The HPS Seminar Series
The HPS program at the University of Melbourne conducts a weekly seminar series each academic semester. Seminars vary across a broad range of topics and are presented by local and international scholars. Click below to subscribe to the seminar mailing list.
Seminars 2025
​​If you wish to be notified of upcoming seminars, please subscribe to the HPS Seminar Mailing List. If you have suggestions or requests for speakers, or any other questions, contact Cristian Larroulet Philippi.
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Most talks are presented in hybrid format. For the zoom link, please join the HPS Seminar Mailing List via the form above.
Wednesday 6 August
12:00–13:00, Old Arts, Level 1, Room 155
The Problem of Orthodoxy in Intellectual and Social History of Science
Kristian Camilleri, University of Melbourne
“Historical narratives about the foundations of quantum theory”, as Olival Freire observes, typically revolve around “orthodoxies and heterodoxies”. According to the standard story, the so-called Copenhagen interpretation rapidly emerged as the dominant view after the 1927 Solvay conference, ably defended by prominent physicists such as Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli, Paul Dirac, Max Born, Pascual Jordan, and John von Neumann. This orthodoxy, so the story goes, was challenged by “quantum dissidents” such as Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger. Yet, on more careful inspection, nothing even vaguely resembling a unified and coherent interpretation of quantum mechanics seems to have emerged after 1927. As Jan Faye and Henry Folse have pointed out, “the many versions of the so-called orthodox or Copenhagen interpretation were often inconsistent with each other” and “there was no uniform agreement among all the diverse physicists (and philosophers) who considered themselves to be supporting the Copenhagen point of view”.
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In this paper, I offer some historiographical reflections on the problematic role that the idea of “orthodoxy” plays in histories of quantum mechanics and in the history of science more generally. Indeed, once we begin to probe that notion more deeply, it turns out to be a far more elusive notion than is commonly supposed. In many cases, scientists’ professions of adherence to orthodoxy were simply “words used by actors in situations where they need to account for their conduct when questioned by others”. Here I argue that orthodoxy is best understood, not as a widely held set of shared beliefs, but as a resistance, even a refusal—whether motivated by pragmatic, professional, intellectual concerns—to pursuing certain approaches and programs of research. Understanding the orthodoxy (in quantum mechanics) means understanding this resistance in all its dimensions. In short, mu claims is that by focussing exclusively on beliefs, doctrines and intellectual commitments, we fail to grasp the complex web of historical contingencies—intellectual, social and cultural—that produce what might be called the “effect” of orthodoxy.
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Kristian Camilleri is a lecturer in the History and Philosophy of Science program in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies. See details of his work here.
Wednesday 13 August
12:00–13:00, Old Arts, Level 1, Room 155
Slaying the demons with steam: Power and Productivity in the First Industrial Revolution
Adam Lucas, University of Wollongong
This paper presents work from a collaborative project currently in progress based at the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences at the University of Glasgow funded by the Leverhulme Trust. The primary aim of the project is to test recent scholarship proposing that British industrialists moved ‘away from the water’ to steam-driven factories so they could concentrate production at the most profitable sites and during the most convenient hours. Focusing on the industry’s heartlands in Northern England and Scotland, we are arguing that local geomorphological and political factors played a more significant role in the energy transition than has been recognized. Our research team has built a mills census for the period 1740 to 1900 based on detailed examination of historical maps, together with mapping of the river catchments and waterpower potential of all waterways in Scotland and Northern England. Our historical work has revealed a number of novel insights into the extent to which waterpower continued to be used during the period in which steam-power became more ubiquitous and ultimately the dominant source of motive power in British industry. This has also involved questioning some of the received wisdom about the first energy transition and what exactly that entailed in terms of applications, economic sectors and geographical factors.
Adam Lucas is an honorary senior fellow in the School of Humanities and Social Inquiry at the University of Wollongong and series editor for Brill Academic Publishers’ ‘Technology and Change in History’ book series. A past president and treasurer for the Australasian Association for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science (AAHPSSS), he also has extensive experience working as a senior policy analyst and researcher for the NSW Government and as an arts administrator, curator and freelance journalist earlier in his career.
Wednesday 20 August, 12:00–13:00, Old Arts, Level 1, Room 155
Edible or Fatal? Wild Plants and the Uncertainties of Survival During the Soviet Famines in Ukraine
Iryna Skubii, University of Melbourne
Plant-based foods comprised the foundation of Ukrainian food culture. While cultivated plants played a crucial role in food sustenance, non-cultivated and wild plants were no less valuable – especially during critical periods of survival, especially when grain and food were often requisitioned by the state. During the Soviet famines in Ukraine (1921–1923, 1932–1933, and 1946–1947), the varieties of commonly consumed plants extended beyond cultivated species. Relying on traditional ecological knowledge, contemporaries incorporated into their foodways all kinds of plants – edible and non-edible, cultivated and wild – that were abundant across the country’s diverse natural zones. However, the availability of environmental resources did not necessarily improve one’s chances of survival, as some wild plants caused lethal consequences. Although mortality from starvation and its physical effects far exceeded deaths caused by plant poisoning, examining such survival practices highlights the dangers associated with consuming uncommon or unfamiliar plants when regular food supplies were exhausted or seized.
