Adrian Johns
Curriculum Vitae
Personal Details
Full name Adrian
Dominic Sinclair Johns
Date of birth
Nationality US
and British
Address Department
of History
University of Chicago
1126 E. 59th Street
Chicago
IL 60637
Telephone 773
702 2334 (o); 773 203 0809 (c)
E-mail johns@uchicago.edu
Home page https://history.uchicago.edu/directory/adrian-johns
Present Appointment
Allan Grant Maclear Professor
Chair, Department of History
University of Chicago
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. Class I
Previous Appointments
2000-01 Associate
Professor, Humanities Division
Caltech
Pasadena CA 91125
1998-2000 Professor
(formerly Assistant Professor) of Sociology
University of California,
San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093.
1996-8 Senior
Research Fellow in History
Caltech
1994-6 Lecturer
[=Assistant Professor] in History of Science
University of Kent
Canterbury, UK.
1991-4 Research
Fellow
Downing College
Cambridge, UK.
1990-1 Munby
Fellow
University Library
Cambridge, UK.
Publications
Books
The
Science of Reading: Information, Media, and Mind in Modern America
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2023).
Beyond
Craft and Code: Human and Algorithmic Cultures, Past and Present (Osiris
38, 2023). (Co-edited with James Evans.) (The Introduction is by Evans and me,
and Chapter One is by the two of us plus Tyler Reigeluth: both are listed separately
below.)
Death of a Pirate: British Radio and the Making of the
Information Age. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010.
French translation by
Hélène Quiniou: La mort d'un pirate: La
société de l'information à l'épreuve des ondes. Paris, France: Zones
Sensibles, 2011.
Piracy: The Intellectual
Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates. Chicago: 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.
Spanish translation by T.
Fernández Aúz and B. Eguibar, Piratería:
Las Luchas por la Propriedad Intelectual de Gutenberg a Gates. Madrid,
Spain: Ediciones Akal, 2013.
Czech translation by
Lucie Chlumská and Ondrej Hanus, Pirátství:
Boje o Dusevní Vlastnictví od Gutenberga po Gatese. Brno: Host, 2013.
The Nature of the Book: Print
and Knowledge in the Making. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Papers
“Science and the Book in
Early Modern England.” In A. Smyth (ed.), The Oxford Handbook
to the History of the Book in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford
University Press), 347-361.
“Introduction: How and
Why to Historicize Algorithmic Cultures.” With James Evans. In Johns and Evans
(eds.), Beyond
Craft and Code: Human and Algorithmic Cultures, Past and Present (Osiris 38, 2023. University of Chicago Press), 1-15.
“The
Craft and Code Binary: Before, During, and After.” With James Evans and Tyler
Reigeluth. In
Johns and Evans (eds.), Beyond Craft and
Code: Human and Algorithmic Cultures, Past and Present (Osiris 38, 2023. University of Chicago Press), 19-39.
“Piracy in the Book
Trade” [essay review of Robert Darnton, Piracy and Publishing], American Historical
Review 127:3 (September 2022), 1433–1435.
“Mischievous
Magnanimity,” in D. Margócsy and R. Staley (eds.), The Mantis
Shrimp: A Simon Schaffer Festschrift (Cambridge: Cambridge HPS Collective,
2022), 365-69.
“Watching Readers
Reading.” Textual
Practice 35:9 (October 2021), 1429-52.
“Privacy.” In A. Blair,
P. Duguid, A.-S. Goering, and A. Grafton (eds.), Information: A Historical Companion
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021), 686-93.
“The New Rules of
Knowledge” (with James Evans). An introduction to a tryptich of papers on
algorithmic epistemology. Critical
Inquiry 46:4 (Summer 2020), 806-12.
“Orders of Service:
Markus Krajewski, The Server.” Technology and Culture. 61:2
(April 2020), 682-85.
“Lay Assaying and the
Scientific Citizen.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
160:1 (March 2016), 18-25.
“The Coming of Print to
Europe.” In The Cambridge Companion to the
History of the Book, edited by L. Howsam, 107–24. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2015.
“Piracy” (a conversation about the book). Media
History 2014 (DOI: 10.1080/13688804.2014.949434).
“Intellectual Property.”
In Globalization in Practice, edited by N. Thrift, A.
Tickell, S. Woolgar, and W. H. Rupp, 183–88. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2014.
“The Uses of Print in the
History of Science.” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 107, no. 4 (Dec.
2013): 393–420.
“The Ecological Origins
of Copyright Skepticism.” World Intellectual Property Organization Journal 5, no. 1 (2013):
54–64.
“The Information Defense
Industry and the Culture of Networks.” Amodern
2: Network Archaeology (2013).
“False Modesty” (Essay
review of S. Shapin, Never Pure.) Metascience
October 2013 (DOI 10.1007/s11016-013-9846-7).
“Gutenberg and the
Samurai: Or, The Information Revolution is History.” Anthropological
Quarterly 85:3 (Summer 2012), 859-83.
