Adrian Johns
Curriculum Vitae
Personal Details
Full name Adrian
Dominic Sinclair Johns
Date of birth
Nationality British
Address Department
of History
IL 60637
Telephone 773
363 3324 (h); 773 702 2334 (o); 773 203 0809 (c)
E-mail johns@uchicago.edu
Home pages http://home.uchicago.edu/~johns/
Present Appointment
Allan Grant Maclear
Professor
Department of History and the College
Chair
Committee on Conceptual and Historical
Studies of Science
Publications
Books
Death
of a pirate: British radio and the making of the information age.
W.W. Norton, 2010.
Piracy: The intellectual property wars
from Gutenberg to Gates.
University of Chicago Press, 2009.
Italian
translation by M. Togliani and G. Mageri:
Pirateria: Storia della Proprietà
Intellettuale da Gutenberg a Google (Torino,
Italy: Bollati Boringhieri,
2010).
[Translations
into Spanish, Arabic, and Czech are in process.]
The Nature of the Book: Print and
Knowledge in the Making.
University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Papers
i.
Published
“Historical Perspectives on the
Circulation of Information,” American Historical
Review 116:5 (December 2011), 1393-1435 [A conversation with P.N. Edwards,
L. Gitelman, G. Hecht, B. Larkin, and N. Safier].
“London and the Early Modern Book,” in L.
Manley (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of
London (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 50-66.
“The Book in, and as,
American History.” New
England Quarterly 84:3 (September 2011), 496–511 (essay review of D.D.
Hall, H. Amory, et al. (eds.), A History of the Book in America, 5
vols.).
“The
property police.” In M. Woodmansee, P. Jaszi, and M. Biagioli (eds.), Making
and Unmaking Intellectual Property: Creative Production in Legal and Cultural
Perspective (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 199-213.
“Language, Practice, and History.” In L. Bently, J.
Davis, and J.C. Ginsburg (eds.), Copyright
and Piracy: An Interdisciplinary
Critique (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 44-52.
“The Piratical Enlightenment.” In C. Siskin and W. Warner (eds.), This is Enlightenment (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2010), 301-20.
“Ink.” In E. Spary and U. Klein (eds.), Materials and expertise in early modern Europe: Between Market and
Laboratory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 101-24.
“Changes in the World
of Publishing.”
In J. Chandler (ed.), The Cambridge history of English Romantic Literature (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2009), 377-402.
“Piracy as a business
force.” Culture
machine 10 (2009), 44-63. Online at culturemachine.net.
“Coleman Street.” Huntington
Library Quarterly 71:1 (2008), 33-54.
Online here.
“Truth and malicious
falsehood.” Nature 451 (February 28, 2008), 1058-60.
“The
identity engine: printing and publishing at the beginning of the knowledge
economy.” In L.
Roberts, S. Schaffer and P. Dear (eds.), The mindful hand: inquiry and invention from the late Renaissance to early
industrialisation (Chicago, IL: Edita/University of Chicago Press, 2007), 403-28. Online at http://www.knaw.nl/cfdata/publicaties/detail.cfm?boeken__ordernr=20041102.
“Coffeehouses
and print shops.”
The Cambridge History of Science, III: Early Modern Science (ed. L. Daston and K. Park. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2006), 320-40.
“Intellectual property
and the nature of science.” Cultural Studies 20 (2006), 145-64; online here.
Arts of Transmission. Special issue of Critical Inquiry, 31:1 (Autumn 2004), edited by J. Chandler, A. Davidson, and A.
Johns.
“Foreword.” In W.J. Ong,
S.J., Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to
the Art of Reason (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004).
“Reading and Experiment in the Early
Royal Society.” K. Sharpe and S. Zwicker
(eds.), Reading, Society and Politics in Early Modern England
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 244-71.
“Print and Public Science.” The
Cambridge History of Science, IV: Science in the Eighteenth Century (ed. R.
Porter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003),
536-60.
“Science and the Book.” The Cambridge History of the
Book in Britain (7 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
General Editors: D.F. McKenzie, D.J. McKitterick,
I.R. Willison), vol. IV (2003), 274-303.
“The Ambivalence of Authorship in
early Modern Natural Philosophy,” in M. Biagioli and
P. Galison (eds.), Scientific Authorship: Credit
and Intellectual Property in Science (New York: Routledge,
2003), 67-90.
“How to
acknowledge a revolution.” American
Historical Review 107 (2002), 106-25 (part of an invited “Forum” with
Elizabeth Eisenstein and Anthony Grafton).
“Pop music pirate
hunters,” Daedalus 131:2 (Spring 2002), 67-77.
“Printing, Publishing
and Reading in London, 1660-1720.” P. O’Brien (ed.), Urban
Achievement in Early Modern Europe: Golden Ages in Antwerp, Amsterdam and
London (Cambridge University Press, 2001).
“The Past, Present, and
Future of the Scientific Book.”
N. Jardine and M. Frasca-Spada
(eds.), Books and the Sciences in History (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2000), 408-26.
“The Physiology of
Reading.” N. Jardine and M. Frasca-Spada
(eds.), Books and the Sciences in History (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2000), 291-314.
“Miscellaneous Methods: Authors,
Societies and Journals in Early Modern England.” British
Journal for the History of Science 33 (2000), 159-86.
“Identity, Practice, and Trust in
Early Modern Natural Philosophy.” Historical Journal 42 (1999), 1125-45.
“Science and the
Book in Modern Cultural Historiography.” Studies
in History and Philosophy of Science 29 (1998), 167-94.
“Prudence and Pedantry in Early Modern
Cosmology: The Trade of Al Ross.” History of Science 35 (1997),
23-59.
“Flamsteed’s
Optics and the Identity of the Astronomical Observer.” In F. Willmoth (ed.), Flamsteed’s
Stars (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1997),
77-106.
“Natural History as
Print Culture.”
In N. Jardine, J. Secord, E. Spary
(eds.), Cultures of Natural History: from Curiosity to Crisis
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 106-24.
“The Physiology of
Reading and the Anatomy of Enthusiasm.” In A. Cunningham, O. Grell
(eds.), Religio Medici: Religion and
Medicine in Seventeenth Century England (Aldershot:
Scolar Press, 1996), 136-70.
“The Physiology of
Reading in Restoration England.”
In J. Raven, H. Small, N. Tadmor (eds.), The Practice and Representation of Reading in
England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 138-61.
“The Ideal of
Scientific Collaboration: The ‘Man of Science’ and the Diffusion of Knowledge.”
In H. Bots, F. Waquet (eds.),
Commercium Litterarium:
La Communication dans la République des Lettres, 1600-1750 (Amsterdam:
APA-Holland University Press,
1994), 3-22.
“History
of Science and the History of the Book.” In S. Cavaciocchi (ed.), Produzione e Commercio della
Carta e del Libro Secc. XIII-XVIII
(Firenze, Italy: Le Monnier, 1992), 881-90.
“History, Science and the History
of the Book: the Making of Natural Philosophy in Early Modern England.” Publishing
History 30 (1991), 5-30.
ii.
In press and forthcoming
“Intellectual
property.” In N. Thrift, A. Tickell,
and S. Woolgar (eds.), Globalization in practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press). In press.
“Gutenberg and the Samurai: Or, The
Information Revolution is History.” Anthropological Quarterly. In press.
“The Morals of Mixing: Cassettes, Home
Taping, and the Emergence of the Intellectual Property Defense Industry.” Forthcoming (in German) in J.D. Peters and E. Schuettpelz
(eds.), special issue of Zeitschrift fuer Medienwissenschaft on media and social theory.
iii.
Short pieces
“Printing as a Medium.” International Encyclopedia of
Social and Behavioral Sciences (26 vols. New York: Elsevier, 2001),
12050-12055.
“The Birth
of Scientific Reading.”
Nature 409:6818 (January 2001), 287.
“Printing: Invention of, Europe.”
D. Jones (ed.), Censorship (4 vols. London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001),
III, 1950-55.
Book reviews for Annals
of Science, British Journal for the History of Science, German
History, History, Isis, Journal of Interdisciplinary
History, Journal of Modern History, Medical History, Metascience, Nature, Physis,
Renaissance Quarterly, and Times Higher Education Supplement.
Contributor to the Dictionary
of National Biography, New Dictionary of National Biography, Encyclopaedia of the Scientific Revolution (Routledge, 2000), and Reader’s Guide to the History of
Science (Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001).
iv. Podcasts, Newspaper
Articles, etc. (selected)
“Too Much Information”: WFMU:
http://www.wfmu.org/listen.m3u?show=42137&archive=72473
Hearsay Culture (Stanford
Law School/KZSU-FM): http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/podcasts/20101124_Levine_127_Johns.mp3
Surprisingly
Free (George Mason University):
http://surprisinglyfree.com/2010/06/21/adrian-johns-on-piracy/
C-Span:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/id/226130
BBC World
Service:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10118823
Out-law.com (UK
legal podcast):
http://www.out-law.com/default.aspx?page=10832
This Way Up (Radio New Zealand):
Rorotoko:
Background
Briefing (Australian Broadcasting Corporation):
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2010/3048341.htm
WILL-AM
(Illinois Public Radio):
http://will.illinois.edu/focus/interview/focus110104b/
Journal of
Science Communication (Italy):
http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/10/01/Jcom1001%282011%29C01/
La Repubblica (Italy): http://www.bollatiboringhieri.it/pdf/RassegnaStampa_1341.pdf
Current/Future projects
[Note:
all these are in their very early stages.
It is not clear how many will ever be brought to completion. They are liable to change. I include them because colleagues have
indicated that it would be useful to have something like a snapshot of my
current thinking and ambitions.]
The Intellectual Property Defense Industry. This will take off
from the last chapter of Piracy,
which argued that what is distinctive about today’s IP world is the emergence of
a coherence global industry devoted to policing intellectual property. We know almost nothing about this industry –
its size, scope, culture, or history – but it is in fact a major influence
deciding how information culture “works” and fails to work. This project – which has now attracted
support from the Guggenheim Foundation and the ACLS – will seek to provide the
first in-depth account, including both close-quarters studies of IP police in
action and a historical analysis extending back perhaps 300 years.
An Historical Anthropology of Scientific Reading. I have it in mind to
do a large-scale, comparative analysis of reading practices across the
sciences, both in our own time and in history.
This would have to be a collaborative exercise conducted on a large
scale. It is clear that reading
practices do differ across scientific
disciplines, institutions, and media, and we are
starting to realize that those differences are consequential for the claims of
the sciences themselves. But we lack
even the most rudimentary map of reading practices in these areas. All we have to date are case studies (some,
to be sure, very rich). I hope to
propose a major project to provide the first empirically researched and
historically situated taxonomy.
A New Areopagitica. What are the
responsibilities of reading? This was a
question that the poet and polemicist John Milton addressed in his Areopagitica, the
classic argument against censorship that he published at the height of the
English Civil War. Much of Milton’s
pamphlet was in fact devoted to arguing for the advent of a republic of
readers, whose duties as well as privileges he set out to define. I think that in the current moment of
transition to digital media, we need to return to Milton’s question once again. This project would seek to use the history of
reading to articulate what the responsibilities of the reader are – and what
they should be – in the new environment.
Pharmacopoeias:
print, authenticity, and modernity. A project on half a
millennium of efforts to police the identity of substances (medicaments, foods,
colors, etc.) by deploying the power of print. The hypothesis is that pharmacopoeias, the
genre of works that sought to guarantee substances by fixing their formulae in
print, pose a fundamental problem about modernity itself. They have never really worked, except through
the mediation of powerful but inscrutable policing practices. Their history enables us to see both where
the power of print really resides and how the stability of both texts and
substances came to be taken for granted in modern society.
Synoptics.
There is a long-standing ambition in many cultures of seeking to capture
all knowledge about a given field – and perhaps all knowledge tout court – in a single glance. “Synoptics” is the
name I give to the endeavor to realize this ambition. Its history is intertwined in complex ways
with the histories of psychological knowledge, aesthetics, communications
technologies, and reading practices. I
hope to provide an account of how synoptics have
developed and changed over time, which will throw light on how knowledge is
represented in our own digital culture.
Mr Smith goes to Tokyo.
Erasmus Peshine Smith was an American
political economist, lawyer, and (at one point) natural scientist who was
recruited by the Meiji Emperor of Japan to become his advisor on trade and
foreign affairs in the 1870s. Living in
the imperial quarters at a time when other Westerners were largely restricted to
Yokohama, Smith had unique access to the emperor’s household, and seems to have
used it to advise policies in radical opposition to those preferred by
Washington and London. The result was a
scandal with repercussions that extended to the bases of colonialism, the slave
trade, and economic liberalism. Smith’s
private papers have survived unseen, and I hope to use them to tell this story
for the first time.
Multimedia
2000 Software installation demonstrating the use
Peter Apian’s Astronomicum
Caesareum (1540) for the Huntington Library’s Star
Struck exhibition on the history of astronomy.
1998-2003 Project design and pilot modules for
“The Universal Laboratory,” a multimedia initiative in the history and
sociology of the sciences (funded by NEH as Microcosmos).