Iryna Skubii is the inaugural Mykola Zerov Fellow in Ukrainian Studies at the University of Melbourne. She obtained her PhD in History from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario (Canada), and a Candidate of Science degree in History from V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University (Ukraine). She has taught and held research positions in Ukraine, Germany, Poland, Austria, and Canada.
Wednesday 27 August, 12:00–13:00, Old Arts, Level 1, Room 155
The Medical Humanities and Doctors' Bedside manner in Renaissance
Italy
Richard Tait, Monash University
The conduct of early modern physicians has received little scholarly
attention but was one of the key elements doctors used to maintain their
moral authority and social reputation or fama. In this seminar, I discuss
the importance of the doctors' conduct, relating codes of conduct written by
doctors to courtesy books written for other professions. Published standards
for conduct for physicians covered similar themes, owing to their common
origins in the classical canon. Many aspects of conduct were formularised,
including specific instructions for how the physicians should enter the
room, interact with patients and ensure the cooperation of the patient' s
family. Medicine was a risky business, and doctors used theatrical devices
to impress patients and bystanders with their competence and moral
authority. They were advised to avoid high risk cases that might reflect
negatively on their reputation. I conclude that the physician's conduct was
an important device for managing a high-risk profession, preserving and
protecting their reputation and social status.
Dr Richard Tait holds two PhDs—one from the University of Paris VI
in Comparative Physiology, and the second, more recently from Monash
University in the History of Medicine. His field is motivations and fears of
early modern physicians as they practised their craft in fifteenth- and
sixteenth-century Italy. This is a focus project within a broader interest
in the social history of medicine, and the intellectual history of the
Renaissance. Richard has a book entitled "Medical Practice, Power and
Prestige in Renaissance Italy" currently being reviewed by Brill.
Wednesday 3 September, 12:00–13:00, Old Arts, Level 1, Room 103
The Economics of Birth Control, Poverty, and Race in Twentieth Century America: From Eugenics to the War on Poverty
Miriam Bankovsky, La Trobe University
Across the last decade, reproductive rights in the US have been undermined. Although several medical, legal, and political histories of birth control now exist, there is very little understanding of how and why economists have studied birth control, contraception, and abortion. This paper presents work-in-progress with Rebeca Gomez Betancourt (University of Lyon) and Marianne Johnson (University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh). It opens with three snapshots of key historical developments, namely: the eugenic sterilization programs that originated in the Progressive Era poverty mitigation policies of the 1920s and 1930s; preoccupation with the intersection of race relations and economic progress across the 1940s in Gunnar Myrdal’s Carnegie-funded study of The American Dilemma (1944); and the effort to defuse eugenics and to instead support reproductive rights as poverty-alleviating civil rights during the War on Poverty in the 1960s. After mapping these historical trends in economic thought, the paper focuses in more detail on economic thought about birth control clinics during the War on Poverty, drawing on archival research conducted by Miriam in the US in June 2025. The paper closes with reflections on how economists should study birth control today. On one hand, birth control clinics can usefully be studied for their positive effects on human capital, productivity, living standards, and life-chances for marginalized women. On the other hand, this history also suggests that birth control must also be studied as an oppressive tool of social control.
Miriam Bankovsky (she/her) is Associate Professor and Head of Department for Politics, Media and Philosophy at La Trobe University, where she teaches into the Bachelor of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics. She has a new book out this year, entitled Economics and the Family: A Social and Political History (Cambridge University Press 2025). Prior to this, Miriam’s main expertise was in political and moral philosophy. She completed a French-Australian PhD at UNSW and Paris Ouest Nanterre, with early books on theories of justice and recognition. However, thanks to an ARC-funded DECRA fellowship, Miriam was able to extend her research into economics. She now works comfortably across social and political history, history of moral and political thought, history of economic thought, and economic history. Her current projects, undertaken with Professor Rebeca Gomez Betancourt (University of Lyon) and Professor Marianne Johnson (University of Wisconson, Oshkosh) are two-fold. The first is a critical history of how economists have analyzed birth control, contraception and abortion (see abstract above). The second is a co-edited book intended as a Cambridge Companion to economic thought by and about women, including racialized and queer women, with a focus on the social organization of economic life.
Wednesday 10 September, 12:00–13:00, Old Arts, Level 1, Room 103
Mapping Necro-tech: technosalvationism and the quest for a good death
Hannah Harewood Gould, University of Melbourne
From AI-powered grief bots to new techniques for human composting, death and technology appear to collide in a range of weird and wonderful ways. In recent decades, such advances in so-called ‘necrotech’ often appear contradictory, with silicon valley investors desperately pursuing immorality while community organisers promote natural burial. This paper proposes that the intersection of death and technology is not coincidental, but runs across the space of what I coin as the ‘necro-tech matrix’. This matrix maps necro-tech against the extremes of technological advancement (techno-pessimism to techno-optimism) and human mortality (death denial to death acceptance). I conclude by arguing that the technologies we make to live and die reveal deep values about our place in the cosmos.
Dr Hannah Gould is a cultural anthropologist researching death, Buddhism, and material culture in Australia and North-East Asia. Her research spans new traditions and technologies of Buddhist death rites, the lifecycle of religious materials, and modern lifestyle movements. In sum, she studies the stuff of death and death of stuff. Dr Gould is currently Senior Lecturer in Buddhist Studies in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies.