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I n the age of internet searches and social media, data has become hot—and not for the first time. An international group of historians will consider the promises, fears, practices, and technologies for recording and transmitting data from the eighteenth century to the present, including their implications for the lives of citizens and subjects. Location: Rothenberg Hall, Steven S. Koblik Education and Visitor Center FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2016 8:30 Registration & Coffee 9:30 Welcome: Steve Hindle (The Huntington) Remarks by Conveners: Soraya de Chadarevian (University of California, Los Angeles) Theodore M. Porter (University of California, Los Angeles) 9:45 Session 1 Envisioning Data from the Early Modern to the Nineteenth Century Moderator: Norton Wise (University of California, Los Angeles) J. Andrew Mendelsohn (Queen Mary University of London and Charité Berlin) “Data as a State of Mind and the Problem of How It Came to Be in Early Modern Europe” David Sepkoski (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin) “Narrating the Past with Data: Cameralism, Natural History, and the Visual Language of Statistics in the Nineteenth Century” 11:30 Break 11:45 Christine von Oertzen (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin) “Datafication and Visualization of Statistics in Nineteenth-Century Europe” 12:45 Lunch 1:45 Session 2 Machineries and Objects of Data Moderator: Patrick McCray (University of California, Santa Barbara) Theodore M. Porter “Cases as Data in the Nineteenth-Century Asylum” Staffan Müller-Wille (University of Exeter) “Data Selection and Re-Use in Franz Boas’ Anthropometric Studies” 3:30 Break 3:45 Soraya de Chadarevian “Things and Data in Recent Biology” A CONFERENCE AT THE HUNTINGTON 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino CA 91108 PHONE: (626) 405-3432 EMAIL: [email protected] Funding provided by The Dibner History of Science Program at The Huntington 9:00 Registration & Coffee 9:30 Session 3 With Data We Order Society Moderator: Christopher Kelty (University of California, Los Angeles) Dan Bouk (Colgate University) “Personal Data and the US Planned Society” Sarah E. Igo (Vanderbilt University) “Nine Digits: A Biography of the SSN, 1935-1975” 11:15 Break 11:30 Rebecca Lemov (Harvard University) “A Violent Behavior Database, c. 1969-1973: Episodes in the History of Pre-Crime” 12:30 Lunch 1:30 Session 4 Methods and Ambiguities in the Contemporary Age Moderator: Sharon Traweek (University of California, Los Angeles) Emmanuel Didier (CNRS and University of California, Los Angeles) “The Value of Genomics Databases” Matthew Jones (Columbia University) “Random Forests and Decision Trees: Machine Learning, Empirical Statistics, and the Challenge of Interpretability” 3:15 Break 3:30 Daniel Rosenberg (University of Oregon) “Google’s Gray Tail” 4:30 Concluding discussion moderated by Soraya de Chadarevian and Theodore M. Porter SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2016 Conference registration and optional lunches by reservation only. Conference registration fee.............................................................................................................. $ 25.00 (Students free) Buffet lunch (November 18)............................................................................................................. $ 20.00 Buffet lunch (November 19)............................................................................................................. $ 20.00 Please visit huntington.org/historiesofdata for ticket information. Histories of Data and the Database Slide filing cabinet, bio-medical laboratory (2016). Photograph by Soraya de Chadarevian
