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
[Interim Chair, Department of History,
2018-19]
Publications
Books
Death
of a pirate: British radio and the making of the information age.
New York: W.W. Norton, 2010.
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
i.
Published
“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 L. Howsam (ed.),
The Cambridge Companion to the History of
the Book (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 107-24.
“Piracy”
(a conversation about the book). Media History 2014 (DOI:
10.1080/13688804.2014.949434).
“Intellectual property.” In N. Thrift, A. Tickell, S. Woolgar, and W.H. Rupp (eds.), Globalization in Practice (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2014), 183-88.
“The
Uses of Print in the History of Science.”
Papers of the Bibliographical Society
of America 107:4 (December 2013), 393-420.
“The Ecological Origins of Copyright
Skepticism.” World
Intellectual Property Organization Journal 5:1 (2013), 54-64.
“False Modesty” (Essay review of S. Shapin, Never Pure.) Metascience
October 2013 (DOI 10.1007/s11016-013-9846-7).
“The Information Defense Industry and the
Culture of Networks.” Amodern 2 (2013):
http://amodern.net/article/the-information-defense-industry-and-the-culture-of-networks/
“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.
ii. In press and
forthcoming
“Privacy.” In A. Blair, P. Duguid, A.
Goering, and A. Grafton (eds.), Information:
A Historical Companion (Princeton: Princeton University Press). In press.
iii. 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 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)
“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:
many of these are in their very early stages.
It is not clear how many will ever be brought to completion. They are liable to change.]
Algorithms, Models, and Formalisms. (With James Evans.) A Mellon-funded project that takes an interdisciplinary look at how algorithm cultures have developed and the various roles that they play in contemporary and historical contexts.
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, Humanities Division
Caltech
Pasadena CA
1998-2000 Professor
(formerly Assistant Professor) of Sociology
University of California,
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
Canterbury, UK.
1991-4 Research
Fellow
Downing
Cambridge, UK.
1990-1 Munby Fellow
University Library
Cambridge, UK.
Teaching
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
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-
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
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.
Service
Within
UC
Promotion/tenure committee chair,
Department of History, 2019
Saller Prize Committee, 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
UC (selected)
Series Editor, “Science.Culture” (Book series at University of Chicago
Press)
History of Science Society,
Pfizer Prize Committee, 2012-15 (chair, 2015)
History
of Science, 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, 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, etc.
Referee for proposals
submitted to National Science Foundation
Referee for Macarthur
Foundation
Referee for CNRS, Paris
Referee for American Council
of Learned Societies
Tenure/promotion referee for
various institutions (details on request)
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. Class
I
Conferences and
Presentations (2006- )
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 Aft 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.
2015-16
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,
“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.