Seminars
Research seminars are integral to academic life at CHSTM. We maintain two regular, wide-ranging seminar series. These seminars are open to anyone who is interested: students, fellow academics and the wider public - all welcome.
CHSTM Research Seminars
We are very pleased to announce that our CHSTM Research Seminars are back. We aim to produce a varied programme featuring invited speakers from institutions across Britain and the world, ranging from well-known senior figures to promising younger members of the profession.
We are particularly keen to foster an interdisciplinary atmosphere; alongside all aspects of the history of science, technology and medicine, our speakers' institutional backgrounds have included science studies, cultural history, social anthropology, museums work and many other fields.
Unless otherwise indicated, meetings will take place in the CHSTM Seminar Room, 2.57 Simon Building (see the University's maps and travel page for directions). We will also stream seminars via zoom. Links will be announced before the seminars. Sign up for our mailing list to receive updates and check our CHSTM Blog for seminar announcements and abstracts.
Semester 1
7 October 2025, 4:00-5:30pm
Dr Alan D. Meyer (Associate Professor, Department of History, Auburn University)
Flying While Black: The Slow Pace of Racial Integration in the U.S. Airline Industry
21 October 2025, 5:00-6:30pm
Dr Brandy Schillace (Medical Humanities Scholar and Author)
CSSC and CHSTM Joint Seminar
Hope in the Dark: How a daring team of sexologists built the world’s first trans clinic in the shadow of the Third Reich
11 November 2025, 4:00-5:30pm
Dr Lewis Bremner (University of Cambridge)
East Asian Studies and CHSTM Joint Seminar
The Heart of the Eye and the Heart of the Sun: The Struggle to Translate Science in Tokugawa Japan
25 November 2025, 3:00-4:30pm
Dr Gemma Cirac-Claveras (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Data Wars: International Data Sharing (or not) in Meteorology, 1980s-1990
9 December 2025, 4:00-5:30pm
Dr Angela Cassidy (University of Exeter)
From shared to separated health – and back again? The multiple lives of modern mycobacteria
Semester 2
3 February 2026, 4:00-5:30pm
Professor Matthew Cobb (University of Manchester)
The life and times of Francis Crick, or why it sometimes matters who does science
17 March 2026, 4:00-5:30pm
Dr Siobhán Hearne (University of Manchester)
Soviet Healthcare Diplomacy in the Global South
21 April 2026, 4:00-5:30pm
Dr Sarah Qidway (University of York)
Aligarh’s Scientific Society (est. 1864)
12 May 2026, 4:00-5:30pm
Professor Mary Augusta Brazelton (University of Cambridge)
Looking up at the ‘Little Moon’: Media and Mass Participation in Astronomy Under Mao
Lunchtime (Work in Progress) Seminars
This is a less formal weekly series of half-hour papers and work-in-progress reports. The lunchtime seminar provides valuable experience for graduate students from CHSTM and elsewhere who may be presenting for the first time.
The lunchtime seminar series runs throughout the academic year every alternate Tuesday, 1-2pm. Currently all seminars are held remotely, via Zoom. Each semester's lunchtime seminar series is organised by postgraduates within the Centre. The current convenor is Krittapak Ngamvaseenont: krittapak.ngamvaseenont@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk
Semester 1
21 October 2025, 1:00-2:00pm
Allegra Hahn (University of Manchester)
Philosophical Therapeutics: The “Doctor–Patient” Relationship in Seneca’s Dialogues
11 November 2025, 1:00-2:00pm
Deborah Cohen (University of Birmingham)
The Voices of Psychiatric Patients on BBC Radio: 1945–1970
25 November 2025, 1:00-2:00pm
Katherine Enright (University of Cambridge)
Capturing the ‘Rhinoceros Song’: Ethnozoology, Sound Recording and Physical Anthropology in the Malay Peninsula, c. 1900
9 December 2025, 1:00-2:00pm
Swagatalakshmi Saha (University of Manchester)
Jewellers and Blacksmiths as Clockmakers in Colonial India: Networks of Knowledge Transfer
Semester 2
3 March 2026
Ruoyu Jia (Durham University)
Absorption vs Outflow: Technopolitics and Medical Logics of Four Menstrual Products in Contemporary China
10 March 2026
Sara Bassanelli (Politecnico di Torino)
Scientific Standards and International Cooperation in the Interwar Period: The Case of Fundamental Electrical Units
24 March 2026
Swapnil Chaudhary (IISER Mohali)
Hindu Ayurveda, Medical Communalism and Body: Ayurvedic Revival Movement in United Provinces (1900-1925)
21 April 2026
Fu Ge Yang (University of Cambridge)
Is It Fraud? Jingshen Healing in the 1930s Beijing Medical Marketplace
28 April 2026
Samantha Baker (University of Sydney)
Aversion ‘Therapy’ and Its Discontents: Contestations of National Identity, Psychiatric Legitimacy, and Patient Agency in the Building of Behavioural Psychology in Australia (1945–1980)
5 May 2026
Qiman Liu (Peking University)
Shifting between War and Peace: How Modern Infectious Disease Hospitals in Beijing Rose and Fell, 1915–2003
12 May 2026
Dyuti Gupta (University of Manchester)
'Sister Morphine': Care, Pain, and Painkilling in First World War Nursing Narratives
19 May 2026
Flavio Rossi (Université de Lausanne)
Mandalas on the Move: Studying the Evolution of Trading Zones of Knowledge between Analytical Psychology and Eastern Thoughts in Switzerland (1916–1956)
2 June 2026
Xinyue Li (University of Manchester)
More than Superstition: Rethinking Rainmaking as Drought Relief in an "Age of Science”
9 June 2026
Megan Bridgeland (University of Manchester)
Teaching, Tinkering and Toys: Crafting a New Culture of Neurosurgical Education, c. 1930–60
Further details will be announced on Bluesky: @chstmphds.bsky.social, and X (Twitter) @chstmphds, and on the CHSTM mailing list.
ALL WELCOME
Please sign up for our mailing list for updates about seminars and other CHSTM events (click on 'subscribe or unsubscribe' in the menu area on the right of the listserv homepage), or follow us on Bluesky: @MancHSTM.bsky.social and @CHSTMPhDs.bsky.social