Previous Appointments
2000-01
Associate Professor
Division of Humanities and Social Sciences
Caltech
1998-2000
Professor (formerly Assistant Professor) of Sociology
University of California,
La Jolla, CA 92093.
1996-8
Senior Research Fellow in History
California Institute of Technology
CA 91125.
1994-6
Lecturer [=Assistant Professor] in History of Science
Centre for History & Cultural Studies of Science
Canterbury, UK.
1991-4
Research Fellow
Cambridge, UK.
1990-1
Munby Fellow
University Library
Cambridge, UK.
Teaching
2013-14 (projected) “Science, Culture,
and Society I.”
“Magic in Early Modern Europe.”
“Early Modern Britain.”
“Intellectual Property in History.”
2012-13 On leave.
2011-12 Chicago “Historiography.”
“Introduction to Science Studies” (with K. Knorr Cetina).
“History and Historiography of Science.”
“Science, Culture, and Society II.”
2010-11 “Science,
Culture, and Society I: The Scientific Revolution.”
“Early Modern Britain.”
“An Introduction to Science Studies” (with Karin Knorr).
“Academic Warfare.”
2001-10
“Early modern Britain.”
“Historiography.”
“Introduction to science studies” (with J. Evans and with Karin
Knorr Cetina).
“A history of reading.”
“Natural
Philosophy 1200-1800.”
“Piracy and intellectual property.”
“Science,
Culture, and Society II: the Scientific Revolution.”
“Science,
Culture, and Society III: Newton to the present.”
“The book in early modern Europe.”
“Favorite readings in the history of science” (with R.J. Richards,
A. Winter).
2000-
Caltech “Early Modern Europe.”
2001 “Intellectual Property and
Piracy from Gutenberg to Gates.”
“Science and Society.”
1998-
UCSD “Introduction to Science Studies”
(Graduate: with G. Doppelt).
2000 “Science and Society”
(Introductory course to new minor in science and society).
“Sociology of Technology.”
“Humanities
2: Rome, Christianity, and the Middle Ages.”
“Media and
Society from the Book to the Internet.”
“Introduction
to Science Studies” (Graduate: with N. Oreskes).
1996-8 California
Institute of Technology:
“British
History 1500-1700” (part one of a new three-course sequence in British
history).
“The Scientific Revolution” (solo and with K. Knox).
“Scientific Communication.”
“Early Modern Europe.”
“The History of the Book.”
“Early Modern Europe.”
Tutor in
TIDE (a pedagogic initiative in multimedia).
1994-6 University
of Kent:
Convenor,
lecturer, and seminar leader, “Development of the Social Sciences.”
Seminar leader, “Introduction to Literature and Science.”
Convenor, new MA program: “Writing the History of Science.”
Convenor, new Part II course: “The Making of
Knowledge in Early Modern Europe.”
Lecturer,
new Part I course: “The History of the Book.”
Tutorial Co-ordinator, School of History
(with responsibility for progress of all students in years 2 and 3 of a 3-year
degree program).
1992-96 University
of Cambridge:
Part II course: “Magic in Renaissance and
Early Modern Europe.”
M.Phil. in History and Philosophy of
Science: supervision and assessment.
“Natural Philosophy in
the Middle Ages and Renaissance, c.500-1600.”
“Natural Philosophy and
the History of the Book, c.1450-1850.”
Faculty of Modern History: “Social and
Natural Order in Early Modern England.”
Acting Director of Studies in History,
Downing College (Lent Term.)
Supervision (1987-94): Scientific Ideas
and Practice from Antiquity to the Renaissance; The
Scientific Revolution; History of Science since the Enlightenment.
Awards
2012 Gordon
J. Laing Award, University of Chicago Press (for Piracy).
2012 Guggenheim
Fellowship.
2012 ACLS
Fellowship.
2010 Best
Foreign Book From Inhouse
Bestsellers award, Sharjah International Book Fair.
2005 National
Science Foundation sabbatical award.
2001 American Philosophical Society
sabbatical award.
1999 Leo
Gershoy Award, American Historical Association.
1999 John Ben Snow Prize, North American Conference
on British Studies.
1999 Louis
Gottschalk Prize, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.
1999 SHARP
Prize (for best book on the history of authorship, reading, and publishing).
1999 Research
grant, Commmittee on Research, University of
California.
1996-7 Various
research and travel funds from Caltech.
