Does compression have a history?

Alongside a cognitive challenge of “too much to know,” information overload poses a physical challenge of “too much to store.” Indeed, the possibilities of “big data” today are predicated on technologies that compress data into ever “smaller” sizes. On the one hand, major libraries such as the NYPL, coping with spatial shortage, have increasingly emphasized the provision of digital resources – shifting physical collections off site, and in the process sparking heated debates with researchers. On the other hand, the possibilities of digital...

How have people thought about mental illness in different cultures, and are there positive aspects associated with it, thinking historically and scientifically? Should we think of mental illness as categorically different or as deviations from the normal healthy state? What measures other than pharmaceutical medicines can be helpful for maintaining positive mental health? Join us as we take a deep dive into the biological, historical and psychological aspects of mental illness.

A panel featuring: Prof. Anne Harrington (History of Science),
Prof....

Title: “AIDS Origins: Can Stories that Don’t Tell Well Still Become History?"

Speaker: Naomi Oreskes
 
Scientists are often reluctant to speak in public on contested issues, for fear that this will “politicize” their science and have a negative impact on their credibility.  In this talk, I examine these concerns, by exploring historical...

Race, Representation, and Museums Lecture Series

Lee D. Baker, Dean of Academic Affairs for Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, Mrs. A. Hehmeyer Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Duke University

Frederic Ward Putnam, one of the Peabody Museum’s...

Race, Representation, and Museums Lecture Series

J. Lorand Matory, Lawrence Richardson Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Director, Sacred Arts of the Black Atlantic Project, Duke University

Since the early-modern encounter between African and European merchants on the Guinea Coast, the term “fetish...

Speaker: David Paternotte (Lecturer in Sociology at the Université libre de Bruxelles)

Speaker: Daniel Wikler (HSPH, Ethics and Population Health)

Live Podcast from Radio Contact Exhibit

Sponsored by SIT’N Listen & Academic Ventures of Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.    

The oceans cover 70% of our planet, but did you know that less than 5% of the ocean floor has been explored?  In the face of...

Title: “The Materials of Imperialism: Engineering Arid Landscapes in Washington’s Columbia Basin and Afghanistan’s Helmand Valley”
Linda Nash, University of Washington
...

UCBerkeley cosmologist & astrophysicist Chung-Pei Ma kicks off the first of a series of weekly discussions.... Read more about Black Hole Initiative Colloquium: Chung-Pei Ma

Please RSVP here for the SRC Colloquium Series Opening Reception

The "Science, Religion and Culture" seminar, one of the Mahindra Humanities Seminars, provides an opportunity to critically interrogate the categories of science, religion and culture and the sociocultural and discursive processes that create and transform these...

Title: "Fictioning Early Modernity: Storytelling with the History of Science”
Carla Nappi, Department of History, The University of British Columbia

Title: "Sound Matters: The Braided Tones of Vernacular Sciences in a Colonial Echo Chamber"

Projit Mukharji,
Martin Meyerson Assistant Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies, History & Sociology of Science, UPenn