Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico

7–10 November 2024

Deadline for Proposals: Friday 12 April 2024 11:59 pm PDT

The History of Science Society (HSS) will hold its 2024 annual meeting in Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico. The meeting will be in-person. We are also planning to host a virtual festival with limited slots for members to share their work who are unable to attend in person. If you are interested in attending the Virtual Festival, do indicate this in your submission.

As this is our Centennial meeting, our conference theme is “Imperfect Pasts, Uncertain Futures.” We invite submissions on any topic in the history of science, but we especially encourage proposals of organized sessions and roundtables that address aspects of the conference theme and site, that may include, but are not limited to

●      The history of science in Latin America

●      The history of science in the Global South

●      Changing methodologies or approaches to the history of science

●      Revisiting key works in the history of science

●      The history of the History of Science Society and the discipline as a whole

●      Indigenous knowledges and practices

●      Decolonial approaches to the history of science

●      Public health, biomedicine, and science policies and politics

●      Justice-based approaches to enacting change in the profession

●      Climate change in the history and future of science

●      AI in historical perspective

●      Diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in science, technology, and medicine

We look forward to your submissions! The following guidelines explain the available options for proposals in more detail.

Guidelines

●     You may appear only once on the program as a presenter in a regular session or roundtable—i.e., as a speaker or commentator. However, you may appear as a presenter and organizer or chair (or both organizer and chair).

●     Anyone who appears on the program must register for the in-person or the virtual festival. Failure to pay the registration fee by October 1 will result in removal from the program.

●     All abstracts must be 2,000 characters or fewer (about 250 words).

●     We encourage submission of proposals for sessions, roundtables, individual papers, for in-person presentation or for inclusion in the Virtual Festival.

●      Proposals for individual twenty-minute papers, alone or as part of an organized session, should be focused on original, unpublished work. If you wish to present on a published book, please submit a proposal to join an “Author Roundtable” (see below).

●     To facilitate an inclusive environment and promote international participation, we encourage submissions in languages other than English, accompanied by a translated English version. The program committee welcomes presentations given in either English or Spanish.

●     The Program Chairs will make decisions on proposals accepted for the program using the following criteria: intellectual merit and quality, distinctiveness (to ensure balance in the program), sponsorship by forums or caucuses (sponsorship requests should be noted in the “Special Request” field when submitting), non-duplication of speaking roles, frequency of speakers’ past acceptances in recent programs (2022 and 2023), and inclusion of diversity of participants in terms of demographics that include gender, career stage/track, geographical location, and institutional affiliation. The Program Chairs strive to accept as many proposals that meet the review criteria as can be accommodated given space and scheduling constraints.

Demographic Data

Driven by our mission “to foster interest in the history of science,” the HSS collects demographic information to understand the composition of its submitting proposers, members, and meeting attendees; to identify under-served and under-represented communities; to formulate strategies to increase representation across communities; and to communicate aggregate, anonymized demographic data to its members and the public. We are cautious of the exploitation made possible by demographic data collection. Therefore, we are committed to collecting information in a manner that is voluntary, allows for self-description, and is purposeful. The information will be kept confidential, and any reporting of it will be in the aggregate and anonymized. The Program Chairs will take into consideration certain demographics in making decisions about the program, in an effort to achieve balance and diversity in the program. 

 
Respectful Behavior Policy

All participants and attendees of the HSS Annual Meeting, whether participating in-person or virtually, are expected to act in accordance with the Respectful Behavior Policy, which can be read here.


Accessibility and Inclusivity

The History of Science Society is committed to making our meeting accessible. Presenters should be aware of the guidelines for accessible presentations, which includes verbal description of all images presented on the slides, as they develop their presentations. Please make sure to review the guidelines for best practices for accessibility and inclusion available here. Additional guidelines will be available to accepted presenters.


Strategies for Organizing Sessions and Roundtables

To encourage and aid the creation of sessions and roundtables with strong thematic coherence that draw upon historians of science across institutions and ranks, the HSS has created a collaboration form to submit proposals in need of panelists and a spreadsheet to review submitted proposals. Anyone with a session, presentation, or roundtable idea seeking collaborators should post and consult the postings on the spreadsheet to round out a prospective session. Submitting your presentation as part of a session increases the chances for it to be accepted.


Grants Opportunities

Travel Grants

To defray travel costs, the HSS will make available several grant opportunities.

●     We offer National Science Foundation travel grants to graduate students, independent scholars, and recent PhDs (degree in the past 5 years) who are participating in the meeting. Only US citizens or those studying at US institutions are eligible for NSF grants. More information will be available closer to the conference date. In accordance with NSF's aims, we encourage applications from individuals in groups underrepresented in our community, and from those without access to additional funds for whom conference attendance would be financially difficult without the NSF travel grant.

●     HSS will offer a limited number of travel grants for students, independent scholars, and recent PhDs who are participating in the meeting, but who are ineligible for NSF grants

●    Dependent care grants (up to US$250) will be offered for those who need such assistance. These grants are available to defray the costs of care either at home or at the meeting site

For information on these grants, please contact us via email.


HSS Gerjuoy/Michel Award

Thanks to a generous gift by an anonymous member, the Society will offer an award of $500 for the best abstract submitted by an independent scholar. Those scholars who are part of an organized session or who submit a contributed paper, and whose institutions do not consider these scholars to be working historians are eligible. If you meet this criteria and would like to be considered, please inform your organizer or select this option in All Academic.


Submission Types

Contributed Paper

A standalone presentation no longer than 20 minutes. Accepted contributed papers will be assigned to a session with other contributed papers with similar themes.

Organized Session

A panel about a common theme, consisting of an organizer, chair, and presenters: presenters may include three or four speakers, who will present in a ninety-minute session. The session organizer submits all abstracts, and each presenter must provide their personal profile information individually. As a session organizer, please make sure that all of your presenters submit the required information accordingly, as the organized session submission will only be accepted by the system once all this information is complete.


Roundtables

Roundtables are panels that facilitate dialogue on topical issues related to professional practice, historiographical themes, pedagogy, or broader social/political/cultural impacts of science and/or historical practice. Roundtables may include up to six speakers who speak for short periods (typically five minutes), leaving ample time for exchanges with the audience. Roundtable participants may not present in another session or roundtable.

“Futures” Roundtables

Roundtable proposals that intend to engage participants and attendees in conversations concerning the “future of the field,” “future of the profession,” “future of the Society,” “future of ... ” (etc.), of broad interest to our community can be identified as “Futures” proposals in the title and abstract, for consideration of designation as such in the program. Alignment with the conference theme, “Imperfect Pasts, Uncertain Futures,” is especially encouraged for these proposals. Only a limited number of such roundtables will be designated as “Futures” events. Any submissions that are not accepted as “Futures” roundtables will still be considered for inclusion in the program as regular roundtables.

Authors Roundtables

We invite authors of monographs and editors of collective volumes published in the history of science, technology, and medicine in 2023 and 2024 to promote their work in the community. These roundtables will be opportunities for authors of new books to chat about their process and challenges in researching, writing, and publishing their books and discuss the future directions of their research and the field. Authors submit individually; the program chairs will organize the roundtables. Preference will be given to first book authors, junior scholars, and independent scholars.