Professor Rosalind Williams

Curriculum Vitae: Long Version

Education

Institution Degree Date
University of Massachusetts (Amherst) Ph.D. 1978
University of California (Berkeley) M.A. 1967
Harvard University B.A. 1966
Wellesley College 1962-64

Professional Experience at MIT

2006 Bern Dibner Professor of the History of Science and Technology
2002-2006 Director, Program in Science, Technology, and Society
2001-2002 Director of Graduate Studies, Program in Science, Technology, and Society
1995-2000 Dean of Students and Undergraduate Education
1995-2006 Robert M. Metcalfe Professor of Writing
1993-1994 Robert M. Metcalfe Associate Professor of Writing
1990-1992 Associate Professor of Writing and Technology Studies
Class of 1922 Career Development Professorship
1985-1990 Assistant Professor, Writing Program
1983-1985 Lecturer, Writing Program
1980-1982 Fellow in Science, Technology, and Society Program

Seminars, Colloquia, Etc.

October 2007 “Recasting Engineering,” Lecture and Panel Discussion on the Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Society for the History of Technology, National Academy of Engineering, Washington, D.C.
September 2007 “Interdisciplinary Seminar on Undergrounds/Underworlds,” Kahn Institute, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts
March 2006 “STS in the 21st Century: The End of the World as We Know It,” STS Program, Colby College, Waterville, Maine
October 2005 Thinking Big, WGBH (Boston) Interview with Lisa Mullins
October 2005 O’Donovan Distinguished Visitorship, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
May 2005 “Science and Technology Studies: Future Horizons,” Annual Neale Wheeler Watson Lecture, Nobel Museum, Stockholm, Sweden
May 2005 “Community and Creativity,” Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden
March 2005 “Interdisciplinary Research at MIT: Making UnCommon Connections,” Opening speaker, Inauguration of President Susan Hockfield, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts
March 2005 “STS: Rifts and Ranges,” Department of Science and Technology in Society, Virginia Polytechnical Institute
March 2005 “The Identity Crisis in Engineering,” Department of Science and Technology in Society, Virginia Polytechnical Institute
June 2004 “Information Technology and Organizational Change: Learning from MIT,” Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
April 2004 “Science and Technology in a Dangerous World,” Presentation to the MIT Alumni Club of Southern California, Los Angeles
April 2004 “Science and Technology in a Dangerous World,” Presentation to the MIT Alumni Club of Southern California, Los Angeles
March 2004 “The End of Engineering?” Keynote address, Industrial and Engineering Education in the 20th Century Session, History of Technology Symposium, 175th anniversary celebration of the Ohio Mechanics Institute, University of Cincinnati
February 2004 “The Identity Crisis of Engineering,” Jones Seminar, Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College
October 2003 Annual Meeting of the Society for the History of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia
May 2003 “The Educational Implications of Homeland Security,” MIT Technology and Policy 3rd Annual Symposium, “Global and Homeland Security: Science, Technology, and the Role of the University,” MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts
April 2003 Co-organizer, Workshop on “Race, Science, and Culture in 20th Century East Asia and America,” MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts
April 2003 “What Should Constitute an Engineering Education,” Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Humanities and Arts Department, Worcester, Massachusetts
April 2003 “The Unintended Consequences of Innovation: Innovation and Community at MIT and Beyond.” Workshop on “Cultures of Technology and the Quest for Innovation,” Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut, Essen, Germany
March 2003 “Recent History of Invention and Creativity at MIT.” Lemelson-MIT Program Workshop on “Historical Perspectives on Invention and Creativity,” MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts
October 2002 “Rethinking Technology in the Aftermath of September 11,” Plenary Session organized with Miriam R. Levin (Case Western Reserve University), annual meeting of the Society for the History of Technology, Toronto, Canada
October 2002 “Learning History by Doing History,” annual meeting of the Society for the History of Technology, Toronto, Canada
September 2002 Moderator, “MIT’s Responsibility in a Dangerous World.” Special colloquium commemorating 9/11, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts
March 2002 “Technology after September 11,” Workshop funded by the National Science Foundation organized with Miriam R. Levin (Case Western Reserve University), held at MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts
November 2001 “Fashioning the Future,” Presidential Plenary Session, annual meeting of the Society for the Social Studies of Science, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts
May 2001 “Roots and Routes - Living in a Technological World,” Sixth Annual Hans Rausing Lecture, University of Cambridge
April 2001 “New Directions for the History of Technology: Scholarly Reflections on Administrative Procedure at MIT,” Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware
May 2000“Women in Science at MIT: Where We Have Been, Where We are Going,” symposium on “Numbers Are Not Enough: The Gender Gap in the Sciences,” Collegium Helveticum, ETH, Zurich
September 1999“The Shaping Power of Place: Student Life in Baker House,” symposium on “Interpreting Aalto: Baker House and MIT,” MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts
January 1998“The Quest for Integrated Engineering Education at MIT, 1947-1997,” Latsis Symposium on ”Coping with the Social World: Engineering Knowledge and the Curriculum,” Collegium Helveticum, ETH, Zurich
January 1997Moderator and Commentator, “Imagination,” conference on “Technology and the Rest of Culture,” New School for Social Research, New York
June 1996“Growing Ivy on the Internet: The Physical and Social Architecture of a Learning Community in the Age of Global Information Systems,” Symposium on “Technology and Architecture in the Context of Globalization,” Collegium Helveticum, ETH, Zurich
