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.

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”.

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.

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

Miriam Bankovsky, La Trobe University

Wednesday 10 September, 12:00–13:00, Old Arts, Level 1, Room 103

Hannah Harewood Gould, University of Melbourne

Wednesday 17 September, 12:00–13:00, Old Arts, Level 1, Room 103

Sophie Ritson, University of Melbourne

Wednesday 24 September, 12:00–13:00, Old Arts, Level 1, Room 155

TBC

Wednesday 8 October, 12:00–13:00, Old Arts, Level 1, Room 103

TBC

Wednesday 15 October, 12:00–13:00, Old Arts, Level 1, Room 103

TBC

Wednesday 22 October, 12:00–13:00, Old Arts, Level 1, Room 103

TBC

PAST SEMINARS

SEMINARS COMPLETED FOR 2025

Wednesday 12 March,
12:00–13:00,
Arts West North Wing, Room 353

Invasion ecology: A history from Australia
Simon Farley, University of Melbourne

The belief that there is such a thing as ‘invasive species’ has become pervasive in Australian society, and in much of the rest of the world besides. We divide up living things into the categories of ‘native’ and ‘non-native’, suggesting that there is something ontological about belonging. Scientists and science communicators often refer to ‘biological invasions’ as the second-greatest threat to global biodiversity after climate change; the lay public is taught to hate and fear species which are perceived as newcomers or as aliens. Yet this dubious way of thinking has been repeatedly assailed by critics from both the life sciences and the social sciences.

In order to understand how and why the sub-discipline of ‘invasion ecology’ came into existence – and how and why it has had such great influence – it helps to historicise. This seminar outlines a new history of ‘invasion ecology’ from an Australian perspective. While it focuses on Australia and Australians, it illuminates the multilateral transnational influences on this paradigm as it emerged. It charts the development of scientific thinking around so-called ‘bio-invasions’ since the early nineteenth century, arguing that ideas about ‘biotic nativeness’ have become increasingly normative and dogmatic in recent decades. Further, it contends that the hardening of attitudes towards non-native organisms is fundamentally ideological – in Australia, at least, reflecting anxieties and desires arising from settler colonialism and xenophobia.

Simon Farley is an assistant lecturer in history at the University of Melbourne. They completed a PhD at the same institution in 2024. Their work investigates the intersection of science, settler colonialism and human-animal interactions in Australia. Their research has been published in the Journal of Australian Studies, Settler Colonial Studies and Dhoombak Goobgoowana: A history of Indigenous Australia and the University of Melbourne (Melbourne University Publishing, 2024).

Wednesday 19 March,
12:00–13:00,
Old Arts, Level 1, William Macmahon Ball Theatre

Who do we think we are? Identity in the coming age of genomic transparency
Emma Kowal, Deakin University

Large public investments have made Australia a world leader in genomics. However, the social implications of easy access to genome data are poorly understood. Through technologies such as carrier testing and genomic newborn screening, Australians will soon be routinely exposed to genomic information and its resulting biological, social and personal implications. In other words, we will live in a state of genomic transparency. What impact will this have on our lives? This project consider users of direct-to-consumer ancestry testing to be ‘early adopters’ of genomic transparency, in that they are freely choosing to access genetic information through consumer products. I explore the experiences of three different groups of users who receive ancestry test results that challenge their established conceptions of ethnicity, relatedness, and identity. Understanding these experiences offers insights that will help prepare Australia for the genomic future.

Distinguished Professor Emma Kowal is Professor of Anthropology and Co-Convenor of the Science and Society Network at Deakin University. She is a cultural and medical anthropologist who previously worked as a medical doctor and public health researcher in Indigenous health. Her research interests lie at the intersection of anthropology, science and technology studies (STS), and Indigenous studies. She is an award-winning researcher and educator and a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences. She has authored 150 publications including the monograph Trapped in the Gap: Doing Good in Indigenous Australia and the collection Cryopolitics: Frozen Life in a Melting World. Her latest book is Haunting Biology: Science and Indigeneity in Australia (Duke UP 2023).

