Alex Csiszar (@alexcsiszar) — Bluesky Profile

6 days ago

Lessons for human science measurement from the quantification of earthquake size It remains controversial whether the human sciences can quantify the phenomena they study. The feasibility of quantification is usually assessed by id…

Now out: How did earthquakes come to have a (quantitative) size? How can we quantify without experimental control? @cristianlarph.bsky.social and I answer both questions and show their implications for human science measurement.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
#philsci #histsci #seismology

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1 week ago

It was very great to have you here!

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4 months ago

The Past and Present of Peer Review in the Humanities: An Introduction - Minerva This Introduction to the Special Issue “The Past and Present of Peer Review in the Humanities” situates the currently dominant evaluative regime of peer review within a longer and broader history of s...

Just published: our introduction to the history of peer review in the humanities! (with Marie-Gabrielle Verbergt) link.springer.com/article/10.1...

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4 months ago

Colonial Legacies and Global Inequalities in the Anglo-Caribbean Colonial Legacies and Global Inequalities in the Anglo-Caribbean - Negotiating Social Knowledge Production in Research and Career-Making; This book examines how Anglo-Caribbean scholars navigate globa...

Very happy to share that my monograph on the negotiation of global asymmetries of science has been recently published! bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/colonial-leg...

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4 months ago

The Past and Present of Humanities Peer Review Peer review, i.e. the institutionalized evaluation of scholars and their outputs by others working in the same field, is fundamental to knowledge production ...

Four articles from our Special Issue "The Past and Present of Humanities Peer Review" in Minerva are available now. Two more articles, along with a general introduction, will follow shortly! link.springer.com/collections/...

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4 months ago

RMZ Jour fixe/ Exporting publication standards: Eugene Garfield's global travels Alex Csiszar (Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, USA)

In next week's Jour Fixe, @alexcsiszar.bsky.social (Harvard University) will present on "Exporting publication standards: Eugene Garfield's global travels"
www.rmz.hu-berlin.de...
29.10.25, 11 CET, join us in person/ via zoom (link on website)!
@ibi-hu.bsky.social

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6 months ago

Certainly -- just send an email.

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6 months ago

Thanks for the kind words. I thought this paper was quite interesting: it's great to learn more about the process by which exchange of separate copies gradually morphed into the platform that it became.

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6 months ago

I'm looking forward to speaking in this series on Oct 29!

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6 months ago

Great to see you've made it to Paris! May we follow your lead in time.

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6 months ago

Limits of the Numerical This collection examines the uses of quantification in climate science, higher education, and health. Numbers are both controlling and fragile. They drive public policy, figuring into everything fro...

I at last got to sit down and read “Limits of the Numerical” ed. @annaalexandrova.bsky.social, Stephen John, and @cnewf.bsky.social. This is a great book. It pushes against some of our received STS wisdom about quantification in super productive ways. Essential!
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

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8 months ago

Quantification in History, Philosophy, Sociology, and Practice – The Society for the Study of Measurement

Onilne workshop on quantification! The Society for the Study of Measurement is delighted to host an event on the philosophy, sociology, and history of quantification across the sciences on August 9. Free with registration. #philsci #philsky #histsci #histtech #sts #sociology 🧪 tinyurl.com/5rn7p7sk

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11 months ago

This looks so great. I will get this now, and maybe my kiddo gets to read it too.

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11 months ago

Yes, but the legal situation is extremely tricky -- even if the cases against these companies are winnable (they well might not be), winning might come at big cost: e.g. endangering various fair use exemptions. We should be hugely concerned about IP & GAI, but copyright probably not the way to fight

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1 year ago

Caution to Photographers — At Bow Street, on Saturday, Sidney Powell, and a dealer in photographic prints, of Chandos Street, Covent Garden, appeared to answer a summons at the instances of Mr. Ernest Gambark, charging him first, with having copied, or caused to be copied, an engraving of the "Horse Fair" without his consent; and secondly, with exposing the same for sale. Mr. Gambitt said he gave £1,600 for the picture and copyright, and 800 guineas for the engraving. The defendant and others immediately laid hold of his engravings, photographed them, and injured his sale. He was determined to prosecute in every case. The magistrate reserved his decision on the point of law as be the construction of the set. "Caution to Photographers," Carlisle Examiner and North Western Advertiser - Tuesday 04 November 1862, 4.

