This weekend I went to the meeting of the Midwest Junto for the History of Science in Kansas City. The history of science and technology is my favorite subject. I’ve read broadly in it, and I took several classes as an undergraduate, but I’d never been to a conference.

There were several talks I really enjoyed:

• Kathleen Sheppard’s “Constant Companions and Intimate Friends: Female Creative Couples in the History of Archaeology”
• Alejandro Alvarado’s “Animal Regeneration and the Evolution of Thought in Biology”
• Rienk Vermij’s “An attempt to rehabilitate the Scientific Revolution”
• Peter Soppelsa’s “From Rat War to Rat Control: Shifting Logics of Pest and Plague Response”

It was also my first trip to Kansas City since I was young. The first night I ate at Arthur Bryan’s Barbeque, and then I went to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. There is a wonderful single-room gallery there called the “Pastel Cabinet” which was exceptionally well curated. The current installation was Creatures of the Night: Women in Paris from 1850-1900.