1987-93 Various
research grants from Downing and Corpus Christi Colleges, the British Academy,
and the Royal Society.
1987-90 British Academy
Major Studentship, Cambridge University.
1988 Caldwell
Scholarship, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
1987 Bronowski
Prize for best dissertation in the history of science, Cambridge University.
1987 Bacon Prize, Corpus
Christi College, Cambridge.
1985 Caldwell Scholarship,
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
1985 Bacon Prize, Corpus
Christi College, Cambridge.
Service
Within
UC
Search Committee,
postdoctoral fellowship in Disciplines and Technologies (2011-12)
Ad hoc search committee in
Department of History (2011)
Chair, Search committee in
History of Medicine (2010-11)
Chair, Teaching
committee, Department of History (2009-present)
Chair, Fellowships and
placement committee, Department of History (2007-8)
Chair, CHSS (2001-present)
Chair of the Board of
University Publications, University of Chicago Press (5/04-7/06)
Chair, Search committee in
British History (2006-07)
Member, Board of the Library
(2009-12)
Member, Bamboo advisory
board (2010- )
Member, Divisional
dissertation prize committee (2008)
Member, University Committee
on Intellectual Property (2007-10)
Member, committee to
appraise the undergraduate program in Environmental Studies (2005)
Member, Fellowships
Committee, Department of History (2003-6)
Member, Search committee in
Latin American history (2004-05)
Organizer (with Richard
Epstein, UC Law School): Cultural Policy Workshop series, 2004, on Intellectual
Property
Beyond
UC (selected)
Advisory
board, History of Cartography vol. 5,
University of Chicago Press.
Program chair for History of
Science Society annual meeting, 2004 (with Angela Creager,
Princeton)
Advisory board member, Isis
(2003-06)
Referee for submissions to Historical
Journal, Canadian Journal of History, Studies in History and Philosophy of
Science, Huntington Quarterly, University of Chicago Press, Harvard
University Press, Yale University Press, Cambridge University Press, Oxford
University Press, Ashgate Press
Referee for proposals
submitted to National Science Foundation
Referee for Macarthur
Foundation
Referee for CNRS, Paris
Referee for American Council
of Learned Societies
Tenure referee for various
institutions (not listed here as the process involves anonymity)
Board member, Society for
Critical Exchange
PhD. Examiner,
Committee, ASECS Gottschalk
Prize: member, 1999-2000; chair, 2000-01
Education
1987-92 Corpus Christi
College, Ph.D. 1992
Cambridge
University, UK.
M.A.
(Cantab.)
1990
1984-7 Corpus
Christi College, B.A.
(Hons.), Natural Sciences 1987
Cambridge
University, UK. (History
and Philosophy of
Science): Class I
Conferences and Presentations
(2006- )
2011-12 “Ecology, Empire, and the Origins of
Anti-Copyright Ideology.” Loyola University, Chicago
“Imperialism, Ecology, and the Origins of
the Anti-Copyright Movement.” The New School, New York
Commentary,
Society for the History of Technology annual conference, Cleveland
Commentary
on Bruno Strasser, MIT [Cancelled because of illness]
“The Intellectual Property Defense
Industry and the Crisis of Information.” University of
British Columbia, Vancouver
“Making Waves: Pirate Radio.”
Chicago Humanities Festival
“Pirate Media.”
Social Sciences Division Visiting Committee Presentation, University of
Chicago
“The Intellectual Property Defense
Industry.” Yale University Law School
“Piracy.” University of Oklahoma
Participant
in roundtable on prints and science in early modern Europe, Northwestern
University
“Piracy.”
University of California, Berkeley
“Medicine and the Crisis of Intellectual
Property.” Entin Lecture in
the History of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal
“The Invention of Scientific Reading.”
University of North Carolina
“The Information Defense Industry and the
History of Networks.” Keynote, conference on Network Archaeology,
Miami University, Ohio
“The Invention of Scientific Reading.” Brown University.
2010-11 “Imperialism, Ecology, and the
Origins of the Anti-Copyright Movement in the Nineteenth Century.” Coffin Lecture in the History of the Book,
Senate House, London
“The Information Revolution is
History.” HoTT
Visiting Lecture, Florida State University
“For and Against Universal Libraries.” University of Chicago
Library Group, Law School, University of Chicago
Commentary,
International Society for the History and Theory of Intellectual Property,
annual meeting, Washington, DC
“How
Readers became Poachers: Modern Media and the Sciences of Reception.” Annual
lecture for the Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture, University
of Wisconsin, Madison,.