October 1995“Humanities and Technology,” 30th Anniversary Symposium on “Extending the Boundaries of Understanding,” National Endowment for the Humanities, Washington, D.C.
June 1994Workshop leader in National Endowment for the Humanities Institute on “Cultural Tools: Realities and Representations in American Society,” Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland (co-sponsored by Case Western and the Community College Humanities Association)
January 1994“Conquest of Space and Loss of Place,” seminar at the Department of the History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
November 1993“Emile Verhaeren: The Geographies of Nature, Capital, Life, and Literature,” Plenary Address, annual meeting of the Society for Literature and Science, Boston
September 1993“High Tech and High Touch: New Technologies and Old Human Needs” and “Technological Change and Professional Status,” Keynote Addresses, Fourth National Conference, Australian Guidance and Counseling Association, Adelaide, South Australia
July 1993“Emile Verhaeren: Ordering the World through Technology and through Language,” Summer Academy on “Ordering the Human-Built World,” under the auspices of the Verbund fur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin
June 1992“The Technological Pathways of Modern Life,” Summer Academy on “Science and Nature,” under the auspices of the Verbund fur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin
June 1992“Feminist Perspectives on Technology and Nature,” first annual meeting of the Gesellschaft fur Technikgeschichte, Deutsches Museum, Munich
April 1992“Cultural Geography and Technological History,” lecture at the Graduate School of Geography, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts
March 1992“Technological Sin and the Postnatural World,” lecture in the 1992 Spring Seminar Series, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware
January 1992“Cultural Origins and Environmental Implications of Large Technological Systems,” paper presented at an international conference on Technological Pessimism, Modern Societies, and their Environments,” sponsored by Sociology of Sciences Yearbook, the Tel Aviv Institute, the Edelstein Center, and the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
December 1991“The Cultural Origins of Large Technological Systems,” lecture in the Science, Technology, and Society Colloquia Series, STS Program, MIT
September 1991“Underworlds Real and Imaginary: What They Tell Us about Life in a Technological Environment,” lecture at the Department of Technology and Social Change, Linkoping University, Sweden
September 1991“Consumption and Desire in France of the Belle Epoque,” lecture at a workshop on Consumption in History, Department of The History of Science and Ideas, Umea University, Sweden
September 1991“Environmental and Technological History: Points of Intersection and Departure,” lecture at the Department of History of Science and Technology, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
March 1991“The Aesthetics of the Underworld,” lecture at the HTC [History, Theory, and Criticism] Forum, Department of Architecture, MIT
December 1990“Lewis Mumford, Historian,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association, New York City
October 1990“Elegies for the Earth,” lecture at Multidisciplinary Faculty Seminar on Cultural Studies, Indiana University
May 1990“Popular Culture, Technology, and Twentieth Century America,” “Consumer Society: When the Dreamer Awakens,” and “What Literary Imagination Tells Us about the ‘End of Nature,’” seminars and lectures under the auspices of the U.S. Information Service, U.S. Embassy, Bonn, Federal Republic of Germany
January 1990“Paris 1900: The Technological Landscape of Modern Life,” lecture at the opening of “When the Eiffel Tower Was New,” art exhibit at The MIT Museum
December 1989“Technology as a Determining Force in History,” presentation at the Dibner Institute Workshop on Technological Determinism, MIT
October 1989“Jules Romains, Unanimisme, and the Landscapes of Modern Life,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the History of Technology, Sacramento, California
May 1989“Technological and Political Revolutions,” lecture sponsored by the Five Colleges Committee on the French Revolutionary Bicentennial, Mt. Holyoke College
April 1989“The Technological Underground: From the Sublime to the Magical,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians, St. Louis, Missouri
March 1989“Writing in the Science and Engineering Curriculum” and “Politics in a Technological Environment,” Seminar Series of he Program in Science, Technology, and Society (cosponsored with the Department of Humanities), Michigan Technological University, Houghton
February 1989“Politics in a Technological Environment,” Mark M. Horblit Colloquium Series, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University
November 1988“The Underworld as a Technological Environment,” Student-Faculty Workshop, Program in Science, Technology, and Society, MIT
November 1987“Lewis Mumford as a Historian of Technology in Technics and Civilization,” International Symposium on Lewis Mumford, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
October 1986“Looking Down in the Future,” presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the History of Technology, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; another version presented at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association, Washington D.C. (December 1987)
April 1986“Consumer Society: When the Dreamer Awakens,” at “Consumerisms, “ a conference sponsored by The Center for Studies in Contemporary Culture, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
April 1986“Unanimisme: New Technologies and New Communities,” at the annual convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association, New Brunswick, New Jersey
November 1984“Popular Culture and Technology and Twentieth-Century America,” commentary at the annual meeting of the Society for the History of Technology, MIT
January 1983“The Dream of Progress,” Directions for the Care of Life, a Community Workshop Series, Southampton College, New York
January 1982“Appropriate Technology, Appropriate Politics,” MIT Appropriate Technology Group
April 1981“Writing about the Origins of Consumer Society,” History Department, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Professional Organizations and Service

