Announcement: 12th International Conference on the History of Chemistry (ICHC12; Maastricht, the Netherlands, 29 July – 2 August, 2019)

16 oktober 2018


Every two years the Working Party (WP) on History of Chemistry of the European Chemical Society (EuChemS) organizes an international conference on the history of chemistry, open to colleagues from all over the world. The 12th International Conference on the History of Chemistry (12th ICHC) will take place from 29th July to 2nd August, 2019 in Maastricht, one of the oldest cities of The Netherlands, which still has preserved much of its historical charm. The dates of the conference are chosen in such a way that those who are visiting the Annual Meeting of the History of Science Society (HSS) in Utrecht, The Netherlands, from 23-27 July 2019, can easily combine this with participation in ICHC12.

A call for papers with more details will be sent out soon.

The Conference will be hosted by Maastricht University (MU), a young university, founded in 1976, with a very international student population, and a strong research group in Science, Technology and Society (STS), including the history of science and technology. The conference will be sponsored by MU, the Royal Dutch Chemical Society and several other organizations.

The Steering Organizing Committee encourages the submission of panel/session proposals, but also welcomes the submission of stand-alone papers. Session organizers and contributors are free to send their proposals on any topic on the history of chemistry, broadly constructed as the cluster of molecular sciences, industry, and technology. A non-exhaustive list of possible sessions could include historical papers on the development of all aspects of material and life sciences, such as:

  • Chemistry, professors, textbooks and classrooms
  • Teaching and didactics of history of chemistry
  • Chemistry and law: controversies, expertise, counter-expertise, fraud and activism
  • Environmental chemistry, energy and regulation
  • Chemical industry, its transition towards a circular economy
  • Spaces and sites of chemistry
  • (Post)colonial perspectives on chemistry
  • Chemistry and its businesses in a globalizing world
  • Commodities and commodification
  • Modern chemistry and physics of semiconductors and nano-materials
  • Chemistry and digital humanities; editions of manuscripts, etc.
  • Instruments, collections and material culture
  • Replication of past experiments
  • Periodic Table (2019 = International Year of the Periodic Table)
  • Biographies, prosopographies, and databases
  • Chemistry, war and exile
  • Representation of chemistry, and visual cultures
  • Early modern art and chemistry
  • Alchemy, Chemistry and Early Modern Science and Medicine
  • Gender and chemistry

The Steering Organizing Committee consists of Christoph Meinel, Universität Regensburg, and Ignacio Suay-Matallana, Universidad Miguel Hernández, Alicante (chairs of the committee), Cyrus Mody (member of the local organizing committee) and Brigitte Van Tiggelen. Science History Institute (chair of the WP). Chairperson of the Local Organizing Committee is Ernst Homburg, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, MU, Maastricht.

For more information about session or paper submission, deadlines and practical arrangements can soon be found on: www.ichc2019.org

Contact information for practical questions: ICHC2019MAASTRICHT@gmail.com

Organizing committee

Ernst Homburg, Cyrus Mody, Christoph Meinel, Ignacio Suay-Matallana, and Brigitte Van Tiggelen.