The History of Science Society (HSS) and the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) are undertaking a joint study of their fields. Under this grant, an eight-member planning committee, co-chaired by Professor Frederic L. Holmes of Yale University and Professor Bruce Sinclair of Georgia Institute of Technology will organize a "Critical Problems Conference" devoted to examining the principal problems, research frontiers, and areas of opportunity for research, applications and teaching in the history of science and technology. Professor Holmes and Professor Sinclair are, respectively, former presidents of HSS and SHOT. The conference will be held in conjunction with the 1991 joint meeting of the two societies scheduled for Madison, Wisconsin. The sessions will address issues organized around five categories of topics: subjects (physics, transportation, biology, manufacturing, etc.), periods (early modern, 19th, 20th), methodologies (internalist, contextual, etc.), historiography, and applications. The goals of this study will mesh with and be reinforced by a coordinate demographic study of the practitioners of the two fields.
