Stranger Fruit

The coming year should be fairly productive. Here are what I hope to be the highlights for 2009:

Finish and submit three book reviews over the next few weeks
Finish some work for the History of Science Society’s Committee on Education
Have a paper accepted by Pediatrics (more of that anon)
Teach my Origins, Evolution and Creation�course for what must be the eleventh time (Spring)
Give a talk at the University of Oklahoma for their Darwin celebrations (February). This was the first of a number of invites I got to give a talk on February 12th and thus the one I accepted.
Give a four day seminar on Darwin (also at Oklahoma in February; syllabus is here)
Give a talk on Darwin for the ASU chapter of Sigma Xi (February)
Perhaps attend the ISHPSSB meeting in Australia (July)
Present a paper at the next History of Science Society meeting on St. George Jackson Mivart as part of a session on Victorian responses to Origin (November)
Submit a book proposal for a monograph on Mivart. I have a few leads for a publisher and I’m hoping this will be the big task for the Summer.
Teach my History of Science since 1700 class for the second time (Fall)
Begin transcriptions at ASU for the Tyndall Correspondence Project (Fall, funding permitting)
Get promoted to Principal Lecturer. My paperwork is sitting on a desk somewhere and has been for a few months now.
Hopefully get a few new grad students

Let’s see what of all of this comes to pass.

Comments

#1 John S. Wilkins
January 1, 2009

You most certainly must come to the Ish in Brisbane. Great time of year in Brissie – not too hot or wet. And I want to see if you can stand up under the barrage of Australian beers (the real ones).
#2 Michael Robinson
January 2, 2009

Sounds like a pretty full plate John. I hope the Mivart project hooks a publisher. There hasn’t been a biography of Mivart since 1960 as far as I can find. Maybe you can use it to bring some nuance and context to the religion-science mayhem that seems to be boiling over everywhere.
#3 John Lynch
January 2, 2009

@ John

Hopefully. It’s a $$$ thing.

@ Michael

I want to examine Mivart as an anatomist (something that has been largely ignored), religious commentator, and anti-Darwinian. I’m planning that the final chapter will situate Mivart’s arguments within contemporary anti-evolutionism.
#4 Michael Robinson
January 2, 2009

In grad school at U Wisconsin, there was a lot of interest in religion/science issues with the prevailing attitude being that 19th century scholars did not fall so neatly into the black/white dichotomies we see today. That’s how I teach it at least. I think among HoS people, in particular, there’ll be a lot of interest.