2008-2012 Panel Member, European Research Council Advanced Investigator Grants, Social Sciences and Humanities Domain
Beginning 2007 Member, International Advisory Board, research masters program in Cultures of Arts, Science, and Technology, University of Maastricht
2005-2007 President, Society for the History of Technology
December 2005 Research evaluation review committee, Faculty of Arts and Culture, University of Maastricht
October 2004 Review Panel, WTMC Netherlands Graduate School of Science, Technology, and Modern Culture, Amsterdam
2003-2005 Vice President, Society for the History of Technology
2003 Secretary Search Committee, Society for the History of Technology
2001 - present; Chair 2002 Finance Committee, Society for the History of Technology
1998 - 2000 Advisory Committee, Lemelson Center, National Museum of American History
January and May 2000 Chair, Planning Charrettes, “Needs and Opportunities in the Study of Invention and Innovation,” Lemelson Center, National Museum of American History
June 1999Distinguished Foreign Evaluator, 1995-1999 review of WTMC (Netherlands Graduate School of Science, Technology, and Modern Culture), Maastricht, Netherlands
1992-1995Executive Council, Society for the History of Technology
1994-1996Advisory Committee, The American Experience, WGBH/Boston
1993Editor Search Committee, Society for the History of Technology
1989-1992; chair 1990 to 1992Editorial Committee, Technology and Culture
Member 1987-1989; chair 1988Dexter Prize Committee, Society for the History of Technology
1988Awards Committee, Leonardo da Vinci medal, Society for the History of Technology
1989-1991Academic Advisory Committee, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware
1990 to 1992Advisory Committee, Initiative on the Humanities and the Environment, Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities

