Teaching

Visualization has been central to the development of science over the last 400 years, from Galileo through DNA to black holes. From diagrams and thought experiments through traces, photographs and film, the ability to picture, and reproduce, images of scientific phenomena...

Scientific knowledge does not spring whole into being like Athena from the head of Zeus, full grown and armored. Instead, it depends on networks and affiliations, bonded communities of experimenters, instrument makers, and theorists. We will begin with attention to early...

Examination of the theory and practice of capturing scientific practice on film. Topics will include fictional, documentary, informational, and instructional films and raise problems emerging from film theory, visual anthropology and science studies. Each student will make...

Albert Einstein is the most famous figure in science, ever. Following his physics, cultural, philosophical, and political trajectory, this seminar aims to track the shifting role of science in the 20th and 21st centuries. This first-year seminar addresses Einstein's...

This course will follow major debates and transformations in the history of Science and Technology Studies and allied fields by tracing the works of Bruno Latour through the network of his interlocutors. Topics will include early and later forays into history, anthropology...

Visualization has been central to the development of science over the last 400 years, from Galileo to black holes. From diagrams and thought experiments through traces, photographs and film, the ability to picture, and reproduce, images of scientific phenomena has shaped our...

This seminar is aimed at exploring the changing structure, aims, and impact of the university, from early days through our present vexed moment to possible futures. The goal is to explore the foundational premises of why we have universities, where they come from and where...

Science works through collaborations and yet our epistemology—how we gain and secure knowledge—is fundamentally tied to the thinking, perceiving, and acting individual. How should we understand the epistemology of collaborations, from a handful of scientists working at a lab...

Visualization has been central to the development of science over the last 400 years. From diagrams and thought experiments through traces, photographs and film, the ability to picture, and reproduce, images of scientific phenomena has shaped our understanding of the natural...

This seminar aims at exploring the underlying metaphysics of historical writing. Using Foucault (especially his meta-historical works) as our guiding thread, we will examine critically the assumptions that lie behind the idea of causal plenitude (that events all have causal...

This course aims to explore scientific-technical sites—places of research, production, teaching, testing, and disposal. Some may be historical (such as disused Cold War relics), others in current use. How are these places shaped by the work that goes in them; how do the...

In the heat of World War II, the state for the first time systematically contracted universities to advance science and technology to pursue the war effort. During the Cold War, the institutional and legal arrangements that facilitated the state-science relationship...