This course offers an historical survey through the medicine and science of the brain - from psychoanalysis (and a little before) to modern neuroimaging. It pays particular attention to the ways in which the mind and brain sciences have played a role in "making up people" (Hacking). Amongst others, it examines the birth of the asylum; the psyche in the secularizing politics of 19th c. France; how a discourse of nerves fed into a discourse on modernity; the role of the laboratory in the formation of 19th c. psychological sciences; the origins and reception of psychoanalysis; and the various cultures of contemporary neuroscience.

The seminar introduces graduate students to central problems, themes, concepts and methodologies in the history of science and neighboring fields. We explore past and recent developments including the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge, Actor-Network Theory, the study of practice and experimentation, the role of quantification, the concept of paradigms, gender, sexuality and the body, environmental history of science, the global history of science, and the role of labor and industry, amongst others.

The course introduces some major works in the history of computing, digital media, and information technologies, with particular attention to transformative and methodologically important texts, often at loggerheads with one another. Students are likewise introduced to some major current works in the history of technology and media studies. The course along the way provides an outline of the development of computing from the late nineteenth century. Authors include Kelty, Kline, Medina, Seaver, Haigh, Chun, Brunton, Mahoney, Nakamura, Nooney, Turner, Philip, Lécuyer, Rankin, Hicks, Diaz, among others.