I've long been fascinated by the fact that wood engravings for newspaper illustrations were often based on photographs (e.g. of the Crimean War front) in the 1860s, but I hadn't really considered that photography would be used to reproduce/pirate engravings this early! #needtoreadmorearthistory

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1 year ago

Were you fired by President Trump? | House Committee on Science, Space and Technology The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology

The Democrats on the House Science Committee have set up a website to collect stories from fired federal employees, anonymously if desired democrats-science.house.gov/sciencefirings

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1 year ago

Volume 54 Issue 5 | Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences | University of California Press

At the beginning of the semester, if questions of AI in academia are stressing you out, could I suggest reading through our most recent set of essays? online.ucpress.edu/hsns/issue/5...

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1 year ago

A stylized image of the Earth with North America at its center, overlaid with bright colors. Two scales alongside the image relate the colors to sea surface temperature (°C) and sea ice concentration (%). Source: https://www.nsf.gov/news/mmg/mmg_disp.jsp?med_id=61163

My first new initiative at @arlnews.bsky.social!

Book-length studies of scholarly communities can signal changes in research practice, but library leaders are often too busy to read them. This series aims to distill actionable insights in the key of epistemic diversity.

www.arl.org/blog/introdu...

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1 year ago

F.D.A. Proposes New Food Labels to Detail Sugar, Fat and Salt Content The agency issued designs for front-of-package lists that food companies would be required to include.

Shared my doubts with a @nytimes.com journalist about how much I think the FDA’s new front-of-package labels are going to improve consumers’ health, quoted in his article here, “F.D.A. Proposes New Food Labels to Detail Sugar, Fat and Salt Levels”: www.nytimes.com/2025/01/14/h....
#FromLabelToTable

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1 year ago

Image Text: Call for Proposals
February 2026 Special Section: “Historical Practices”
Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences
Section Editors: Melinda Baldwin and Brigid Vance

The “Essays & Reviews” editors of Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences are seeking proposals for short essays on “Historical Practices” as part of a special section to run in February 2026.

We are looking for authors of recent monographs or other substantial research projects on the history of science (published/released in 2018 or later) to reflect on the historical work that led to their final product. This could include, but is not limited to: the research methods you used; languages or techniques you had to master to finish the project; how you thought about your engagement with the historiography; your approach to writing; decisions about how to present and release non-monograph works; how the project changed as you worked on it.

Essays should be roughly 800-1000 words in length. Drafts of essays need to be submitted by August 1, 2025 in order to meet February publication deadlines.

Short proposals can be emailed directly to the section editors, and should include:
1) The title and publication information of your book or project
2) A one-sentence articulation of the project’s central argument or contribution
3) The geographical region treated in the book/project
4) The temporal period treated in the book/project
5) The major research methods employed in the project (archival research, oral histories, engagement with physical artifacts and material culture, etc.)

Send proposals or queries to Melinda Baldwin (mbaldwin@umd.edu) and Brigid Vance (brigid.e.vance@lawrence.edu). We will choose proposals with the goal of achieving broad geographical, temporal, and topical coverage. Early career scholars who have recently published a first book-length work are especially encouraged to send proposals, as are scholars outside of academia.

Fellow #histSTM scholars! The "Essays and Reviews" section of Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences (@hsnatsci.bsky.social) is looking for contributors to a February 2026 special section on "Historical Practices." More information in this Call for Proposals + in this thread. (1/?)

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1 year ago

Surprise major archive find today - Paul Lazarsfeld apparently hired Theodor Adorno to write a 100pp qualitative analysis of quantitative participant interviews for something called the “Labor Project” in 1944, same year that “Dialectic of Enlightenment” was published. Yes, it’s interesting.

