Colloquium Series

Colloquium Series

Our Colloquium Series features talks by researchers on our campus and beyond. Stop by for the opportunity to learn about current research in the history and philosophy of science and medicine. Presentations are typically followed by questions and discussion.

Fall 2024

Sept 19th, 2024

Hanson Prize Lecture
Ann Campbell  
Indiana University Bloomington 
Ph.D. Candidate in History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine  
Title: Mechanism, Mountains, and Moral Philosophy: James Hutton, Adam Smith, and the Economy of Nature
Time: 4:00pm
Location: BH 803 

 

October 3rd, 2024

Laura Foster
Indiana University Bloomington
Associate Professor of Gender Studies,
Affiliate Faculty of African Studies and Maurer School of Law
Title: Vegetal AI Ethics: Plant Beings, Gendered Relations, and the Governing Of Artificial Intelligence
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: BH 803

 

October 10th, 2024

Gary Ebbs
Indiana University Bloomington 
Professor of Philosophy
Director of Graduate Studies
Title: Quine on Observation Sentences: A Case Study of the Method of Explication
Time: 4:15 p.m
Location: BH 803

 

October 31st, 2024 

Coffa Distinguished Lecture
George Reisch 
Independent Scholar, Chicago
Title: TBD
Time: 4:00pm
Location: BH 803

 

November 7th, 2024  

Justin Wood 
Indiana University Bloomington 
Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering
Associate Professor of Informatics 
Title: TBD
Time: 4:00pm
Location: BH 803 

 

December 5th, 2024

23-24 Giere Memorial Lecture 
Paul Teller
University of California, Davis
Professor of Philosophy 
Title: TBD
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: BH 803

Spring 2025 

January 16th, 2025  

Anthony Beavers
Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Evansville
Affiliated Faculty, Cognitive Science at Indiana University
Title: Cartesian Incursions into the Philosophy of AI
Time: 4:00 PM 
Location: BH 803

 

February 6th, 2025

Sarah Robins, 
Associate Professor of Philosophy, Purdue University 
Title: TBD
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: BH 803

 

February 27th, 2025

Jessica O' Reily 
Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies 
International Studies 
Indiana University Bloomington 
Title: TBD
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: BH 803

 

March 13th, 2025 

Randall Beer 
Indiana University 
Provost Professor in Luddy School of Informatics and Computing
Provost Professor in the Cognitive Science Program
Title: TBD
Time: 4:00pm

 

April 3rd, 2025

Claudia Swan
Washington University 
Mark Steinberg Weil Professor of Art History and Archaeology 
Title: TBD
Time: 4:00 pm
Location: BH 803

 

April 17, 2025

24-25 Westfall Lecture 
Daniel Margocsy 
University of Cambridge
Professor in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine
Title: TBD
Time: 4:00pm
Location: BH 803

 

April 24th, 2025

24-25 Giere Memorial Lecture  
Carl Craver
Washington University in St. Louis
Professor of Philosophy and Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology
Title: TBD
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803

 

Past Talks

Prof. Evan Ragland
Department of History, University of Notre Dame
Title: Bodies, Causes, and Diseases: Toward a History of Premodern Medical Theory and Practice Beyond the Humors
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803

February 22, 2024

Caterina Agostini, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Indiana University, Bloomington
Department of History of History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine
Title: Charting the Cosmos: Exploring Galileo’s Correspondence on Astronomy
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803

March 7, 2024

(EVENT POSTPONED) Fall 2024

Distinguished Giere Lecture
Paul Teller, Department of Philosophy, University of California, Davis
Title: What I Learned from Ron Giere: Access To the World is Unavoidably Inexact
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803

March 28, 2024

George Elliott, Ph.D.
Lecturer, Purdue University Northwest
Title: Saltbox Science: Alchemy, Medicine, and the Household in English Colonial America
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803

April 4, 2024

Prof. Julian Reiss
Institute of Philosophy and Scientific Method
Johannes Kepler University
Title: Adversarial Collaboration: Snake Oil or Cure-all?
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803

