Science in Human Culture at Northwestern University
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The Science in Human Culture Program at Northwestern builds upon the well-established field of science studies, an
interdisciplinary field that brings the perspectives of the humanities and social sciences to bear on developments in science, medicine, and technology. At SHC, faculty from across campus work with postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and
undergraduate majors and minors to study science and its allied fields as defining features of modern societies.

Programs

• SHC offers undergraduates an adjunct major and minor field, where they confront the impact of science, medicine, and technology on society—and on their own lives.

• SHC welcomes graduate students, including applicants to its cluster initiative in science studies as well as current students who wish to affiliate with the program. Students attend the doctoral colloquium on Mondays that do not feature a Klopsteg lecture.

• SHC offers two concurrent two-year postdoctoral fellowships in the contextual study of science, technology, or medicine.

 

For questions about the program please contact:

Program Director:

Ken Alder
University Hall, Room 025
shc-dir@northwestern.edu

Program Administrator:

Natasha Dennison
Science in Human Culture
University Hall, Room 020
Northwestern University
1897 Sheridan Rd.
Evanston, IL 60208-2245
tel: 847-491-3525
fax: 847-467-2733
shc-program@northwestern.edu
For directions to our offices, click here.

Events

• SHC invites faculty and students to attend its regular Klopsteg lecture series on select Mondays from 4-5:30pm in University Hall 201. The Spring 2013 line-up features:


April 15:
STEFAN HELMREICH
(MIT)

and
HEATHER PAXSON
(MIT)
"The Perils and Promises of Microbial Abundance: Novel Natures and Model Ecosystems, from Artisan Cheese to Alien Seas"

 

April 22:
SARAH IGO
(Vanderbilt)

"Tracking the ‘Surveillance Society’"

 

 

May 6:
RICHARD TUCKER
(U Michigan)
“The Environmental Consequences of Modern Warfare”


May 13:
ANGELA CREAGER
(Princeton)

“Converging on the Gene: The Somatic Mutation Theory of Carcinogenesis”



 

• The first Midwestern STS conference—"Facts, Artifacts, and the Politics of Consensus"— featuring keynote speaker Naomi Oreskes, drew 16 panelists and over 100 attendees from more than a dozen colleges and universities to Northwestern University on May 4-5, 2012. PHOTO GALLERY.

News

Postdoc Search

SHC is conducting its annual search for a two-year postdoctoral fellow in science studies for 2013-14/2014-15. For information about how to apply, see application information.

In other news

PHOTO GALLERY from the Fall 2011 Faculty & Graduate Student Party.

Welcome to new faculty member, Helen Tilley, Associate Professor of History, whose book, Africa as a Living Laboratory, appeared in 2011. Helen will be teaching courses on global biomedicine and the environmental sciences.

Welcome to new postdoctoral fellow, Lukas Rieppel, who will be affiliated with the History Department while working on his project, Assembling the Dinosaur: Money, Museums, and American Culture, 1870-1930.

Prof. Ken Alder, who was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, will be beginning a new term as director of the Science in Human Culture Program.

Congratulations to Prof. Steve Epstein, who has been awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and will be on leave in 2012-13.

For other news about faculty and students, look here.

Selected faculty publications

Book cover: The Lie Detectors: The History of an American Obsession   Ken Alder
The Lie Detectors: The History of an American Obsession
(Bison Books, 2009)
Book cover: The Lie Detectors: The History of an American Obsession   Pablo Boczkowski
News at Work: Imitation in an Age of Information Abundance
(University of Chicago Press, 2010)
  Charles Camic
(with N. Gross
and M. Lamont)
Social Knowledge
in the Making

University of Chicago
Press, 2011
Book cover: Inclusion: The Politics of Difference in Medical Research   Steven Epstein
Inclusion: The Politics of Difference in Medical Research
(University of Chicago Press, 2007)
  Gary Fine
Sticky Reputations:
The Politics of
Collective Memory in
Midcentury America

Routledge, 2012
Book cover: The Nature of Cities   Jennifer Light
The Nature of Cities: Ecological Visions and the American Urban Professions, 1920-1960
(Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009)
Book cover: In Praise of Chickens  

Jane Smith
In Praise of Chickens: A Compendium of Wisdom Fair and Fowl
(Lyons Press, 2011)

Book cover: In Praise of Chickens  

Helen Tilley
Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development, and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, 1870-1950 (University of Chicago Press, 2011)


Northwestern University Logo
Science in Human Culture, 020 University Hall, 1897 Sheridan Rd., Evanston, IL 60208
tel: 847-491-3525 | fax: 847-467-2733
Director: Steven Epstein, University Hall, Room 025, shc-dir@northwestern.edu
Administrator: Natasha Dennison, University Hall, Room 020, shc-program@northwestern.edu