Independent research for graduate students in the History of Science and Technology Department only.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Frumer, Yulia
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Constructing histories of science, technology, and medicine is a craft. It is a practice of knowledge production, an engagement with empirical evidence, and an attentiveness to the limitations of our sources. As a graduate student, having a great topic and a brilliant mind is not enough. One needs to learn the tools of the profession, master disciplinary methods, and develop personal habits that make scholarly work effective, sustainable, and enjoyable. This seminar focuses on the how-to aspect of science, medicine, and technology studies. We will ask and answer questions such as: How do I find an archive? What if I don’t have an archive? What if questions I find interesting cannot be answered in an archive? Can I rely on digital databases? Should I do something with DH? How do I keep writing if my mind is blank? How do I find that quote I saw somewhere three years ago? We will take a deep dive into various histories of science, technology, and medicine created by scholars working with different kind of materials, different methodologies, and different theoretical underpinnings. We will learn about various sources available to scholars of science, medicine, and technology, explore methods to investigate those sources, master the practical skills of research, and develop individual practices of day-to-day scholarly work.

• Days/Times: T 4:00PM - 6:30PM
• Instructor: Cummiskey, Julia Ross; Frumer, Yulia
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

This research seminar explores how the production of space and place facilitates, promotes, and authorizes knowledge and practice in science, medicine, and technology. The course encourages awareness of how perceptions and lived experiences of space and place can be used in historical research. We will critically interrogate spatial categories of analysis, including space, place, scale, and mobility, and the influence of the so-called “spatial turn” on history. What affordances are offered to history by deploying spatializing terms such as “local,” “global,” “public,” “private,” “center,” and “periphery”? And how does a historical approach complicate understandings of space and place? Case studies include domestic spaces such as bedrooms and kitchens; public spaces like streets and taverns; institutional spaces such as laboratories, factories, and hospitals; mobile spaces, for instance ambulances and ships; and virtual spaces.

• Days/Times: W 4:00PM - 6:30PM
• Instructor: Mooney, Graham
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Reports by staff members, students, and invited speakers.

• Days/Times: Th 3:00PM - 4:50PM
• Instructor: McManus, Alison L
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Reading intensive seminar that studies the events and ideas that transformed western science from Medieval natural philosophy to the experimental sciences (1500-1720s). Lecture meets with AS.140.321.

• Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, W 1:30PM - 3:50PM
• Instructor: Allen, Meagan Selby
• Room: Krieger 170
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 8/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

Under the guidance of the faculty advisor, this course is for HST graduate students who are attending a directed readings course or preparing a dissertation.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Frumer, Yulia
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

Under the guidance of the faculty advisor, this course is for HST graduate students who are attending a directed readings course or preparing a dissertation.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Jiang, Lijing
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

Under the guidance of the faculty advisor, this course is for HST graduate students who are attending a directed readings course or preparing a dissertation.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Li, Lan
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

Under the guidance of the faculty advisor, this course is for HST graduate students who are attending a directed readings course or preparing a dissertation.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Leslie, Bill W
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

Under the guidance of the faculty advisor, this course is for HST graduate students who are attending a directed readings course or preparing a dissertation.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Mercelis, Joris Hans Angele
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

Under the guidance of the faculty advisor, this course is for HST graduate students who are attending a directed readings course or preparing a dissertation.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Principe, Lawrence
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

Under the guidance of the faculty advisor, this course is for HST graduate students who are attending a directed readings course or preparing a dissertation.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Portuondo, Maria M
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

For graduate students in the History of Science and Technology Department Only.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Frumer, Yulia
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

For graduate students in the History of Science and Technology Department Only.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Jiang, Lijing
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

For graduate students in the History of Science and Technology Department Only.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Kargon, Robert H
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

For graduate students in the History of Science and Technology Department Only.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Leslie, Bill W
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

For graduate students in the History of Science and Technology Department Only.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Mercelis, Joris Hans Angele
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

For graduate students in the History of Science and Technology Department Only.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Principe, Lawrence
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

For graduate students in the History of Science and Technology Department Only.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: McManus, Alison L
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

Historical actors are emotional beings. Studies of emotion and cognition over the past several decades show that emotions shape sensory perception, communication, motivation, and decision-making. This seminar explores the variety of ways that historians of science, medicine, and technology can approach the emotional worlds of historical subjects and integrate analysis of emotion-centered cognitive processes into their research. The seminar explores literature in philosophy of science, cognitive science, psychology, and history of emotions, alongside works and methods in history of science, medicine, and technology.

