News

A wide-ranging set of presentations highlighted my 2016 news as seen from these titles: Branching over History in the Teaching of Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin, A ‘New Aspect’ to Charles Coppens, S.J., and his teaching Medical Ethics, and The many universes of Seddie Bingham / Sister Aloysia (1873-1899). Besides working on my dissertation, an edited chapter for a volume about the history of the restored Jesuits in America, titled “To Any Degree”: Jesuit Medical Schools in Nineteenth-Century America, has gone through copyediting and will hopefully appear next year.

In my work as the Illustrations Editor for the History of Cartography Project, the release of Volume 6, Cartography in the Twentieth Century in the History of Cartography series in April with its 1000+ illustrations over 1900 pages proved a definite highlight with celebrations held in Chicago at AAG and here in Madison. Next for me at the Project will be to procure the images needed for the two remaining volumes, work measured in years as these books will also have over 1000+ images each among their many pages.

As the year drew to a wintery close, I looked back over a fairly productive year. I attended several conferences, including the Midwest Junto for the History of Science here in Madison, the Biennial History of Astronomy Workshop at Notre Dame, and the annual History of Science Society meeting in San Francisco where I organized a session and presented a paper.

My future plans included giving another dissertation-related talk, titled “To Any Degree” – Jesuit Medical Schools in Nineteenth-Century America, at a conference marking the bicentennial of the Restoration of the Society of Jesus in 1814 to be held in October at Loyola University Chicago. My presentation involves a close look at the first three American Jesuit medical schools – St. Louis, Georgetown, and Creighton – and the way science appeared in their curriculum versus how these institutions dealt with science in their classical education offerings.

The year got off to a busy start. In January I presented a dissertation-related talk at the American Catholic Historical Association Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., titled Cattell’s Catholics: Who were these American Men of Science? In February I participated in the 4th JSPS Multidisciplinary Science Forum in Washington D.C. (back again). April saw me at the Midwest Junto for the History of Science at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri, with four other grad students from my department.