Science and Technology of the Self
HISTSCI 2760
Subject & Catalog Number
Course Information
Description
This class examines how scientists tried to capture (and define) the self through new methodologies and technologies. How did large research enterprises comprising “big social science” emerge in the 20th century at the meeting place between anthropology, psychology, psychoanalysis, and other human and life sciences? We begin by looking broadly at the history of the self, and ask how to define “technologies of the self.” The course then explores 20th and 21st century attempts to represent the self in graphs, quizzes, ethnographic interviews, psychograms, fMRIs, fieldwork, renderings of psychedelic experiences, and large datasets of dreams. How can “inner life experience” be scientifically and exactly known?
Available for Harvard Cross Registration