• Days/Times: W 4:00PM - 6:30PM
• Instructor: Frumer, Yulia
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 15/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

This research seminar focuses on “historical catachresis” as a mode of analysis. Drawing inspiration from Gayatri Spivak's adaptation of Derrida's concept of catachresis, historical catachresis (as developed by feminist intellectual historian Tani Barlow) treats ubiquitous terms not as stable referents, but as repositories of social experience and normalizing strategies. By focusing on these terms as sites of "occulted evidence," historians can uncover the ways in which ideas, objects, and subjects were constructed and contested in specific historical moments. This seminar will examine different categories such as “scientist,” “woman,” “medicine,” and “magic,” without presuming them to be universal or transhistorical entities. Doing so emphasizes the future anterior, or what objects/subjects "will have been,” as a way to keep open the possibilities and contingencies of the past.

• Days/Times: T 4:00PM - 6:30PM
• Instructor: Li, Lan
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 15/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Reports by faculty, students, and invited speakers.

• Days/Times: Th 3:00PM - 4:50PM
• Instructor: McManus, Alison L
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 12/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

The seminar introduces classic and recent scholarly literature for a series of discussions on significant themes and debates in history of science, medicine, and technology in East Asia. Students learn the necessary scholarly background to effectively evaluate ideas and approaches in the subject and gain critical perspectives for their own research. The final project can be either an historiographical essay or a term paper based on original research. Students are recommended to attend lectures in AS.140.305 when possible.

• Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Jiang, Lijing
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 12/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

This seminar surveys major scientific developments from the mid-18th century to the present, with a focus on the physical, chemical, and biological sciences. It consists of weekly reading assignments which highlight canonical events in modern science, raise historiographical questions, and model historical research methodologies.

• Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: McManus, Alison L
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 10/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

Under the guidance of the faculty advisor, this course is for HST graduate students who are attending a directed readings course or preparing a dissertation.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Frumer, Yulia
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/7
• PosTag(s): n/a

Under the guidance of the faculty advisor, this course is for HST graduate students who are attending a directed readings course or preparing a dissertation.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Jiang, Lijing
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/7
• PosTag(s): n/a

Under the guidance of the faculty advisor, this course is for HST graduate students who are attending a directed readings course or preparing a dissertation.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: McManus, Alison L
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/7
• PosTag(s): n/a

For graduate students in the History of Science and Technology Department Only.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Frumer, Yulia
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/7
• PosTag(s): n/a

For graduate students in the History of Science and Technology Department Only.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Jiang, Lijing
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/7
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course introduces basic computational techniques in the context of empirical humanistic scholarship. Topics covered include the command-line, basic Python programming, and experimental design. While illustrative examples are drawn from humanistic domains, the primary focus is on methods: those with specific domains in mind should be aware that such applied research is welcome and exciting, but will largely be their responsibility beyond the confines of the course. Students will come away with tangible understanding of how to cast simple humanistic questions as empirical hypotheses, ground and test these hypotheses computationally, and justify the choices made while doing so. No previous programming experience is required.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Lippincott, Tom; Sirin Ryan, Hale
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 10/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course introduces substantial machine learning methods of particular relevance to humanistic scholarship. Areas covered include standard models for classification, regression, and topic modeling, before turning to the array of open-source pretrained deep neural models, and the common mechanisms for employing them. Students are expected to have a level of programming experience equivalent to that gained from AS.360.304, Gateway Computing, AS.250.205, or Harvard’s CS50 for Python. Students will come away with an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of different machine learning models, the ability to discuss them in relation to human intelligence and to make informed decisions of when and how to employ them, and an array of related technical knowledge.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Backer, Samuel Ehrlich; Messner, Craig A
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 10/10
• PosTag(s): n/a