Hello. My name is Michael Rossi. I'm
Historian of Science and Medicine here
at the University of Chicago. This
September, I'll be teaching a brand new
course at the Marine Biological
Laboratory in Woods Hole. The course is
called Visualization of Biology: Science,
Culture, and Representation. The course
deals with the many beautiful,
fascinating and complicated images that
biologists throughout history have
created in order to study living
organisms, biological phenomena and their
environments. Students will immerse
themselves in the cultures of image
making at Woods Hole. We will collect
and identify organisms from the ocean
environments around Woods Hole and study
them using advanced and historical
imaging technologies. We will perform
historical recreations and archival deep
dives in order to understand the
workings of visualization technologies
from more than a century ago. We will work
with the scientists at Woods Hole to
understand the ways in which they see
their subjects, as well as the ways in
which their subjects, including
sophisticated life forms, like octopuses,
see them. Ultimately this course
represents a way of getting to the roots
of scientific images, to understand the
processes, the ethics and the aesthetics
behind the visualizations that support
biological research. Students in this
course will do so in the hands-on
interactive environment of the Marine
Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole.
I hope I'll see you in September.
