Wylie | Spring 2017

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
SIMPSON CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES

HUM 597A: Observation, Objectivity, and Object Biographies:
Reading Lorraine Daston
1 credit C/NC microseminar | Spring 2017
online at: https://canvas.uw.edu/courses/1139799

Instructor: Professor Alison Wylie

Class meetings: three Mondays 3:30-5:20 in April (see below), Simpson Center for the Humanities (CMU 202)
Dastons Katz Lecture and special events (April 19 and 20)
Office hours: Thursdays, 3:00-5:00 or by appointment, Savery M396
Contact: aw26@uw.edu

Description
This microseminar meets in conjunction with the visit of Lorraine Daston to the University of Washington
as a Katz Distinguished Lecturer in April 2017. Daston is Director of the Max Planck Institute for the
History of Science in Berlin and Visiting Professor of Social Thought and History at the University of
Chicago. A widely respected historian of science, Daston has published on the history of probability and
statistics, wonders in early modern science, the emergence of the scientific fact, scientific models, objects
of scientific inquiry, the moral authority of nature, and the history of scientific objectivity. Her recent books
include How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind: The Strange Career of Cold War Rationality (co-editor, 2014),
Histories of Scientific Observation (co-editor, 2011), and Objectivity (with Peter Galison, 2010).

The focus of this seminar will be on Daston's pivotal publications on historical transformations of ideals of
objectivity, biographies of scientific objects, observational practices and conventions of image-making.
These have been influential well beyond historical science studies (her home discipline); they have
inspired generations of scholars who are committed to integrating historical, philosophical, and
social/cultural studies of the sciences. Daston has also written on the divergent disciplinary and
interdisciplinary approaches that make up the cognate fields of science, technology & society studies
represented in our own graduate Certificate in Science, Technology & Society Studies, so her visit is an
occasion to reflect on the vision that animates this program as we conclude our second year.

Readings
Available on the Canvas course website.

Seminar format and requirements

This is a reading-intensive, discussion-based microseminar. The writing requirements take the form of
discussion posts:
two posts for the pre-visit seminars raising questions for discussion of the common readings and
reporting on readings that you select these are due by 9:00 pm the evening before the seminar
meetings in which they will be discussed (April 2 and 9).
a final post after Daston's visit reflecting on her visit as a whole and its relevance to participants' own
research interests, due by 9:00 pm April 23.
C/NC credit for this seminar will be assigned on the basis of the required posts and active participation in
discussion. All assignments must be completed to receive credit.

Course Learning Objectives:

The central goals of this seminar are that you should come away with the following:
a working knowledge of Dastons scholarship in areas relevant to your research interests;
the background necessary for productive engagement with Daston when she is in residence;
a facility for interdisciplinary communication in and about science, technology and society studies.
 Wylie | Spring 2017

Seminar meetings
We will meet in the Simpson Center seminar room (Communications 202) unless otherwise noted.

One common reading is assigned for the two seminar meetings before Dastons visit. Each member of
the seminar is asked to report on this common reading and one additional reading that represents an
aspect of Dastons scholarship that is especially relevant to your own research.

Seminar I: April 3, 3:30-5:30 Science Studies and Objectivity

Common reading: Science Studies and the History of Science, Critical Inquiry 35(2009): 798-813.
Selection: one of the following, or a reading of your choice related to objectivity:
- Daston & Galisons Objectivity (Zone Books, 2007) one section of your choice.
- Daston, Objectivity & the Escape from Perspective, Social Studies of Science 22 (1992): 597- 618.
- Daston & Galison, The Image of Objectivity, Representations 40(1992): 81-128.

Discussion post I: If youre revisiting Daston & Galisons work on objectivity, how does it read to you
now? What new questions, issues, implications would you like to discuss? If this is new reading for you,
what do you find compelling, puzzling, problematic? For everyone: how does this genealogy of ideals of
objectivity relate to the work youre doing in your primary area of research interest? And how does it
relate to Dastons account of the current state of STS and HPS?

----------------------------------------------------

Seminar II: April 10, 3:30-5:30: Observation and Objects

Common reading: the introductions to these three collections edited or co-edited by Daston:
- Daston, Speechless, in Things that Talk: Object Lessons from Art and Science (Zone Books
2004), pp. 9-24.
- Daston & Lunbeck, Observation Observed, in Histories of Scientific Observation (University of
Chicago Press, 2011), pp. 4-13.
- Daston, The Coming into Being of Scientific Objects, in Biographies of Scientific Objects
(University of Chicago Press, 2000), pp. 1-14.
Selection: either a reading of your own choice, or one additional essay from these collections.

Discussion post II: What issues, implications, and questions raised by these readings would you like to
discuss with Daston? And, as for your first post, how do these accounts of observation, the vagaries of
reasoning from and about things, and the formation scientific objects bear on your own research?

----------------------------------------------------

Dastons visit: April 19-20

Attend the Katz Lecture and at least one of the other events listed below.
April 19, 7:00: Katz Distinguished Lecture, Kane Hall 210
Algorithms Before Computers: Patterns, Recipes, and Rules
April 20, 10:00-11:30: morning coffee with Lorraine Daston, Simpson Center (CMU 204)
* an opportunity to raise questions weve discussed in the seminar or that arise from Dastons
Katz lecture.
April 20, 1:30-3:00: Katz colloquium, Simpson Center (CMU 202)
Big Science and Big Humanities

Discussion post III: What did you take away from Dastons lecture, colloquium, and/or discussion over
coffee? What themes, points of continuity or discontinuity do you see between the work on objectivity,
observation, and objects that weve read and her recent work on computing, algorithms, and big science?
Whats the relevance of her work to your areas of research interest?

----------------------------------------------------

Seminar III: April 24, 3:30-5:30: reflection on Dastons visit based on your third discussion posts.
 Wylie | Spring 2017

Additional readings
This is a short list of additional sources that may be of interest; much more can be found on her website
at https://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/en/users/ldaston
Do please post any other sources relevant to the seminar on the everything else discussion board on
the Canvas course website.

Daston, L. (2016). History of Science Without 'Structure', in R. J. Richards, & L. Daston (Eds.),
Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions at Fifty: Reflections on a Science Classic. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, pp. 115-132.
Daston, L. (2016). Cloud Physiognomy. Representations 135(1): 45-71.
Daston, L. (2015). Epistemic Images, in A. Payne (Ed.), Vision and Its Instruments: Art, Science,
and Technology in Early Modern Europe. University Park, Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press,
pp. 13-35.
Daston, L. and G. M. Most (2015). History of Science and History of Philologies, Isis 106(2): 378-
390.
Daston, L. (2014). The Naturalistic Fallacy is Modern, Isis, 105(3): 579-587.
Erickson, P., Klein, J. L., Daston, L., Lemov, R., Sturm, T., & Gordin, M. D. (2013). How Reason
Almost Lost Its Mind: The Strange Career of Cold War Rationality. Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press.
Daston, L. (2012). The Sciences of the Archive, Osiris 27(1), 156-187.
Daston, L. (2010). How Nature is a Garden, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 35(3-4): 215-230.
Daston, L. (2009). Academic Excellence (review of How Professors Think by Michle Lamont),
European Journal of Sociology 50(3): 478-482.
Daston, L. (2008). On Scientific Observation, Isis 99(1): 97-110.
Daston, L. (2004). Taking Note(s), Isis 95(3): 443-338.

Defke, Uta (2012). The Observer (profile of Lorraine Daston), Max Planck Research, pp. 87-92.