Darwinism after Darwin: new historical perspectives

University of Leeds, September 3rd - 5th 2007

Introduction
Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882)
Prior to celebrations getting underway for the 2009 Darwin sesquicentenary and bicentenary, the “Darwinism after Darwin: new historical perspectives” conference will provide scholars with an opportunity to think about the legacy of Darwinism.  The idea is to encourage new historical perspectives on theories, experiments, and practices related to evolutionary theory from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries.
 The conference will include plenary lectures from eminent scholars in the field, along with various panel sessions, author-and-response seminars, roundtable discussions, and outreach activities. There will also be an opportunity for participants to engage in an outing to nearby Ilkely Moor. The conference will be located in the pleasant surroundings of Devonshire Hall, a short walk from Headingley and the university and only ten minutes by bus from the city centre.
Please consult the “call for papers” page in order to participate.


Organised by the British Society for the History of Science
 

Organized by:

Vicky Blake (Durham University)
 Fern Elsdon-Baker (University of Brighton)
 Melanie Keene (University of Cambridge)
 Josipa Petrunic (University of Edinburgh)
Greg Radick (University of Leeds)
Chris Renwick (University of Leeds)
For general enquiries please email:
enquiries@darwinismafterdarwin.com

Call for papers
Before celebrations get underway for the 2009 Darwin sesquicentenary and bicentenary, this conference will provide an opportunity to think about what happened with Darwinism ‘after Darwin’, providing new historical perspectives on evolutionary theories and ideas, experiments and practices, books and images, bodies and displays, from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first centuries.

Both individual papers and panel proposals are invited in all areas concerned with evolutionary ideas and practices, broadly construed, from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first centuries.

Themed panel organizers should read the guidelines for themed panels below, and are welcome to discuss provisional proposals with the programme organizers via the e-mail address below.

Please note that paper abstracts should contain a maximum of 250 words, and that all submissions should be sent, preferably in MS Word or plain text format, with full contact details, to enquiries@darwinismafterdarwin.com

Or by post to:

Darwinism after Darwin Conference,
Division of History and Philosophy of Science,
Department of Philosophy,
University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT UK



Panel Proposal Guidelines
Each panel proposal should be submitted by a nominated organizer, who will serve as primary contact and will be responsible for the content and organization of the session overall.

The BSHS is particularly keen to encourage sessions that

* include participants from more than one institution and/or nation
* promote the interaction of junior and senior scholars
* combine more than one disciplinary perspective

and will take these factors into account in making panel selections.

Each session (90 minutes to two hours) will normally include either three or four papers. Organizer who believe there is a strong case for departing from this rule are welcome to discuss this with us in advance of the Call for Papers deadline. Papers within a session may be co-authored or co-presented, but each paper will receive an equal time allocation (from 20 to 30 minutes including questions.)

Panels may be proposed to run over two sessions, and thus feature six to eight papers, provided they demonstrate a clear and ambitious agenda. Longer proposals should not be submitted.

Additionally, organizers are welcome (but not required) to include a commentator/discussant. Each panel will also include a chair who will be responsible for keeping the panelists to time and taking questions. Proposals including named chairs are encouraged, although we can make chairing arrangements locally.

No speaker may present papers in more than one session at this conference (this restriction does not apply to the designated Outreach and Education sessions.) Presenters in one session are welcome to commentate or chair in another.

Guidelines for submission

Organizers are welcome to discuss their ideas with us, and seek suggestions for participants, in advance of the Call for Papers deadline. Formal panel proposals should be complete and agreed on by all the named participants, and should include:

 a brief description (maximum 150 words) of the panel’s aims and its importance to contemporary historiographic debates in this area

 * an individual abstract for each paper in the panel, submitted according to the guidelines for individual proposals (maximum of 250 words; no footnotes; comprehensible to a non-specialist audience)
* full contact details for the organizer and for all session participants including named chairs and commentators
 * your panel proposals should be sent as a single submission from the panel organizer, if possible in the form of a single electronic document.

In order that we can publicize the conference as effectively as possible, we will assume that in submitting an abstract, each participant is granting us the right to publish its content on the Society’s website and elsewhere: if you do not wish your abstract to be publicized, please advise us explicitly. Where appropriate, we may contact you seeking further information for use in BSHS press releases.

All participants in a themed session must pre-register for the conference in order to be included in the conference program.

Withdrawing a proposal

If you wish to withdraw an entire panel proposal, please notify us as soon as possible.
If one member of a panel wishes to withdraw, organizers are encouraged to seek a suitable replacement; if this cannot be done, we reserve the right to move a paper from elsewhere into the session. Panels with less than three papers will be withdrawn, but the remaining papers maybe considered for inclusion as individual papers in other panels.