Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Having looked at students’ initial efforts to write cartographic biographies, I am rethinking how I can accomplish the goals I initially set forth. Here I think about some possible ways forward.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 10/18 at 10:02 PM
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Monday, October 17, 2011
Haverford College is about to open a exhibition on maps from Magill Library’s Special Collections. I was asked to write the caption for one of the maps, James C. Prichard’s ethnographic maps the accompany his Natural History of Man.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 10/17 at 10:49 PM
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
A review of some student work on the “Biography of a Map” assignment. Students consistently looked beyond the map itself, placing it in the context in order to recover the meaning it had for the original maker or the person who commissioned it. This post looks at efforts to understand three maps William Penn had made of his new colony.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 10/12 at 01:26 AM
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
At the recent Science on Tap Jonathan Seitz prompted people to think more broadly about what constitutes a science, both in the past and the present. Demonology, he argued, was a science that tried to categorize and make sense of natural phenomena.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 10/11 at 09:52 AM
Friday, October 07, 2011
My “Biography of a Map” assignment was intended to get students to think more broadly about historical artifacts and the nature of knowledge claims. I used maps as an opportunity to highlight some of the problems of approaching the past with our own assumptions and questions. Instead, it is important to recover the map maker’s questions and motivations. Maps are synecdochic for natural knowledge in general.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 10/07 at 10:49 PM
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Recent articles about the presence or absence of water on Mars seem remarkably familiar. More than a century ago Percival Lowell made life on Mars a popular and a scientific question. Bookies no longer take bets on finding life on Mars while astronomers continue to argue about the evidence and what it implies.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 09/27 at 10:42 PM
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Rebecca Kamen gave a presentation on her sculpture and art, tracing her inspiration to old scientific illustrations. Her description of these illustrations and the uses to which she put them raise questions about how we use the past and for what ends.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 09/24 at 12:42 PM
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
An account of my visit to George Gamow’s grave in Green Mountain Cemetery, Boulder, Colorado.
Posted by Paul Halpern on 08/23 at 09:15 PM
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Monday, July 25, 2011
What is the difference between personalized medicine and the truly personal? Setting this hot biomedical trend in historical context helps us cut through the hype.
Posted by Nathaniel Comfort on 07/25 at 09:48 PM
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Sunday, July 24, 2011
A walking tour of physics highlights in the nation’s capital, including stops at the Smithsonian Institution, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and the Einstein Memorial.
Posted by Paul Halpern on 07/24 at 07:00 PM
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