom.

Technological Optimism in 1970s and 1980s Popular Culture: Innovation, Creativity, Prosperity, and Freedom

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John C. Wood / Thorsten Wübbena (Leibniz Institute of European History) (Leibniz Institute of European History, Mainz), 55116 Mainz (Deutschland)

15.04.2026 - 17.04.2026

Bewerbungsschluss: 11.09.2025

We invite scholars, historians, technologists and cultural critics to submit papers addressing the historical and cultural dimensions of technological optimism during this pivotal era.

Debates surrounding technology’s place in our lives are highly polarised. Its critics highlight the dangers and crises technology brings: climate change, pervasive surveillance, ever-deadlier weapons, behavioural manipulation and an alleged dehumanisation in work and private life. At the same time, there are many vehement assertions of technology’s transformative and liberating potential, whether as a solution to environmental crisis, a way to extend human possibility, a vehicle for individual expression or simply as an engine of progress generally.

While technology itself is constantly changing, the topics that it raises — and even the language in which it is debated — are far from new. Through this conference, we aim to explore the historical roots of present discussions, focusing on the 1970s and 1980s and issues such as:

- Why did optimistic beliefs in technology thrive despite the challenges of the time?

- What strategies did techno-optimists use to counter the arguments of technological pessimism?

- How did technological optimism build upon previous developments and/or shape the development of subsequent innovations?

We encourage papers that situate technological optimism within this broader historial context, connecting the period’s cultural, political, and social currents to its technological innovations.

We also hope to account for the complex geographic landscape of technological optimism and thus welcome contributions that address, for example, visions of technological optimism behind the Iron Curtain or those to be found beyond Europe and North America in the period in question. 

More detailed information about the conference’s themes, aims and topics is available at its website: https://ieg-dhr.github.io/techno_optimism/

Please submit an abstract by 11.09.2025 of no more than 500 words (references  excluded) to the organisers at digital@ieg-mainz.de for a 20-minute presentation (plus discussion), clearly  outlining your proposed paper’s focus, methodology, and relevance to the  conference theme. Include your name, institutional affiliation, and contact information with your abstract.

Call for papers: Archives of Migration. Participation, Knowledge Production and Collaboration

 Call for papers:

Archives of Migration. Participation, Knowledge Production and Collaboration

Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO), in cooperation with the Institute of Czech Literature of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the Innsbruck University, 110 00 Praha 1 (Czech Republic)

01.12.2025 - 02.12.2025

Deadline, September 1, 2025.

URL: https://www.leibniz-gwzo.de/sites/default/files/dateien/CfP_ArchivesOfMigration-2.pdf

Izabela Mrzygłód: Uniwersytety w cieniu kryzysu. Nacjonalistyczna radykalizacja studentów Warszawy i Wiednia w okresie międzywojennym

 Izabela Mrzygłód: Uniwersytety w cieniu kryzysu. Nacjonalistyczna radykalizacja studentów Warszawy i Wiednia w okresie międzywojennym [Universities in the shadow of a crisis: Nationalist radicalisation of students in Warsaw and Vienna in the Interwar period]. Wydawnictwo UMK 2025. ISBN:978-83-231-6067-0, DOI:https://doi.org/10.12775/978-83-231-6068-7.

Uniwersytety w cieniu kryzysu. Nacjonalistyczna radykalizacja studentów Warszawy i Wiednia w okresie międzywojennym to krytyczne spojrzenie na przeszłość dwóch uczelni Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej. Autorka stawia pytanie o powód, dla którego to właśnie studenci zostali awangardą nacjonalistycznych rewolucji. Analizuje praktyki i dyskursy skrajnej prawicy, której rola rosła na polskich i austriackich uniwersytetach w międzywojniu. Wykorzystując historyczne źródła i socjologiczną wyobraźnię, sięga do emocji i aspiracji „zwykłych akademików”. Pokazuje, jak organizacje samopomocowe przekształcały się w agendy antysemityzmu, jak kultura polityczna młodych naznaczona została przemocą, a brutalne ataki na żydowskich studentów i profesorów stały się codziennością. Śledzi, jak radykalna mniejszość była coraz głośniejsza i skutecznie przyciągała milczącą większość, a postulaty wykluczenia Żydów ze wspólnoty narodowej trafiły do głównego nurtu, żeby w końcu stać się oficjalną polityką rektoratów wprowadzających getto ławkowe. Praca przybliża atmosferę kryzysu i fascynację faszyzmem, ukazuje chronologię przemocy, bada nacjonalistyczne rytuały i symbole. Zestawienie szerokiej europejskiej perspektywy z historią w skali mikro daje nowe spojrzenie na II Rzeczpospolitą, I Republikę Austriacką i prawicowy radykalizm, nie tylko międzywojenny.

Guilherme Fians, Bernhard Struck, and Claire Taylor: Postcards, Translators and Esperanto Pioneers. An Alternative History of International Communication

 Guilherme Fians, Bernhard Struck, and Claire Taylor: Postcards, Translators and Esperanto Pioneers. An Alternative History of International Communication. University of London Press 2025. ISBN: 9781914477881

Esperanto has a rich and multifaceted history. Yet little is known about how ordinary Esperanto speakers used the language in its early decades. What happened to a language, created in a specific time and context, when it travelled to different places and contexts? At a time when steamships, international postal services and the telephone were setting the pace of the early twentieth century’s wave of globalisation, what role did languages play in this increasingly international and internationalist scenario?

This book begins to answer these questions by examining the archives of John Beveridge (1857–1943), a Scottish clergyman who became the founder of the Scottish Esperanto Federation and a key figure in this transnational speech community. It delves into Beveridge’s numerous letters and postcards to show how he made use of this constructed language to build transnational networks across Europe.

The book is also the first to focus on women in a constructed language movement and discusses how Beveridge’s daughters, Lois and Heather, played core roles through attending international Esperanto conferences and translating books into Esperanto. In exploring how the Beveridge family mobilised Esperanto as an internationalist tool, the book shows how languages and media help shape the ways in which we build our worlds through words, providing an alternative, “marginal” approach to early twentieth-century globalisation.