The workshop will bring together two communities: 1) historians of science and technology dealing with Big Data and its many history predecessors, and 2) scholars drawing upon many of the techniques of text mining, social network analysis, and other analytical tools associated with Big Data. It will be one of the inaugural events of Columbia's new Center for Science and Society.
Historians of data offer greater analytical purchase on the limitations and dangers of the collection and analysis of different forms of data. They likewise serve as a powerful correction to historical myopia about “big data” today. Data-focused computational historians work with techniques well-suited to the volume of historical records often common in the last two centuries and illuminating applied to traditional historical sources such as learned correspondence. This workshop aims to foster a greater critical literacy around data by drawing together these two sets of competencies that too rarely overlap. This workshop would critically examine the techniques for the study of historical evidence and the creation of histories of large-scale objects previously resistant to more traditional methods within the history of science by pushing the start of art of tools in computational history. It also hopes to use the critical acuity central to the history of science and technology to help refine our computational tools; better to understand their limits and to improve upon them. The goal is not simply mutual critique, but the sharpening of tools and methodologies, qualitative and quantitative.
This workshop is by invite only with the reading of precirculated papers. To request papers and attendance, please email Professor Matthew Jones, James R. Barker Professor of Contemporary Civilization at Columbia University.
The workshop is made possible with the suppport of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
April 17, 2015 Friday
8:30am - 9:00am EDT
9:00am - 10:30am EDT
Hallam Stevens
Assistant Professor of History
Nanyang Technological University
Martha Poon
Fellow
Institute for Data & Society
Janet Vertesi
Assistant Professor in Sociology
Princeton University
Alex Wellerstein
Assistant Professor of Science and Technology Studies
Stevens Institute of Technology
Frank Pasquale
Professor of Law
University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law
Lev Manovich
Professor of Computer Science
The Graduate Center, City University of New York
10:30am - 10:45am EDT
10:45am - 3:00pm EDT
Wangui Muigai
Graduate Student in the History of Science
Princeton University
Arunabh Ghosh
Assistant Professor of History
Harvard University
Scott Klein
Director of News Applications Desk
ProPublica
Evan Hepler-Smith
Graduate Student, History of Science
Princeton University
Frank Pasquale
Professor of Law
University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law
Lev Manovich
Professor of Computer Science
The Graduate Center, City University of New York
Joanna Radin
Assistant Professor in the History of Medicine, of Anthropology and of History
Yale University
Henry Cowles
Assistant Professor
Yale University
Patrick McCray
Professor
University of California, Santa Barbara
Megan Finn
Assistant Professor
Information School, University of Washington
Manfred Laubichler
President’s Professor of Theoretical Biology and History of Biology
Arizona State University
3:00pm - 3:30pm EDT
3:30pm - 4:25pm EDT
Megan Finn
Assistant Professor
Information School, University of Washington
Henry Cowles
Assistant Professor
Yale University
Wangui Muigai
Graduate Student in the History of Science
Princeton University
David Sepkoski
Research Scholar
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
April 18, 2015 Saturday
8:30am - 9:00am EDT
9:00am - 10:30am EDT
Stephanie Dick
Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows
Harvard University
Frédéric Brechenmacher
Professor of History of Science and Technology
Ecole Polytechnique
Manfred Laubichler
President’s Professor of Theoretical Biology and History of Biology
Arizona State University
Arunabh Ghosh
Assistant Professor of History
Harvard University
Dennis Tenen
Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature
Columbia University
Fred Gibbs
Assistant Professor
University of New Mexico History Department
10:30am - 9:45am EDT
10:45am - 12:00pm EDT
Joanna Radin
Assistant Professor in the History of Medicine, of Anthropology and of History
Yale University
Alex Wellerstein
Assistant Professor of Science and Technology Studies
Stevens Institute of Technology
Martha Poon
Fellow
Institute for Data & Society
Frédéric Brechenmacher
Professor of History of Science and Technology
Ecole Polytechnique
12:00pm - 1:30pm EDT
1:30pm - 2:30pm EDT
Patrick McCray
Professor
University of California, Santa Barbara
David Sepkoski
Research Scholar
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
Evan Hepler-Smith
Graduate Student, History of Science
Princeton University
Stephanie Dick
Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows
Harvard University
2:30pm - 2:45pm EDT
2:45pm - 4:15pm EDT
Fred Gibbs
Assistant Professor
University of New Mexico History Department
Dennis Tenen
Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature
Columbia University
Hallam Stevens
Assistant Professor of History
Nanyang Technological University
Janet Vertesi
Assistant Professor in Sociology
Princeton University