“Die Moral des Mischens:
Audiokassetten, Private Mitschnitte und ein Neuer Wirstschaftszweig für die
Verteidigung des Geistigen Eigentums” (“The Morals of Mixing: Cassettes, Home
Taping, and the Emergence of the Intellectual Property Defense Industry”), Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft 6
(January 2012), 17-35 (a special issue edited by J.D. Peters and E.
Schüttpelz).
“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.
Short pieces
Response to David Gissen,
"Reading in a Very Dark Room," Forty-Five,
September 2015: http://forty-five.com/papers/27/
“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 American
Historical Review, Annals of Science, British Journal for the
History of Science, The Economist,
German History, History, Isis, Journal of
Interdisciplinary History, Journal of Modern History, Medical History,
Metascience, Nature, Physis, Renaissance Quarterly, Times
Higher Education Supplement, and others.
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)
Unsiloed on
the science of reading, September 2023.
Big
Brains on the science of reading, September 2023.
“There
is no right way to read.” Time, 2023.
“Censorship and Information Control in
Information Revolutions,” a series of public events in late 2018 organized by
Ada Palmer (who did most of the work), Cory Doctorow, and me: https://voices.uchicago.edu/censorship/1245-2/
“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
v. 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).
Awards
2020-21 NEH
Sabbatical Fellowship
2018-21 Neubauer Collegium, “Censorship,
Information Control, and Information Revolutions from Printing Press to
Internet” (Co-PI with Ada Palmer). [NB: Palmer was the real primary for this
project.]
2015 UKC
Innovation in Academia Award, Los Angeles
2012 Gordon
J. Laing Award, University of Chicago Press (for Piracy).
2012 Guggenheim
Fellowship.
2012 ACLS
Fellowship.
2010 Book
of the Year. American Society for
Information Science and Technology.
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.
Teaching
2023-24 “Magic and Science in Early Modern
Europe.”
“Radicals in Early Modern England” (with
Gabriel Groz).
2-quarter Department Seminar (with Eleonor
Gilburd).
2022-23 Colloquium “Introduction to Early
Modern Europe.”
2021-22 Two-quarter “Colloquium on Early
Modern Britain” (with S. Pincus).
“Science, Culture, and Society III.”
“History of Information.”
“Introduction to Science Studies.”
2020-21 On research leave
2019-20 “Science, Culture, and Society III.”
“Introduction to Science Studies.”
“An Age of Revolutions in an Early Modern
Society: Britain from Reformation to Enlightenment” (two-quarter graduate
seminar)
2018-19 “Censorship, Information Control, and
Revolutions in Information Technology from the Printing Press to the Internet”
(with Ada Palmer).
“Science,
Culture, and Society III: Science in the Contemporary World.”
Graduate
Reading/Research class on early modern Britain (with Steven Pincus)
2017-18 “Science,
Culture, and Society I.”
“Introduction
to Science Studies.”
“Britain’s
Age of Revolutions.”
“History
of Information.”
2016-17 On
research leave
2015-16 “Science,
Culture, and Society II.”
“Introduction
to Science Studies.”
“The
History of Information.”
“Early
Modern Britain.”
2014-15 “Science,
Culture, and Society II.”
“Introduction
to Science Studies.”
“The
History of Information.”
“Early
Modern Britain.”
2013-14 “Science,
Culture, and Society II.”
“The
History of Information.”
“Introduction
to Science Studies.”
“Intellectual
Property and Piracy in History.”
2012-13 On
research leave.
2011-12 “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).
2000-01 “Early Modern Europe.”
“Intellectual
Property and Piracy from Gutenberg to Gates.”
“Science
and Society.”
1998- “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 “British History 1500-1700” (part one
of a 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 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.
Service
Within the
University of Chicago
Chair, History
Department, 2022-
Saller Prize Committee,
member, 2022
Ad hoc Nominations
Committee chair, History Department, 2022
Admissions Committee
member, History Department, 2021-22
Search committee member,
History of Science, 2020-21
Saller Prize committee
member, 2020
Provostial committee on
graduate student housing and travel, 2019-20
University of Chicago
Intellectual Property Committee, 2019-22
Department of History
Admissions Committee, member, 2019-20
Interdivisional Search
Committee, Meyer Chair in Jewish Studies, member, 2019-20
Search committee, chair,
Department of History, 2019-20
Promotion Committee
chair, Department of History, 2019-20
Promotion/tenure
committee chair, Department of History, 2019
Saller Prize Committee,
member, 2019
Interim Chair, Department
of History, 2018-19
Promotion committee,
Department of History (2018)
Search Committee,
Department of History (2018)
Admissions and Aid
Committee, Department of History (2017-18)
Tenure review committee
(chair), department of History (2017-18)
Social Science Division
Dean’s search committee (2017-18)
Council of the Senate
(2015- )
Admissions Committee,
Department of History (2014; chair, 2015)
Tenure Review Committee
(chair), Department of History (2013)
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 on 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 the University of Chicago (selected)
Series Editor,
“Science.Culture” (Book series at University of Chicago Press) (ongoing; with
Joanna Radin, Yale University)
History of Science
Society, Reingold Prize Committee, 2020-22 (chair, 2022)
History of Science
Society, Pfizer Prize Committee, 2012-15 (chair, 2015)
History of Science journal, editorial board (2015- )
Advisory board, History of Cartography vol. 5,
University of Chicago Press
Program chair for History
of Science Society meeting, 2004 (with A. Creager)
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, and others
Referee for proposals
submitted to National Science Foundation
Referee for Macarthur
Foundation
Referee for CNRS, Paris
Referee for American
Council of Learned Societies
Referee for APS
Tenure/promotion/recruitment referee for various
institutions (typically 1-3 each year, details on request)
Board member, Society for
Critical Exchange
PhD. Examiner, University
of Sydney, Australia
Committee, ASECS
Gottschalk Prize: member, 1999-2000; chair, 2000-01
Conferences and Presentations (2006- )
2022 “John Flamsteed’s Historia Coelestis.”