Wednesday 26 March,
12:00–13:00,
Old Arts, Level 1, William Macmahon Ball Theatre

PhD Completion Seminar
Syphilis, malaria and madness:
Malaria therapy for general paralysis of the insane and other forms of neurosyphilis at Victoria’s state mental hospitals, 1925-50
Alison Clayton, University of Melbourne

"It is one of the most important tasks in comparative epistemology to find out how conceptions and hazy ideas pass from one thought style to another … how they are preserved as enduring rigid structure [Gebilde] owing to a kind of harmony of illusions" (Fleck, 1934: 54).

A century ago, malaria fever therapy was a Nobel Prize winning psychiatric treatment used to treat the dreaded illness of general paralysis of the insane, as well as other forms of neurosyphilis. It was enthusiastically embraced, although not without some undercurrents of scepticism, and widely used until the 1950s, when it was supplanted by penicillin treatment. Malaria therapy can still be described uncritically by some historians and physicians as psychiatry’s first successful somatic treatment, and fever therapy is still occasionally resurrected as a treatment for contemporary illnesses. My research focuses on the practice and therapeutic impact of malaria therapy in Victoria 1925-50 and includes an evaluation of the claims of malaria therapy’s effectiveness. I argue that malaria therapy’s apparent effectiveness was likely to have been a therapeutic illusion created by a broad range of clinical and research factors, such as changing diagnostic practices, the selection of healthier patients for treatment, and the confounding effects of co-interventions, rather than any specific efficacy of malaria therapy. My research into malaria therapy in Victoria gives a glimpse of how a ‘kind of harmony of illusions’ may create and maintain so-called medical ‘facts’ – an issue that is as relevant to present-day medicine as it is to historical medicine.

Alison Clayton is a PhD candidate in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Melbourne. She is also a psychiatrist working in private practice in Melbourne.

Wednesday 2 April,
12:00–13:00,
Old Arts, Level 1, William Macmahon Ball Theatre

The historical premise
Aidan Ryall, Australian National University

The pessimistic meta-induction (PMI) is regarded as one of the most successful arguments against scientific realism. The PMI is an inductive argument that moves from the observation that many empirically successful scientific theories have later been disproven, to the conclusion that our best current scientific theories are likely false. This rests on the historical premise: the claim that there are sufficiently many such successful but false scientific theories in history. Here I challenge the viability of the historical premise in debates about the metaphysical status of science. In relying on the historical premise, the scientific anti-realist must adopt either historical realism or anti-realism. If they adopt historical realism, then the historical premise and the conclusion of the PMI cannot both be true. Conversely, if they adopt historical anti-realism, then the induction fails. Thus, we cannot use the PMI to conclude that scientific anti-realism is true.

Aidan Ryall is a PhD candidate in philosophy at the Australian National University, where she specialises in the philosophy of history. She is interested in what it is for something to be historical, what follows from this designation, and what happens when we get it wrong. In answering these questions, Aidan draws together insights from the philosophy of science, social metaphysics, and historiography.

Wednesday 9 April,
12:00–13:00,
Old Arts, Level 1, William Macmahon Ball Theatre

Seminar cancelled

Wednesday 16 April,
12:00–13:00,
Old Arts, Level 1, William Macmahon Ball Theatre

Shifting the blame, shifting the shame: Australian Vietnam veterans in the wake of DSM-III
Effie Karageorgos, University of Newcastle

During much of the twentieth century, ‘war neurosis’ was viewed by militaries, medical professionals and governments as a hereditary condition, meaning that the ‘shame’ of war-related mental illness was borne by soldiers and their families. Despite the emergence of shell shock during the First World War and increased understanding of psychological trauma, Australian military and medical authorities remained attached to ideas about heredity and faulty personality throughout the Second World War. The existence of ‘neurotic’ soldiers who became traumatised from their military experiences from 1939 were, by their very presence, challenging prominent conceptions of the ‘Anzac’. The reality of their conditions appeared to be recognised in 1980, when the Third Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) introduced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which was not linked with heredity or personality, and instead tied to the traumatic event. In the years following DSM-III, some veterans, represented by the Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia, responded to DSM-III by protesting the way they had been positioned in relation to the heroic Anzac narrative. PTSD and its resultant removal of some shame from the traumatised soldier meant a shift in the self-conceptualisation of these veterans. Their protests became, in effect, demands – an insistence that the government work on the lines set in place by psychiatric knowledge, rather than outdated understandings of the soldier and veteran. This paper explores these demands in the context of the recent Australian Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide.

