We are recruiting to an ESRC-funded PhD studentship based at the University of Leicester (Dr Sally Horrocks) with joint supervision at the University of Warwick (Dr James Poskett).
 
The project title is Commonwealth Students, UK Higher Education and the Making of Global Knowledge Networks, 1950–2000.

ESRC studentships are open to applications from current undergraduate students through a 1+3 route (which includes a Masters) as well as those with a Masters already (if it meets the core ESRC training requirements). Studentships are also open to international applicants.

This project aims to assess the experiences of Commonwealth students who studied science in UK higher education from the 1950s to the 1990s. The project will identify the factors that shaped later career choices and uncover how their status as transnational actors affected their research and the networks they participated in. It will use a global and postcolonial history lens to examine the implications of studying in the UK for individuals and their families, the choices they made about where to focus their research and their ongoing connections to their home nation. The project will also establish how the changing landscape of UK higher education impacted upon the experiences of Commonwealth students and their subsequent careers.
 
Applications are encouraged from candidates with a background in History, Human Geography, Science and Technology Studies, or a cognate discipline. Knowledge of oral history or qualitative interview research methods would be an advantage but is not a prerequisite.
 
The closing date for applications is 17:00 on Monday 1st March 2021.

Interviews will be held on Tuesday 9th March 2021.

Further details including the application process are available here: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/mgsdtp/collaborativeandjoint/#joint

On Tuesday 20th October 2020, the Global History and Culture Centre reading group read Abena Dove Osseo-Asare's recent book, Atomic Junction: Nuclear Power in Africa after Independence (Cambridge, 2019)

For those interested in doing a PhD in the history of science and technology, AHRC funding at the Department of History at the University of Warwick is available via the Midlands4C.

Further details here: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/news/?newsItem=8a1785d77520fbbd01752c4f21644a6a

At Warwick, we have a range of expertise in the history of science and technology, including a new History of Science and Technology Hub. Midlands4C doctoral awards can also be co-supervised across the other M4C institutions (https://www.midlands4cities.ac.uk/find-a-supervisor/), so expertise can be combined if there are different supervisors you would like to work with.

You can also see a list of staff working in the history of science and technology at Warwick, who may be able to act as a PhD supervisor, here: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/sat/people/

If you'd like to learn more about doing a PhD in topics related to the history of science and technology at Warwick, or discuss things informally, please email hist dot sci dot tech at warwick dot ac dot uk

On Monday, 6th July, 1-2pm, Michael Bycroft presented a draft introduction of a monograph at the Work in Progress series run by the Early Modern and Eighteenth-Century Centre. The monograph was entitled Gems and the New Science: A Reappraisal of the Scientific Revolution, and the introduction 'The New Science and the New History of Science.'

On Wednesday 20th May 2020, the Global History and Culture Centre held a digital seminar with Dr Elise Burton (Cambridge) on the topic of ’Genetics, Public Health, and ‘Medical Archaeology’ in the Middle East’. We got to learn about some of the material from Dr Burton’s forthcoming book Genetic Crossroads out with Stanford University Press in early 2021.

On 29 January 2020, the Global History and Culture Centre held an internal event on the future of the history of science, technology, and environment.

Members of the History Department, including those from the History of Science and Technology Hub, presented recent and forthcoming work. The discussion was wide ranging, identifying a number of important trends including the role of non-human actors, indigenous histories, the state, and natural resources.

This was part of a wider programme of events organised by the Global History and Culture Centre on the history of science, technology and environment.

On 8 January 2020, the Global History and Culture Centre reading group discussed chapters from Molly Warsh's American Baroque: Pearls and the Nature of Empire, 1492-1700 (University of North Carolina Press, 2018).

This was part of an ongoing programme of events related to the history of science, technology, and environment, linked to one of the major strands of the Global History and Culture Centre.

The British Society for the History of Mathematics (BSHM) Christmas Meeting was held at the University of Warwick this year.

Hosted by the Department of Computer Science and the Mathematics Institute, the BSHM meeting covered topics ranging from the influence of technology on Newton's mathematics to Victorian approaches of data processing.

A summary of the meeting can be found on the BSHM website.

Dr James Poskett recently featured as part of a new Audible short story collection, produced in collaboration with the Wellcome Collection. In Homeless Bodies and Other Stories, leading authors were paired with objects from the Wellcome Collection. In the third episode (“ Master & Student”), James discusses a skull used by phrenologists with the author Haroun Khan.

On Wednesday 30 October 2019, Dr Helen Curry (University of Cambridge) gave the Global Seminar, organised by the Global History and Culture Centre.

The title of the talk was "'In Search of Native Seeds': Histories of Indigenous Agriculture and the Imagined Futures of Farming". Dr Curry explored the history of seed conservation from the early twentieth century through to the present, particularly drawing on the example of maize (corn).