Linda Hall Library, Kansas City (online).
Roundtable on best practices in writing and publishing,
History of Science Society annual meeting
2021 “The Science of Reading.” University of
Chicago, workshop on history, philosophy, and sociology of science
2019-20 “Watching Readers
Reading.” Keynote, NYU Conference on Marshall McLuhan
“The Policing of Information.” Early Modern Studies
lunch, University of Chicago
2018-19 “On Privacy.”
History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Science Workshop, University of Chicago
“Abiezer Coppe’s Fiery
Flying Roll.” Early Modern Workshop, University of Chicago
“Fiscal Chemistry.” Nicholson Center conference on
“Disciplines of Experiment,” University of Chicago
2017-18 “Framed!”
Discussion of Theft in the Art World, Smart Museum, Chicago
Organizer (with James Evans), “Beyond Craft and Code” (a
two-day conference on algorithms and society)
2016-17 “National
Languages in Early Modern Books.” Renaissance Society of America annual
meeting, roundtable
“The Purloined Label: Some Consequences of a Customs
Seizure in New York, 1992.” Conference on “The Uses of Anomaly,” University of
Chicago
“How the Renaissance’s Information Police gave us our
Intellectual Property System.” Chicago Women’s Board.
2014-15 “How to be Cosmopolitan in Early Modern
Europe.” Pennsylvania State University
“Living in the INFO Age: Historical Reflections on the
Politics of Information Control.” Stanford University
“Policing Publics: Information Control in the Modernizing
Process.” Conference on Making Publics,
Stanford Humanities Center
“Living in the INFO Age.” HPSS Workshop, University of
Chicago
“How to be Cosmopolitan in Early Modern Europe.” Early
Modern Workshop, University of Chicago
Plenary Roundtable with James Secord: “Publish or Perish?
The Past, Present and Future of the Scientific Periodical” conference, Royal
Society, London, UK
“Universal Libraries, Romantic Readership, and the
Orphaning of Books.” CRASSH, Cambridge University, UK
“Put Not Your Trust in Things: Authenticating Substances
in Early Modern Europe.” UCLA
“Lay Assaying and the Scientific Citizen.” American
Philosophical Society Annual Meeting, Philadelphia
Introduction, Summing-up, etc.: “Disciplines,
Technologies, and Algorithms” Conference, Franke Center, University of Chicago
“State of the Field” Discussion with Richard John and
Daniel Hallin: International Communication Association Preconference on
“Communications and the State: Toward a New International History”
2013-14 “The Cultural
Origins of the Printing Revolution.” University of Toronto, Center for the Book
“Creativity and Ownership in a Digital World.” Panelist, Virginia Tech
“Scientific and Other Revolutions in Seventeenth-Century
London.” Chicago Public Library
“The Paradoxical Infrastructure of Innovation in Early
Modern Europe.” Illinois Institute of
Technology
“Kaleidoscopes.”
Smart Museum event
“Explorers, Pirates, and Police.” European University, St. Petersburg, Russia
2012-13 “Why We Need a
History of Scientific Reading.” UNAM,
Mexico City
“The Politics of Media Piracy.” UC Gleacher Center
“Pirate Radio.”
Batavia Public Library
“Playing with Time.”
Panelist, Field Museum
“Piracy and the Problems of Information Policing.” NYU Law School
“The Uses of Print in the History of Science.” Bibliographial Society of America, New York
“The History and Politics of the Information Defense
Industry.” Indiana University
“Why We Need a History of Scientific Reading.” Lisbon, Portugal
“The Politics and Policing of Information.” University of Connecticut
“The History and Politics of the Intellectual Property
Police.” Basel University, Switzerland
“Directions in Humanities Research.” Panelist, ACLS, Baltimore
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,
Venice, Italy
“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.” University of Iowa
“Unpacking the Universal Library: The Morals of Massive
Research Collections, 1810-2010.” “Media Histories” conference, Columbia
University
“The History and Politics of Policing Intellectual
Property.” Chicago Cultural Policy Center
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, University of New England
“The Debate over Google’s Universal Library in Historical
Perspective.” University of New Hampshire
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.