Panel
presentation, “The History of the Book: Promise and Limits.” “The Immaterial Renaissance,” New England
Renaissance Conference, Yale University
“The Use and Abuse of Universal Libraries.” “Why Books?” conference, Radcliffe Institute
for Advanced Study, Harvard University
“The Historical Functions of Piracy.” Scuola per Librai Umberto e Elisabetta Mauri,
“The Promise and Peril of Universal Libraries.” California International Antiquarian Book
Fair, San Francisco
“The Invention of Intellectual Property.” Joint
CCHS/University Library public lecture series on the History of the Book,
Northwestern University. Podcast here.
“Inscriptions and Mechanisms in the Invention of Intellectual
Property.” Keynote address, “Inscriptions: The Material Contours of
Knowledge” conference, UC Riverside, March 2011. Podcast here.
“The Use and Abuse of the Universal Library.” Huntington
Library, San Marino, California
“The Morals of Mixing: Cassettes, Home Taping,
and the Emergence of the Intellectual Property Defense Industry.” Ida Beam
Distinguished Visiting Lecturer, University of Iowa
“Texts and Machines in the Constitution of Intellectual Property.”
“Unpacking the Universal Library: The Morals of Massive Research
Collections, 1810-2010.” “Media Histories” conference,
“The History and Politics of Policing Intellectual Property.”
Chicago Cultural
Introduction, CDI Project meeting on “Five New Projects.” Franke Center, University of Chicago
“The
Mechanizing of the Word: Texts and Machines in the Constitution of Intellectual
Property.” Walter J. Ong, S.J., Memorial Lecture, St.
Louis University
“Imperialism, Ecology, and the Globalization of Copyright in the
Nineteenth century.” Bongiorno Lecture,
Oberlin College
“Creativity,
Copyright, and the Universal Library: Romanticism and Writing at Times of Media
Revolution.” Center for Law, Technology, and the Arts/Center for the Study of
Writing, Case Western Reserve University
“The Crisis of Intellectual Property.” Center for Global
Humanities,
“The Debate over Google’s Universal Library in Historical
Perspective.”
2009-10 “For and against universal
libraries.” Bennington College.
“For and against Universal Libraries.” UCSD.
“Death of a Pirate.” History Dept., University of Chicago.
“The IP defense industry.”
Midwest Faculty Forum.
“Historicizing Google.”
Keynote, Center for Library Initiatives Conference.
“The future of Books.”
UC Alumni Club.
“The Piratical Enlightenment.” UIUC.
Keynote, OCLC conference, Chicago.
2008-09 “God
goes to Grub Street.” Beinecke
Library, Yale University.
“Reading,
listening, and viewing: social practices and the problem of public
knowledge.” UCSB.
2007-08 “The authenticity engine.” Society for Scholarly Publishing, Boston, MA.
“Pirate
principles: information, monopolies, and media in the modern age.” Yale University.
“Pharmaceuticals
and the origins of modernity: adulteration, piracy, and credit in the early
Enlightenment.” University
of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
“Babbage
and the book: information, modernity, and media at the origin of the knowledge
economy.” University
of Chicago.
“Death of a Pirate: Murder and Media in the 1960s.” University of Michigan.
“Pirate Listeners and the Political Economy of Broadcasting,
1920-1950.” History
of Science Society, Washington, DC.
“Babbage
and the Book: Printing in the Creation of an Information Society.” Breslauer Lecture,
UCLA.
2006-07 “The open source campaign in
Victorian England.” Mossman Lecture, McGill
University.
“The future of the history of science.” McGill University.
“The printing counter-revolution.” Conference on “mediating
Enlightenment,” NYU.
“The
identity engine: printing and publishing in the development of the knowledge
economy.” UC Irvine.
“The
identity engine: printing and publishing in the creation of the knowledge
economy.” SHARP
conference keynote, Minneapolis.
“Inventors, Schemers, and Men of
Science: Intellectual Property and its Enemies in Victorian England.” Nicholson Center,
University of Chicago.
“The politics of patenting and the nature of science.” HPSS Workshop, University
of Chicago.
Round table on “Intellectual Property, policy, and public culture.” Society of Fellows,
Chicago.
“When
All Intellectual Property was Theft: The Nineteenth-Century Assault on
Patenting and Copyright.” University of California, Berkeley.
“Science, industry, and empire in the invention of intellectual
property.” University
of Notre Dame.