April 10, 2024 

Scott Mandelbrote
Director of Studies in History and Perne Librarian
University of Cambridge
Title: Lost for Three Hundred Years: Identifying and Explaining an Isaac Newton Notebook
Time: 4:00 p.m
Location: Ballantine Hall 703

April 18, 2024

2023-24 Westfall Distinguished Lecture
Tara Nummedal
John Nickoll Provost's Professor of History
Faculty Director, Center for Digital Scholarship
Brown University
Title: The Männel is a root; it is said to be called an Alraune.” Mandrake, Money, and Medicine in a Saxon Mining Town
Time: 4:00 p.m
Location: Ballantine Hall 803

 

September 28, 2023

Clare Griffin, Assistant Professor, Department of History and Robert F. Byrnes Russian and East European Institute, Indiana University
Title: War Wounds: Weapons, Wounds, and Russian Imperialism in the Seventeenth and Twenty-First Centuries
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803

October 5, 2023

Prof. Dr. Dieter Hoffmann
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany
Title: Farm Hall and the Allies' fear of the German atomic bomb
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803

October 26, 2023

2023-24 Coffa Distinguished Lecture
John Norton, Distinguished Professor
Department of History and Philosophy of Science
University of Pittsburgh
Title: The Material Theory of Induction
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803

November 16, 2023

Staša Milojević, Professor, Luddy School of Informatics,
Computing, and Engineering
Indiana University
Title: Science as an engine of progress and the progress of science
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803

November 30, 2023

Andrew Goldman, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor in Music Theory and Cognitive Science
Department of Music Theory, Jacobs School of Music
Cognitive Science Program, College of Arts and Sciences
Indiana University
Title: Neuroscience in Music Research: Critical Challenges and Contributions
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803

December 7, 2023

Brian Burkhart 
Director of Native Nations Center
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Native American Studies Affiliate
University of Oklahoma
Title: Land and Kinship in Indigenous Environmental and Health Sciences
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803

January 26, 2023
Prof. Colin Elliott, Indiana University, Department of History. Title: Rethinking the Antonine Plague
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803


February 9, 2023
DISTINGUISHED LECTURE FOR THE SAWYER SEMINAR: Prof. Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Philosophy Training and Research Unit. Title: Post-Truth Era or New Regime of Veridiction in Technoscience?
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: SSRC Grand Hall, Woodburn Hall 200


March 2, 2023
GRADUATE STUDENT CONFERENCE: Prof. Christopher Pincock, The Ohio State University, Department of Philosophy. Title: A Historicist Defense of Scientific Realism
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803


March 23, 2023
SAWYER SEMINAR LECTURE: Prof. Bennett Holman, Associate Profession, Yonsei University, Underwood International College. Title: The New Demarcation Problem
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803

April 6, 2023
Dr. Andrea Sullivan-Clarke, University of Windsor, Department of Philosophy. Title: Strategic Ignorance and Three Objections Involving Indigenous Epistemology
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803

April 13, 2023

DISTINGUISHED LECTURE FOR THE SAWYER SEMINAR: Prof. Margaret Schabas, The University of British Columbia, Department of Philosophy. Title: All But in Name: Historical and Philosophical Reflections on the Theory of Human Capital.
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803


April 20, 2023
WESTFALL LECTURE: Prof. Nick Wilding, Georgia State University, Department of History. Title: Galileo's O: Circular Arguments
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803

September 2, 2022
JOINT HPSC-PHILOSOPHY LECTURE: Prof. Angela Potochnik, University of Cincinnati, Department of Philosophy and the Center for Public Engagement with Science. Title: Truth and Reality: How to Be a Scientific Realist Without Believing Scientific Theories Are True
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Woodburn Hall 121

September 22, 2022
GIERE LECTURE: Prof. Lauren N. Ross, University of California, Irvine, Logic and Philosophy of Science Department. Title: Causal diversity: Capturing distinctions among causation
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803

