November 2015
Howard Kushner: Norman Geschwind, Behavioral Neurology and Left Handedness – Neuroscience and History Series
In the early 1980s Harvard neurologist Norman Geschwind (1926-1984) proposed a controversial hypothesis that uterine stress produced allergies, immune disorders, and learning disabilities, and initially, left-handedness. Because males were more likely than females to develop these disorders and to be left-handed, Geschwind and his colleagues were persuaded that hormones played a major role in these outcomes. The Geschwind hypothesis built on Geschwind’s earlier work on the role of neuronal lesions in learning disorders. His interest in learning disabilities can be…
Find out more »Paul Freedman, “Seasonal, Local Dining in Pre-Modern Europe”
Based on approximately 200 surviving manuscript and early printed cookbooks, we have a good idea of the aesthetics of dining before 1600. For the Roman Empire, in contrast, only one cookbook survives, that supposedly by Apicius (a second-century gourmand), but in fact dating from the fifth century. One of the two earliest copies of this unique cookbook, transcribed in the ninth century, is in the Library of The New York Academy of Medicine. In the days before modern transport, preservation,…
Find out more »What Can Neuroscience Offer the Study of Creativity – Seminars in Society and Neuroscience
Questions about creativity from artistic, sociological, psychological, biological, computational, philosophical, and other perspectives have long asked how people (and machines) generate ideas, solve problems, and create works of art.
Find out more »Diemut Strebe – Free Radicals, Sugababe and Other Works
Ronald Feldman Fine Arts is pleased to present the first New York exhibition of multi-media works by Diemut Strebe, a German-born artist based in Boston. Strebe links art and science to address important contemporary issues, often incorporating themes related to philosophy and literature. On display are ten art projects: multimedia works comprising living/biological material, installations, scientific experimental set ups and technological tools, photography, and video. Strebe takes as her subject the advanced science of our era, exploring many mysteries that…
Find out more »December 2015
Movie Screening: Climate – Make It Work
A documentary by David Bornstein, 51 minutes, 2015 Paris Climat Make It Work is an initiative launched by Sciences Po and partner institutions in preparation for the upcoming Conference of the Parties international climate negotiations in Paris (COP21). Led by Laurence Tubiana, the Special Representative of France for the COP21, and French philosopher Bruno Latour, the initiative culminated in a gathering of 200 youth and students from around the world in May to partake in a public simulation of the…
Find out more »Harriet Ritvo – Mixing or Matching: Hybridization and Taxonomy in the Nineteenth Century and After
Harriet Ritvo, Arthur J. Conner Professor of History at MIT, gives a talk on hybridization and taxonomy. The possibilities offered by hybridization or crossing engaged the energies of animal experts from stockbreeders to zookeepers in the 19th century; it also attracted the fascinated or horrified attention of the general public. Motivations were equally various, from the pragmatic desire to improve agricultural breeds to idle curiosity. Since the results (and non-results) of these activities were unpredictable, they also provided a way of challenging the limits…
Find out more »Kapil Raj – Connecting Chronologies, Constructing Historical Anthropology
This lecture is associated with the event The Local and the Global in History of Science Connecting Chronologies, Constructing Historical Anthropology: William Jones in Calcutta and his Legitimation of Empire About the speaker: Kapil Raj is Directeur d'études at the Centre Alexandre-koyré of the É cole des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris, France. His research focuses on the history of circulation and cultural interactions in the formation of knowledges and sciences. Based on a detailed historical analysis of…
Find out more »Problematizing the Local, in Global Histories of Science
Registration required. Please see event website for details. Programme Session I - Local as Problem in the Early Modern World 9:00AM-11:00AM Speakers: Kapil Raj, EHESS Daud Ali, UPenn Pablo Gomez, University of Wisconsin, Madison Chair: Harun Küçük, UPenn Session II - Local as Problem in the Modern World 11:15AM-1:15PM Speakers: Eugenia Lean, Columbia University Clapperton Mavhunga, MIT Joanna Radin, Yale University Chair: John Tresch, UPenn
Find out more »Climate Change and the Scales of Environment
Buildings are responsible for nearly half of all energy consumption and CO2 emissions in the United States today. This startling link between climate change and urbanization should spur architects and scholars of the built environment to rethink everything about the way they practice and teach. And yet, it hasn't. Climate change is too often addressed in schools of architecture and design in terms of technological solutions and their implementation—from "green" building techniques to the myriad challenges of fortifying metropolitan centers…
Find out more »The Syrian Migrant Crisis: A Panel Presentation
Keynote Address: Ninette Kelley, Director, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, New York Panelists: Neil Boothby, Allan Rosenfield Professor and Director of the Program on Forced Migration and Health, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University Wafaa El-Sadr, University Director of Epidemiology; Dr Matilde Krim-amfAR Chair in Global Health; and Director of ICAP, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University Neeraj Kaushal, Professor of Social Work; Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research, Columbia School of Social Work Moderator: Van C. Tran, Assistant Professor of Sociology,…
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