Big Data:Ethical & Historical Perspectives

We live amidst a “Big Data” revolution, a moment of exponential data accumulation and the accelerated development of technologies that process it. Computer scientists have developed machine-learning algorithms to analyze enormous amounts of data in a wide variety of contexts, from social media to crime statistics. This “artificial intelligence” is built to replicate human thinking and automate decision-making. Developers therefore believe AI to be able to analyze and model without human intervention and bias. Recent studies in the history and sociology of science, however, question the novelty and neutrality of our Big Data Age. In this class we will explore these studies. The class will first look at the long and interconnected history of using large datasets and computational tools. It will then turn to “critical data studies” and discuss how recent literature has demonstrated the challenges posed by big data and what alternatives to existing approaches could look like. Together we will analyze how big data technologies, old and new, both revive historical prejudices like sexism and racism as well as create new opportunities for the future. No prior knowledge of AI, big data, or history is required. The class is discussion-based and students are invited to discuss their own experience with the datafied world.

Human Bodies in History

How have we come to know and experience our bodies? This undergraduate seminar develops humanities research skills necessary to study the body in history. Spanning early modern cultural practices to modern medicine, science, and technology, this course explores how ideas and practices concerning the body have changed over time and how the body itself is shaped by culture and society. A major focus will be learning how to conduct different forms of historical research to produce cutting-edge humanities scholarship about the human body. Readings will introduce key themes and recent scholarship including work on disability, reproduction, race, gender, ethics, extreme environments, and identity. This dynamic research group will grapple with issues at the heart of our corporeal existence by combining perspectives from the history of science, medicine, and technology, cultural history, anthropology, and science and technology studies (STS).

In this class, we visit several collections of human bodies, including the UChicago pathology and anatomy lab, the Smart Museum of Art, and UChicago’s Special Collections.

Technologies of Race-Making,
Past and Present

This course considers the intersections between technology, science, and race. It explores how technologies have been developed and used to assign racial meaning to people's identities and bodies and how this has impacted economic, political, and social power structures. We will read studies relating to historical and present-day technologies and discuss topics such as racial science, phrenology, biometry, surveillance and policing, artificial intelligence and automation, and data production and reuse. A major theme that runs through the course is the practice of race-making, how biological race is enacted and made relevant in specific technological practices. Which assumptions and expectations about human variation are built into the technologies? What are the effects of its use in practice? How does race making configure into more durable forms, such as standards, databanks, and protocols? This class will be bi-modal, with in class and online options.

Race in Science and Medicine
from 1800 to the Present

This interdisciplinary course will explore the ways in which scientists have studied and theorized race from the 18th century onward. We will start with Linnaeus’s racial classification and the 18th and 19th century anthropological study of skulls and bones, move to the 20th century study of genetic human variation, and end with the use of racial categories in biomedical research today. How have practices and theories of studying human diversity changed and persisted over time? The course will highlight the problematic and contentious nature of these studies by analyzing their colonial contexts, the UNESCO critiques after World War II, and current-day comments on race and science in newspaper articles and podcasts (transcripts available on course website). Together, we will reflect on how historical knowledge can assist in tackling complex issues surrounding race, science, and bias in societies today and in the past.