September 27, 2022
COFFA LECTURE: Prof. Alison Wylie, University of British Columbia, Department of Philosophy. Title: Critical Genealogies: Collaborative Archaeology in Settler-colonial Contexts
Time: 4:30 p.m.
Location: SSRC Grand Hall, Woodburn Hall 200

October 13, 2022
Prof. and Chair, James Strick, Franklin and Marshall College, Program in Science, Technology and Society. Title: Sex, Lies and Bookburning: Wilhelm Reich and the US Food and Drug Administration
Time: 4:00 p.m. (talk via Zoom)

October 27, 2022
HANSON PRESENTATION: Siyu Yao, Indiana University, Department of History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine. Title: Excavation in the Sky: Historical Inference in Astronomy
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803

November 3, 2022
Fabrizio Baldassarri, Post-Doc, Indiana University, Department of History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine. Title: Of Plants and Books: Pre-Modern Experimentation with Plants from Cesalpino to Grew
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803

January 27, 2022
HANSON PRESENTATION: Elana Rakoff, Indiana University. Title: Competition and Consensus: The Strange Evolution of Dermatological Nosologies, from Willan and Bateman to von Hebra
Time: 4:00 p.m. (talk via Zoom)

February 17, 2022
Prof. Carl Weinberg, Indiana University, Department of History. Title: The K-bomb: Evolution, Anticommunism, and the 1953 Kinsey Report on Female Sexuality
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803

February 24, 2022
DISTINGUISHED LECTURE FOR THE SAWYER SEMINAR: Prof. Lawrence Principe, Johns Hopkins, Department of History of Science and Technology. Title: Alchemy in the Modern Laboratory
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803

March 10, 2022
Prof. John Rudolph, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Title: The Scientific Method in American Science Education
Time: 4:00 p.m. (talk via Zoom)

April 4, 2022
DISTINGUISHED LECTURE FOR THE SAWYER SEMINAR: Prof. Hasok Chang, University of Cambridge, Department of History and Philosophy of Science. Title: Epistemic Iteration Revisited: The Achievement of Precision in Concepts and Methods
Time: 4:30 p.m.
Location: SSRC Grand Hall, Woodburn Hall 200

April 21, 2022
DISTINGUISHED LECTURE FOR THE SAWYER SEMINAR: Prof. Pamela Smith, Columbia University, Department of History. Title: Craft Practice and Rigor: Experiences and Reflections from the Making and Knowing Project
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: SSRC Grand Hall, Woodburn Hall 200

September 30, 2021
Prof. Sabina Leonelli, University of Exeter, UK. Title: Can - and should - philosophy help to “open” science?
Time: 3:00 p.m. (talk via Zoom) 

October 7, 2021
HANSON PRESENTATION: Dan Li, Indiana University. Title: The Case of the Missing Tree Ring Hypothesis
Time: 4:30 p.m.
Location: Lindley Hall 125                 

October 14, 2021
GIERE LECTURE. Prof. Michela Massimi, University of Edinburgh, UK. Title: Perspectival realism, situated knowledge and multiculturalism in science
Time: 12:00 p.m. (talk via Zoom) 

November 4, 2021
Prof. Elizabeth Schechter, Indiana University, Department of Philosophy and Cognitive Science Program. Title: Plurals and plural identity
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 340

November 18, 2021
WESTFALL LECTURE. Prof. Christia Mercer, Columbia University, NYC. Title: Empowering History of Science
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803

December 2, 2021
Dr. Kate MacCord, Arizona State University, School of Life Sciences & Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA. Title: The Trouble with Germline: Using Integrated History and Philosophy to Explore a Problematic Assumption
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803

December 9, 2021
Dr. Riana Betzler, Washington University in St. Louis. Title: The Science and Ethics of Empathy in Medical Practice
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Ballantine Hall 803

January 28, 2021: Claudia Cristalli, Indiana University, 4:30 pm, Title: The Philosophical Psychology of Charles S. Peirce. On the connection between perception, reason, and the logic of scientific inquiry


February 19, 2021: Professor Laura Franklin-Hall, NYU, 4:00 pm, Title: Genders as Historical Explanatory Kinds


