All courses numbered 500 and above are graduate courses.
Undergraduates need to submit a course permit to enroll.
HIST 610 History of Modern Social Knowledge
Taught as schedule allows (consult the Course Directory)
This seminar introduces students to the ways social knowledge has been collected, classified, and codified from the nineteenth century to the present, whether that knowledge be about intelligence, poverty, sexuality, history, race, the law, the family, the self , or the public. We will explore the rise of modern technologies of knowledge production, their challenge to more traditional ways of knowing the social world, and ongoing debates about their scientific legitimacy and cultural authority. Discussions will draw from both theoretical and historical works. Key themes include: new modes of measurement, calculation, and testing; constructions of the normal and the pathological; academic disciplines and other sites of knowledge production; popular versus professional expertise; and the problems of objectivity and representation.
