October 2017
Jesús Rodríguez-Velasco – Explorations in the Medical Humanities: Inventions of the Soul
This lecture series will explore the enigma of how what we write relates back to the experience of bodies, healthy and unwell. In this talk, Jesús R. Velasco will offer an idea of the importance of this science of the soul, its interdisciplinarity, and some of its theoretical issues.
Find out more »John M. Kinder – A History of American War in Five Bodies
In this talk, Kinder explores the history of American war through the bodies of five disabled veterans. What emerges is a portrait of nation struggling (and often failing) to mitigate the human cost of military conflict.
Find out more »Music and Meaning – Seminars in Society and Neuroscience
Music taps into cognitive mechanisms that govern our daily interactions with the world, such as expectations and violations of these expectations, and appears to have much in common with language. In addition, music plays social and ethical functions that can be understood from philosophical, historical, and cultural perspectives. Join us for a discussion with three renowned scholars from the humanities and cognitive science who will show how these modes of inquiry bear on each other – and explain what makes music mean.
Find out more »David N. Schwartz – How Fermi Became Fermi
Drawing on research undertaken in preparation for his forthcoming biography of Fermi, “The Last Man Who Knew Everything: The Life and Times of Enrico Fermi, Father of the Nuclear Age” (Basic Books, December 5, 2017) David N. Schwartz will discuss the development of Fermi as a physicist.
Find out more »Jason Fagone – Poet, Codebreaker, Nazi Hunter: The Puzzle-Solving Adventures of Elizebeth Smith Friedman
Journalist Jason Fagone visits to share stories from his just-published book about Elizebeth Smith Friedman, THE WOMAN WHO SMASHED CODES, and to discuss the life of this remarkable, pioneering woman at the root of American intelligence.
Find out more »Whitney Laemmli – Measured Movements: Weimar Germany, Labanotation, and the Choreography of Corporate Life
In 1928, the German choreographer Rudolf Laban announced what he believed to be an explosive development in the history of dance: the creation of an inscription system that could “objectively” record human movement on paper. The technique, known as “Labanotation,” relied upon byzantine combinations of lines, tick marks, and boxes. In this talk, Dr. Laemmli will explore two seemingly distant, but in fact closely-linked, moments from Labanotation’s history: its origins in the anxiety-ridden, vibratory atmosphere of Weimar Germany and its use in the American and British corporate office in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.
Find out more »Columbia Design Challenge: Addressing the Opioid Epidemic
Columbia Engineering is pleased to announce the Columbia Design Challenge: Addressing the Opioid Epidemic. Student teams could address production, prescription/ dispensing, policy and lobbying, and many other fundamental challenges, all of which would benefit from cross-disciplinary solutions.
Find out more »The Power of Telling Your Own Story: Workshop
This fall, educators are invited join the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Brooklyn Public Library, and Brooklyn Brainery in an interdisciplinary journey of storytelling and science.
Find out more »South-South II: Materiality and Embodiment in Greater Asia and Africa Conference
The conference will be a forum for facilitating interdisciplinary and transregional engagement with global histories of science and the history of and from the Global South.
Find out more »Textiles, Dyes and Knowledge Oeconomies in the French Enlightenment
This symposium brings together scholars working on the interlocking histories of science, artisanal production, and commerce in Enlightenment France. Following the circulation of knowledge and materials among various sites, scientific academies, royal administrative bodies, merchant companies, and workshops, the papers will examine the complex relationship between handicrafts, trade, and science in the eighteenth-century.
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