Effie Karageorgos is a historian whose work focuses on conflict, violence, protest, gender and psychiatry. She is Deputy Co-Director of the UON Centre for Society, Health and Care Research, co-editor of Health and History journal and co-investigator on the ARC project ‘Life outside institutions: histories of mental health aftercare 1900 – 1960’ led by Catharine Coleborne. With Natalie Hendry (University of Melbourne), she coordinates the Social Production of Mental Health seminar series, which has formed the basis of their upcoming edited book Critical Mental Health in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand: Social and Historical Perspectives (Palgrave, 2025). She is currently writing a book about quiet protest in New South Wales during the Vietnam War for UNSW Press (2026).

Wednesday 30 April,
12:-00–13:00,
Old Arts, Level 2, Room 257

Defining ghosts in early modern English belief
Charlotte-Rose Millar, University of Melbourne

In early modern England, ghosts represented a point of tension between pre- and post-Reformation belief. In pre-Reformation doctrine ghosts could be one of three things: beings sent from God, beings sent from the Devil, or the departed souls of the dead. Post-Reformation England’s official rejection of the doctrine of purgatory should have meant the figurative death of the ghost as dead person; yet it didn’t. For centuries after the Reformation, ghost stories flourished, with a significant proportion of these stories featuring tales of murdered men and women coming back to life to avenge their deaths; of the dead unable to rest until they had righted a societal wrong; or even of helpful spirits returning from the grave to do chores around the house.

In this paper I will explore the messy nature of ghost belief in sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth century England and show how Protestant attempts to demonise ghosts led to mass confusion about what exactly a ghost was. This confusion was not just among the populace, but also extended to learned divines, many of whom continued to believe that people could return as ghosts after death. Through a process of demonisation, ghosts became part of a new post-Reformation world in which the Devil lurked at every turn, and his powers of temptation and trickery were heightened. Through taking on these qualities, ghosts cemented their place in a world that could just as easily left them behind.

Dr Charlotte-Rose Millar is a Lecturer in History at the University of Melbourne. Her work focuses on early modern English print culture, supernatural belief, the history of emotions, and diabolism. She has held fellowships at the University of Queensland and the University of Cambridge. Her first book, Witchcraft, the Devil and Emotions in Early Modern England was published by Routledge in 2017. Her second book, Ghosts and Affective Histories: Space, Satan, and the Supernatural in Early Modern England is under contract with Manchester University Press. She is also the author of volume three of Bloomsbury’s six volume series A Cultural History of Magic.

Wednesday 7 May,
12:00–13:00,
Old Arts, Level 2, Room 257

Rhythm and ritual of the guewel: Exploring an ancient metaphysical knowledge system through practice-based research
Lamine Sonko & Adrian Hearn, University of Melbourne

A messenger and mediator, the Senegalese guewel is a link between past and present, ancestral wisdom and modern understanding, a keeper of an ancient metaphysical knowledge system that traverses the mysteries of birth through to death, preparing individuals and communities for the beginning and the end. Through ritual and ceremonial practices of rhythm, song and dance, the guewel’s role is to embody and communicate ancestral wisdom of knowing, being, and becoming. This paper examines guewel practices as a mode of embodying and transmitting metaphysical knowledge. Grounded within a guewel epistemology, it draws on practice-based research methods including music composition, live performance, visual art and film works both as modes of inquiry and ways of presenting the findings. Through these interdisciplinary creative works, metaphysical knowledge is ‘actualised’in its embodied form. The paper highlights how indigenous ways of knowing and doing challenge colonial paradigms of knowledge production and enable a deeper understanding and authentic engagement within a self-determined holistic framework that reflects traditional ways of knowing.

