Thu, 06 Aug 2009
Fulbright Fellows Program
Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was the best-selling academic book of the 20th Century, selling over one million copies in sixteen languages. As part of their introduction to the United States, a group of forty-one Fulbright Scholars from thirty countries is studying Kuhn at Penn this summer. I gave the introductory lecture on SSR, which was great fun. I rarely get to do philosophy of science anymore. The slides are here, but the animated version is even better: lots of astronomy and epicycles, along with a cameo by Homer Simpson.
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Mon, 13 Apr 2009
Women of Power Documentaries
On Tuesday, April 14, I will be responding to a screening of the documentary "To Dream Tomorrow," which is about computing pioneer Ada Byron Lovelace.
The film is been shown as part of a series called
More information about the Lovelace documentary and its filmmakers can be found here
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Thu, 05 Mar 2009
University of Minneapolis
On February 26, I presented a paper at the University of Minneapolis on my ongoing research project on computerized decision models. Although the paper was ostensibly about computer chess, the talk took a conceptual turn, and focused on what I am calling the "politics of the algorithm."
In any case, the slides that I used illustrate the talk attracted a lot of attention, and I am posting them here as an experiment in making aspect of my research more widely available.
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Fri, 12 Dec 2008
SAS Frontiers Magazine
The current issue of School of Arts & Science Frontiers magazine features a review of my recent work on the Internet and American commerce.
The article is written by B. Davin Stengel, and is called "Doctors Without Modems? Technology Historian Nathan Ensmenger checks the pulse of the e-health revolution."
The article includes audio of my discussing the Science, Technology, and Society major, as well as my forthcoming book "The Computer Boys Take Over" (MIT Press)
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Open Source Teaching
The Open Source Teaching Project represents an attempt to use Web 2.0 technologies and social networking to "create freely interactive media platforms which integrate academic and social content focused on critical thinking, college, and careers."
Listen here to my interview with OST, where I discuss such divers topics as "what is the history of technology," "choices and technology," "the problems with digital media," and "doing research as an undergradute."
It was a pleasure working with the OST. I regularly teach about open source projects, and have written a little about the lessons of open source for historians, but this is my first real open-source project.
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Tue, 04 Mar 2008
The Mechanical Body: Building Humans, Challenging Humanity
This Tuesday, March 4, I will be giving a talk called "Cyborgs, Artificial Intelligences, and Meat Machines: Computers and the Reinvention of the Body" at Drexel University as part of their Great Works Symposium. The talk is from 3:30-4:50 in Curtis Hall, Room 340
The video of this talk is now available.
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Mon, 16 Jul 2007
Top-Secret Rosies
I just finished filming a segment for a documentary by local film-maker LeAnn Erikson. I was just one of the talking-head historians. The real heroes of the film are the women who worked as mathematicians and "human computers" during the Second World War (including those who programmed the ENIAC computer right here at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering).
View the trailer online.
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The Research Channel II
Case Files in the History of Computing
This is the second in a series of symposium hosted by the Franklin Institute and the History & Sociology of Science department celebrating the opening of a new section of the electronic case files archives.
The focus of the presentation was on the early history of the computing industry, featuring key individuals including Hollerith, Burroughs, Eckert, Mauchly, Bardeen, Brittain, and Shannon. Professor Ensmenger provided a general overview of the history of computing.
The full video can be is running on the Research Channel.
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Thu, 10 May 2007
University of Wisconsin
On February 20th, 2007, Dr. Ensmenger will be giving a talk at the University of Wisconsin entitled "Neither Luddites nor Sages: Physicians and Professors as Reluctant Users of the Internet."
The seminar is funded by the UW-Madison Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies, and sponsored by the UW-Madison School of Library and Information Studies.
See the full poster.
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Wed, 13 Dec 2006
Society for the History of Technology Annual Conference 2006
This paper was based on some research that I am currently developing on the history of decision technologies.
From the paper:
"It is also clear that no-one quite knows what to do with software; computer science focuses on software as algorithm; history of computer science is often told as old-style intellectual history; this is obviously insufficient, software sits uncomfortably between science technology; not a thing, an yet clearly constructed; invisible, ethereal, often ephemeral; also not clear what exactly constitutes software; programs, practices, people; software is perhaps the ultimate heterogenous system...
"And so his paper represents an attempt to think seriously about software as a material artifact, as a technology embedded in systems of practice, networks of exchange..."
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Wed, 09 Aug 2006
Research Channel I
The History of Communications in America
The Franklin Institute offers an electronic presentation of its Case Files, a collection of primary source documents that exists as an unknown repository of the history of science and technology. The University of PennsylvaniaÕs Department of History and Sociology of Science hosted a Symposium to discuss the historical, scientific, and educational merit of the Case Files, which date from the 1820s, as a modern day resource for undergraduate, graduate, and professional scholars, as well as K-12 students.
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Tue, 10 May 2005
Radio Odyssey - WBEZ Chicago
The Social History of Computers
Paul Edwards -- Associate Professor, School of Information; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Nathan Ensmenger -- Assistant Professor of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania
As rapidly as computer technology has changed, so have our hopes for -- and fears about -- its potential. How do we imagine the place of computers in our lives?
Historians of science and technology Nathan Ensmenger and Paul Edwards join Chicago Public Radio's Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Ensmenger writes and researches on the history of software, artificial intelligence, and the information age. Edwards is author of The World in a Machine: Computer Models, Data Networks, and Global Atmospheric Politics.
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