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2 years ago

The Making of the Humanities XI, Lund 2024 – Society for the History of the Humanities

Thrilled to announce that the Call for Papers of "The Making of the Humanities XI" conference in Lund (9-11 October 2024) is open!

Deadline for submissions: May 1, 2024

Organized by the Board of Events of the Society for the History of the Humanities.

historyofhumanities.org/upcoming-mee...

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1 year ago

CALL FOR PAPERS: How Sciences End
Dates: 11–13 July 2025
Location: University of Oxford, UK
Submission deadline: 31 January 2025
Conference Theme and Goals
Historians have studied extensively how sciences begin—but how do they end? This is a crucial
question for understanding how the labour of knowledge-making evolves. Previous attention to the
founding, disciplining, and professionalisation of individual sciences has provided robust
frameworks for thinking through the birth and growth of knowledge-making communities. Far less
attention has been directed toward how those same communities decay, dissipate, or evolve beyond
the contemporary boundaries of science. This conference seeks to cultivate case studies of the ends
of sciences, and thereby to motivate a new approach to thinking about the developmental
trajectories of scientific disciplines, communities, institutions, and the ordering of expert
knowledge. A further aim is to strengthen the community of scholars with a shared interest in
studying the ends of sciences.
Submission Process
Submissions should be sent to howsciencesend@gmail.com. Please title the email “SciEnds Abstract
Submission” and include the following information in the body:
- Full name as you would like it to appear on the programme
- Email address
- Affiliation, or how you would like to be identified on the programme
- Presentation title
- An abstract of no more than 250 words describing your proposed talk and how it fits the
conference theme and goals.
- An indication of whether you would like to be considered for travel support. (Limited funds
are available to defray travel costs, with priority given to early career and insecurely employed
scholars.)
The submission deadline is 31 January 2025. We plan to circulate a draft program by the end of
February 2025.
Programme Committee
Michelle Aroney (Oxford), Alex Aylward (Oxford), Joseph D. Martin (Durham)

CfP: How Sciences End
Oxford, 11-13 July 2025
Deadline: 31 January 2025
Submit 250-word abstracts to howsciencesend@gmail.com

[I'm broadcasting this on behalf of Joe Martin, Michelle Aroney & Alex Aylward, none of whom AFAIK are on this site yet]

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1 year ago

We know, summer is a long way away. But we can't think of anything other than our upcoming BSHS conference. So, we wanted to share our excitement and remind you to submit your abstract for the 2025 BSHS conference in Cambridge, July 8-10 until Jan 10! https://buff.ly/3YWqCp6

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1 year ago

Into the Unknown - Tocqueville21 Macron has spoken. He will not resign--no surprise there. Beyond that, he gave nothing away about his intentions, except to make it clear that he continues to believe in the possibility of a "republic...

Into the Unknown: France faces an uncertain future. tocqueville21.com/art-goldhamm...

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1 year ago

Out now! @thorstenpeetz.bsky.social Our Routledge International Handbook of Valuation and Society has arrived! A big thank you to our fantastic colleagues who have contributed to this comprehensive compendium of research on valuation and evaluation in various societal spheres! lmy.de/ASSuq

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1 year ago

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH for sharing this terrific postdoc @jcblibrary.bsky.social! I'm testing your generosity here but would love to also share that we have TWO additional senior research fellowships for BROWN2026. Details at apply.interfolio.com/159128 and see number 2 below for terms... 1/

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1 year ago

The French government has fallen. What does that mean, and why did it happen?

Some background and a short explainer 🧵

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1 year ago

CfP: Predicting Europe. Histories of the Future in Post-1945 Europe

Deadline: 17 January

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1 year ago

... your work, everyone who attended these talks, Oliver Lazarus for helping with logistics, and, as always, the Harvard University Asia Center for sponsoring the series! 🙏

See you in the spring! (lineup 👇)

scholar.harvard.edu/seow/STinAsia

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#histstm #histsci #histtech #histmed #envhist 🧪

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