Princeton Modern Knowledge

"Finalist for the PROSE Award in History of Science, Medicine, and Technology, Association of American Publishers" Katja Guenther is professor of the history of science at Princeton University. She is the author of Localization and Its Discontents: A Genealogy of Psychoanalysis and the Neuro Disciplines. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey. How the classic mirror test served as a portal for scientists to explore questions of self-awareness Since the late eighteenth century, scientists have placed subjects-humans, infants, animals, and robots-in front of mirrors in order to look for signs of self-recognition. Mirrors served as the possible means for answering the question: What makes us human? In The Mirror and the Mind, Katja Guenther traces the history of the mirror self-recognition test, exploring how researchers from a range of disciplines-psychoanalysis, psychiatry, developmental and animal psychology, cybernetics, anthropology, and neuroscience-came to read the peculiar behaviors elicited by mirrors. Investigating the ways mirrors could lead to both identification and misidentification, Guenther looks at how such experiments ultimately failed to determine human specificity. The mirror test was thrust into the limelight when Charles Darwin challenged the idea that language sets humans apart. Thereafter the mirror, previously a recurrent if marginal scientific tool, became dominant in attempts to demarcate humans from other animals. But because researchers could not rely on language to determine what their nonspeaking subjects were experiencing, they had to come up with significant innovations, including notation strategies, testing protocols, and the linking of scientific theories across disciplines. From the robotic tortoises of Grey Walter and the mark test of Beulah Amsterdam and Gordon Gallup, to anorexia research and mirror neurons, the mirror test offers a window into the emergence of such fields as biology, psychology, psychiatry, animal studies, cognitive science, and neuroscience. The Mirror and the Mind offers an intriguing history of experiments in self-awareness and the advancements of the human sciences across more than a century. "Clearly written and beautifully detailed, this book will be of interest to psychologists, neuroscientists, and anthropologists at all levels of expertise interested in issues of self-recognition or misidentification between the self and other."---Saira Khan, Quarterly Review of Biology "Guenther demonstrates in very clear terms the value of the mirror test in the making of modern knowledge, as well as how one can use an epistemic object of its sort for a highly readable history. The Mirror and the Mind is a very impressive book-it is at once broadly and deeply researched, full of brilliant analyses, and a joy to read."-Stefanos Geroulanos, director of the Remarque Institute, New York University "Guenther's exploration of self-recognition takes the reader on a fascinating, unexpected, generative journey through the history of the mind sciences, with revelations as delightful as they are profound at every bend in the road."-Cathy Gere, author of Knossos and the Prophets of Modernism "Who can recognize themselves in a mirror? In this brilliant and intrepid study, Katja Guenther shows that a test once relied upon to prove that humans are distinct from other animals offered recurrent other uses in the history of psychology. The results are an astonishingly original reinterpretation of the trajectory of a discipline over more than a century."-Samuel Moyn, author of Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World

