January 2017
Camille Robcis – The Politics of the Psyche
This talk maps the intersections of politics, psychoanalysis, and psychiatry in France in the aftermath of May ’68. For many thinkers during these years, Marxism could offer a theory of alienation to explain why the protesters had taken to the streets, but it was unable to account for why the revolution was systematically aborted. Why were libidinal politics consistently repressed by the “fascism in our heads,” “the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the thing that dominates and exploits us,” to quote Michel Foucault? In this context, several of these thinkers – including Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari – turned to psychiatry in the hope of finding a new theory of the subject that could embrace and reclaim these libidinal politics. This talk revisits this history and explores the possibilities behind a politics of the psyche.
Find out more »George J. Makari – Soul Machine: The Invention of the Modern Mind
Soul Machine takes us back to the origins of modernity, a time when a crisis in religious authority and the scientific revolution led to searching questions about the nature of human inner life. This is the story of how a new concept―the mind―emerged as a potential solution, one that was part soul and part machine, but fully neither.
Find out more »February 2017
The Roles of Physicians in 19th Century Polar Exploration
Douglas Kondziolka collects arctic and antarctic polar exploration books, maps and letters from the era of the late eighteenth through the early twentieth century. The collection documents the important steps in Arctic discovery, both for a Northwest passage to Asia, and to the North Pole itself. In this talk, the roles of physicians, spanning from naturalists, to artists, to caregivers, to troublemakers, will be highlighted.
Find out more »Career Workshop: Applying for Academic Jobs in the Humanities
Speaker: Ellie Hisama, Professor of Music, Columbia University The Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities invite graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and PhDs in the humanities to a workshop on the academic job search led by Professor Ellie Hisama. Topics to be covered include preparing the cover letter and CV, interviewing by Skype, giving a job talk, teaching a sample class, meeting with the search committee and administrators, and negotiating an offer. Please REGISTER HERE.
Find out more »Consuelo H. Wilkins – Engagement, Equity, and the Promise of Precision Medicine
Dr. Wilkins will give a talk on precision medicine. The talk is part of the 2017 Advances in Precision Medicine Seminar Series.
Find out more »Inscription, Digitization and the Shape of Knowledge
How does the digitization of archival information influence knowledge? Learn about Dr. Lauren Kassell's 10-year project to digitize one of the largest surviving sets of private medical records in history—the 80,000 consultations recorded by the seventeenth-century astrologer-physicians Simon Forman and Richard Napier—with responses from New York University thought leaders across various fields. Panelists will respond from the varying perspectives of their own work.
Find out more »Frances Champagne – How Do Early Life Experiences Shape Behavior?
Brain development is dynamic process that reflects complex interplay between genes and environments. The experiences occurring during early life can have profound effects on brain development with long-term implications for behavior and mental health. How does the environment achieve such enduring effects? Dr. Champagne explores the molecular pathways through which early experiences shape the activity of genes and the consequences of these effects for behavior. These “epigenetic” pathways are a fundamental link between genes and environments that may account for both risk and resilience to the effects of early life adversity and the “inheritance” of environmental effects on the brain.
Find out more »The Ligo Project – Science (as) Culture: Winter Happy Hour
Join the Ligo Project at our Science (as) Culture Winter Happy Hour for cross-disciplinary discussion and exchange of ideas focused on integration of science and society and how to change how we as a society think about, learn about, and talk about art, science and technology.
Find out more »CANCELLED TODAY – Jacqueline Joon-Lin Chin – Precision Medicine: Privacy & Family Relations
Precision Medicine—an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person—raises a myriad of cultural, political, and historical questions that the humanities are uniquely positioned to address. As part of its overall Precision Medicine Initiative, Columbia is undertaking a broad based exploration of questions that precision medicine raises in law, ethics, the social sciences, and the humanities.
Find out more »Presidential Scholars Research Symposium
This event will include presentations from several of our Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience, who will discuss their current cross-disciplinary research and findings.
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