February 25, 2021: Coffa Lecture, Professor Yemima Ben-Menahem, Hebrew University, 12:00 pm, Title: Lawlessness and Reduction


March 11, 2021: Professor Stephen Downes, University of Utah, 4:30 pm, Title: A History of the Heritability Coefficient Applied to Humans


March 18, 2021: Professor John Bickle, Mississippi State University, 4:30 pm, Title: Tinkering in the Lab


March 25, 2021: Professor Melinda Fagan, University of Utah, 4:30 pm, Title: Explanatory Particularism and Interdisciplinary Understanding


Cancelled: April 8, 2021: Westfall Lecture, Professor Christia Mercer, Columbia University, 4:30 pm, Title: TBA


April 15, 2021: Professor Anya Plutynski, Washington University St Louis, 4:30 pm, Title: On Adaptation in Mental Disorders & Somatic Disease: Why Defend a Pluralist View?


April 22, 2021: Professor Janella Baxter, Washington University St Louis, 4:30 pm, Title: Synthetic Biology is Changing Things – Just not in the Way You (Might) Think


April 29, 2021: Dr. Juliette Ferry-Danini, University of Toronto, 4:30 pm, Title: Why you have never heard of the drug Spasfon and what it can tell us about medicine

September 10, 2020: Evan Arnet, Indiana University, Title: Conwy Lloyd Morgan, Methodology, and the Origins of Comparative Psychology


September 12, 2020: Becca Jackson, Indiana University, 4:30pm, Title: “The Uncertain Method of Drops”: How a Non-uniform Fluid Unit Survived the Century of Standardization

January 23, 2020: Professor Rebecca Lave, Indiana University, Sycamore Hall 105, 4:00 p.m., Title: Can we save nature by selling it?


February 20, 2020 : Professor John Huss, University of Akron, Sycamore Hall 105, 4:00 p.m., Title: Mass Extinction, Narrative Closure, and Evidence 


February 27, 2020 : Professor Stuart Glennan, Butler University, Sycamore Hall 105, 4:00 p.m., Title: The Many Mechanisms of Natural Selection


March 5, 2020: Professor Stasa Milojevic, Indiana University, Sycamore Hall 105, 4:00 p.m., Title: Quantitative Studies of Science


March 12, 2020 : Greg Lusk, Michigan State University, Sycamore Hall 105, 4:00 pm., Title: Data for Users: A Democratic Account of Values in Science


Cancelled: March 30, 2020: Westfall Lecture, Professor Michael Stolberg, University of Würzburg, Hoagy Carmichael Room (Morrison Hall 006), 4:00 p.m., Title: Learned Medical Practice in the Sixteenth Century


Cancelled: April 2, 2020 : Professor Gunther Jikeli, Indiana University, Sycamore Hall 105, 4:00 pm., Title: How to Remember Peenemünde?


Cancelled: April 9, 2020 : Coffa Lecture, Professor Alison Wylie, University of British Columbia, Hoagy Carmichael Room (Morrison Hall 006), 4:00 pm., Title: Complementary History and Philosophy of Science: Histories of Archaeology In and For Practice

October 30, 2019: Continuity, Improvement, & Innovation in Experimental Methodology, Professor Hanne Andersen, Professor Uljana Feest, Professor Karin Nickelsen, Professor Raphael School, Professor Jackie Sullivan, Professor Andrea Woody, Woodburn Hall 200, Event Program 

To view photos from the workshop click here.


October 26, 2019: Women's Leadership Conference, Professor Helen Longino, Stanford University, Social Science and Research Commons, Event Program.

To view photos from the conference click here.

Themester Talks

October 8, 2020: Professor Kevin Elliott, Michigan State University, Title: The Importance of Open Science for Democracy


October 15, 2020: Professor Andrew Schroeder, Claremont McKenna College, Title: The Limits of Democratizing Science.of Democratizing Science: When Scientists Should Ignore the Public


November 12, 2020 : Professor Ann Keller, UC Berkley, Title: We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together: Public Health Regulation and the Conservative Turn Against Federally Supported Science