George Steinmetz is the Charles Tilly Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Regulating the Social: The Welfare State and Local Politics in Imperial Germany (Princeton); The Devil's Handwriting: Precoloniality and the German Colonial State in Qingdao, Samoa and Southwest Africa; Sociology and Empire: The Imperial Entanglements of a Discipline; The Social Sciences in the Looking Glass: Studies in the Production of Knowledge; and other books. A new history of French social thought that connects postwar sociology to colonialism and empire In this provocative and original retelling of the history of French social thought, George Steinmetz places the history and development of modern French sociology in the context of the French empire after World War II. Connecting the rise of all the social sciences with efforts by France and other imperial powers to consolidate control over their crisis-ridden colonies, Steinmetz argues that colonial research represented a crucial core of the renascent academic discipline of sociology, especially between the late 1930s and the 1960s. Sociologists, who became favored partners of colonial governments, were asked to apply their expertise to such "social problems" as detribalization, urbanization, poverty, and labor migration. This colonial orientation permeated all the major subfields of sociological research, Steinmetz contends, and is at the center of the work of four influential scholars: Raymond Aron, Jacques Berque, Georges Balandier, and Pierre Bourdieu. In retelling this history, Steinmetz develops and deploys a new methodological approach that combines attention to broadly contextual factors, dynamics within the intellectual development of the social sciences and sociology in particular, and close readings of sociological texts. He moves gradually toward the postwar sociologists of colonialism and their writings, beginning with the most macroscopic contexts, which included the postwar "reoccupation" of the French empire and the turn to developmentalist policies and the resulting demand for new forms of social scientific expertise. After exploring the colonial engagement of researchers in sociology and neighboring fields before and after 1945, he turns to detailed examinations of the work of Aron, who created a sociology of empires; Berque, the leading historical sociologist of North Africa; Balandier, the founder of French Africanist sociology; and Bourdieu, whose renowned theoretical concepts were forged in war-torn, late-colonial Algeria. "Steinmetz's compelling work is a timely intervention and shows by example why attempts at 'decolonization' must first contextualize the diverse trajectories of what it means to be colonial, breaking from pre-notions about who is colonially complicit or anticolonial to begin with, and recognizing that decolonization must 'proceed by putting colonialism into the picture.'"---Austin H. Vo, Social Forces "The Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought is a milestone in the history of sociology, far-reaching in its scope and objectives, and impressive in its material and archival basis. The book should impact strongly both the history of colonialism as a cultural, scientific, and epistemic project before and after WWII, as well as the history of sociology as an academic, disciplinary and intellectual field."---Anne Kwaschik, Social Science History "An eye-opener and a game-changer. [The Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought] represents a learned, deeply researched, and admirably constructed study: broad in scope, spanning a considerable period of time and tackling a pressing problem – colonial social science – in a sophisticated and challenging manner."---Johan Heilbron, Social Science History "A major contribution to a variety of literatures and scholarly concerns, including the history of the social sciences, the sociology of knowledge, and the inner mechanisms of empire."---Christian Dayé, Soci

How the idea of deep time transformed how Americans see their country and themselves During the nineteenth century, Americans were shocked to learn that the land beneath their feet had once been stalked by terrifying beasts. T. rex and Brontosaurus ruled the continent. North America was home to saber-toothed cats and woolly mammoths, great herds of camels and hippos, and sultry tropical forests now fossilized into massive coal seams. How the New World Became Old tells the extraordinary story of how Americans discovered that the New World was not just old-it was a place rooted in deep time. In this panoramic book, Caroline Winterer traces the history of an idea that today lies at the heart of the nation's identity as a place of primordial natural beauty. Europeans called America the New World, and literal readings of the Bible suggested that Earth was only six thousand years old. Winterer takes readers from glacier-capped peaks in Yosemite to Alabama slave plantations and canal works in upstate New York, describing how naturalists, explorers, engineers, and ordinary Americans unearthed a past they never suspected, a history more ancient than anyone ever could have imagined. Drawing on archival evidence ranging from unpublished field notes and letters to early stratigraphic diagrams, How the New World Became Old reveals how the deep time revolution ushered in profound changes in science, literature, art, and religion, and how Americans came to realize that the New World might in fact be the oldest world of all. Caroline Winterer is the William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies at Stanford University. Her books include American Enlightenments: Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason and (with Kären Wigen) Time in Maps: From the Age of Discovery to Our Digital Era. "How the New World Became Old is full of fresh insights about the intellectual history of geology in the nineteenth-century United States and the cultural context in which the science developed. Winterer's lively, lucid writing makes the book engaging and accessible."-Marcia Bjornerud, author of Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World and Turning to Stone: Discovering the Subtle Wisdom of Rocks "A compelling story of culture, fossils, and American history intertwined. Winterer brings a historian's scholarship and an abiding enthusiasm for fossils to explore America's long and complicated relationship with the antiquity of deep geological time. Authoritative and engaging, How the New World Became Old gives a fresh perspective on how geology and paleontology helped transform American society."-Steve Brusatte, New York Times bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs "How the New World Became Old is exceptional. Winterer's book is beautifully written, immensely learned but remarkably accessible and extremely timely. No question: this is a tour de force written by a terrifically creative, original, and erudite American cultural historian."-Suzanne L. Marchand, author of Porcelain: A History from the Heart of Europe "The lost world of deep time in America is now found-the discovery of the profound antiquity of the newly discovered continent is marvelously detailed in Caroline Winterer's absorbing and important How the New World Became Old. Winterer reveals, through intense research and compelling narratives, how people came to grips with the radical idea of an unimaginably ancient America."-Adrienne Mayor, author of Fossil Legends of the First Americans