Lamine Sonko is a guewel descendant of the Sing Sing clan and Korings of Kaabu, and a member of the Serer, Wolof and Mandinko cultural communities of Senegal. As a guewel his role is to be a keeper and communicator of history, customs, rituals and sacred knowledge through multi artforms. His artistic practice and research is informed by a lifetime of learning embodied cultural knowledge within his community. Lamine approaches his creative work and research from an ancient African integrated cosmovision perspective while aligning multi-artform expressions and cultural patterns within this philosophy. As a director, composer and multi-instrumentalist he explores new ways to present and re-imagine the traditional African, contemporary and traditional synthesis in the arts.

As an anthropologist and percussionist of English and Brazilian background, Prof Adrian Hearn teaches about the intersection of music and spirituality. Having lived in Senegal, Brazil, and Cuba, he will share insights into trans-Atlantic history and drumming traditions. Learn about his work on the website of his community organisation: Suns of Mercury.

Wednesday 14 May,
12:00–13:00,
Old Arts, Level 1, William Macmahon Ball Theatre

Feral territories: The suburbanisation of nature in late 20th century Bangkok
Samson Lim, Monash University

This paper offers an account of changing human-non-human relations in Bangkok through a historical study of suburbanization at the eastern periphery of Bangkok in the late 20th century. The eastern districts of Bangkok include some of the most affluent neighbourhoods in the city. These areas were built in the 1960s, during what Benedict Anderson has called the American era in Thai history. To contain communism in Southeast Asia, the US government sent financial and technical assistance to Thailand. The aid and influence triggered an intense, uncontrolled transformation of the city’s periphery over the course of almost four decades as men with capital rushed to build unplanned, poorly serviced (because they were unplanned), and expensive subdivisions at the outskirts of what was then central Bangkok. In the process, a new type of environment – a feral territory whose form was only loosely governed by the state – emerged. Into these territories, humans with enough money moved to escape the congestion and poverty of the old city. So did other creatures, from snakes and lizards to rats and elephants, in search of food and shelter. This paper examines the emergent forms of life these territories gave rise to. In so doing, it shows how changes to the physical environment coincided with a reconfiguration of the way Bangkokians distinguished between culture and nature through the vocabulary of the market that underpinned the city’s rapid expansion.

Samson Lim is a Lecturer in the History Program at Monash University. He conducts research on urban development, visual culture, and technological change in Bangkok and Southeast Asia. He is the author of Siam’s New Detectives (University of Hawaii Press, 2017) and has published widely on Thai history. His current book project is a history of Bangkok in which he examines the nature of street politics through the lens of urban dysfunction.

Wednesday 21 May,
12:00–13:00,
Old Arts, Level 1, William Macmahon Ball Theatre

No seminar

Wednesday 28 May,
12:00–13:00,
Old Arts, Level 1, William Macmahon Ball Theatre

Contagion and concepts of disease in ancient medicine
Daryn Lehoux, Queen's University

It seems remarkable to us, today, that ancient physicians appear not to have recognized that many--or even some--diseases are contagious. That being said, there is an undercurrent of popular sentiment detectable in ancient non-medical literature that does seem to make the connection. This paper will explore that undercurrent, teasing out the mechanisms proposed for contagion (or written between the lines) to ask whether we can, and ultimately whether we should, then turn our attention back to speculate on why ancient physicians disregarded contagion.

Daryn Lehoux is Professor of Philosophy and Professor and Department Head of Classics and Archaeology at Queen's University. He is the author of What Did the Romans Know? An Inquiry into Science and Worldmaking (Chicago, 2012), Creatures Born of Mud and Slime: The Wonder and Complexity of Spontaneous Generation (Hopkins, 2017), Astronomy, Weather, and Calendars in the Ancient World (Cambridge, 2007), Epistemic Corruption and Progress in Ancient Science (Princeton, forthcoming), Ancient Science (Chicago, forthcoming), and the co-editor of Lucretius: Poetry, Philosophy, Science (Oxford, 2013).