January 2018
“Swim Team”: A Medical Humanities Film Series
The Heyman Center is hosting a film screening of Swim Team, an award winning feature documentary about a New Jersey YMCA based, community swim team made up of kids on the autism spectrum. The film follows three of team’s star athletes, boys on the cusp of adulthood, when government services become scarce.
Find out more »Center for Science and Society Welcome Back Lunch
Join the Center for Science and Society for an informal lunch-time meet and greet to celebrate the new semester and new year! Chat with students, postdocs and faculty interested in History of Science, Science, Technology and Society studies, and interdisciplinary collaboration between the sciences, humanities, arts and social sciences. Learn more about our growing community and ongoing projects, as well as upcoming events and funding opportunities.
Find out more »Michael Mauskapf – The Social Foundations of Creativity: Evidence from Popular Music, 1955 to 2000
Creativity is central to cultural production, but what makes certain producers more likely to innovate than others? More specifically, what are the different sources of social influence that drive variation in creative output, and through what mechanisms do these sources operate?
Find out more »James Delbourgo – The Origins of Public Museums: Hans Sloane’s Collections and the Creation of the British Museum
In 1759 London’s British Museum opened its doors for the first time – the first free national public museum in the world. But how did it come into being? This talk recounts the overlooked yet colorful life of the museum’s founder: Sir Hans Sloane. The little-known life of one of the Enlightenment’s most controversial luminaries provides a new story about the beginnings of public museums through their origins in imperialism and slavery.
Find out more »February 2018
Joonwoo Son – Governing Economy through Indicators: Transformation of Use of Indicators in Japanese Economic Planning, 1960-1965
This workshop series is primarily designed to assist advanced graduate students with their ongoing research projects. The workshop aims to expose participants to original approaches to social studies of science and technology, but also to expose students to solutions to common challenges of academic work.
Find out more »Sari Altschuler – The Medical Imagination: Literature and Health in the Early United States
In this lecture, Sari Altschuler will be talking about her new book on the history of the medical imagination. In reframing the historical relationship between literature and health, The Medical Imagination provides a usable past for our own conversations about the imagination and the humanities in health research and practice today.
Find out more »Roundtable Conversation: At the Intersection of Art, Neuroscience, and Perception
Moderated by Lynn Gumpert, Director, Grey Art Gallery, and Eric Klann, Professor and Chair of Neural Science, both NYU; with speakers Teresita Fernández, artist, Eric Kandel, University Professor and Fred Kavli Professor, Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University; and Robert Whitman, artist, who will discuss the relationships between mind, brain, perception, and art.
Find out more »Michael N. Shadlen – How the Brain Decides, Thinks, and Creates
What was once the purview of psychology and philosophy is now a staple of biomedical science. And by elucidating the underlying neural mechanisms that make all this possible, Dr. Shadlen hopes to identify new strategies to confront the neurological and psychiatric disorders that impair cognitive function.
Find out more »Ligo Project – Art of Science Gallery Night 2018
Come discover some truly amazing science-inspired art and performance and explore art as a unique tool to learn about scientific research happening in your own neighborhood! A multi-media event, Art of Science - Gallery Night provides a way for the community to learn about and explore scientific innovation through different artistic media.
Find out more »Paul C. Johnson – An Automaton’s Interiority: Ajeeb in Brazil, 1896
Professor Johnson considers the attraction to human-like automatons. The goal of this essay is not to intervene in the already-extensive literature on the automaton whether as thing or concept, but rather reconsider the body of work on the automaton from a distinctive point of view, namely that of the "religious" appeal of nearhumanness.
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