MIT Activities and Committees

2002 - 2005 Search Committee for Director of MIT Museum
2000 - 2001Subcommittee on the Communications Requirement
2001 - 2002HASS Overview Committee
1996 - 1998Task Force on Student Life and Learning
1992 - 1995Faculty Director, Writing Initiative
1994 - 1995Committee on the Undergraduate Program; CUP Subcommittee on the Writing Requirement
1994 - 1995Nominations Committee for Faculty Committees
1994HASS-D Overview Committee
1990 - 1995Equal Opportunities Committee, School of Humanities
1991 - 1994Faculty Policy Committee
June 1991 - June 1993Associate Chair of the MIT Faculty
September 1991 - June 1993Chair, Committee on the Undergraduate Program
September 1992 - June 1993Chair, Interschool Working Group
September 1992 - June 1993Council on The Family and Work
September 1991 - December 1992Open Large Scale Systems Committee
1991 - 1993Workshop in Humanistic Perspectives on Environmental Change
1991Search Committee for Dean of School of Humanities and Social Science
1990 - 1991Institute Ad Hoc Panel on Policies Related to Demonstrations

Publications

Books

Retooling: A Historian Confronts Technological Change, The MIT Press (2002). Paperback edition 2003. Spanish translation, Cultura y cambio tecnologico: el MIT (Alianza Editorial, 2004).

Notes on the Underground: An Essay on Technology, Society, and the Imagination, The MIT Press (1990), 255 pp. Paperback edition published Spring 1992.  Japanese translation, 1992. New edition March 2008.

Dream Worlds: Mass Consumption in Late Nineteenth-Century France (University of California Press, 1982) 451 pp.  Paperback edition published spring 1991.  Chapter Three reprinted in Rethinking Popular Culture, eds. Michael Schudson and Chandra Mukerji University of California Press (1991).


Articles in Refereed Journals

“A Technological World We Can Live In,” Technology and Culture, Vol. 43, No. 1 (January 2002)

“Classics Revisited: Lewis Mumford’s Technics and Civilization,” Technology and Culture, Vol. 43, No. 1 (January 2002)

“All That Is Solid Melts into Air: Historians of Technology in the Information Revolution,” Technology and Culture, Vol. 41, No. 4 (October 2000): 641-68

“Cultural Origins and Environmental Implications of Large Technological Systems,” Science in Context, Vol. 6, No. 2 (1993): 377-403.


Other Articles

Co-editor with Miriam Levin of special issue of History and Technology, Vol. 19, No. 1 (March 2003), “Forum on Rethinking Technology in the Aftermath of September 11”

“Education for the Profession Formerly Known as Engineering,” The Chronicle of Higher Education (January 24, 2003)

“Introduction: Imagination,” Social Research, special issue on “Technology and the Rest of Culture” (Fall 1997)

“The Extraordinary Voyages of Jules Verne,” Thresholds (MIT Department of Architecture and Planning), Spring 1995

“Wordsworth and the Modern Dilemma of Wilderness Access,” Appalachia, N.S. vol. 48, no. 4 (December 15, 1991)

“The Underground Society: Technological Image and Technological Reality,” Proceedings of the American Historical Association (1987)

“The Other Industrial Revolution: Lessons for Business from the Home,” Technology Review (July 1984)

“Iron and Architecture: A Marriage of Convenience,” Technology Illustrated (November 1983)

“Time at Sea,” Technology Illustrated (September 1983)

“Public Time for Public Good,” Social Policy (Summer 1983)

“The Machine Breakers,” Technology Illustrated (July 1983); printed in Eastern Review (February 1984)

“On the Octane Trail,” Technology Illustrated (May 1983)

“The Empress Has New Clothes, Technology Illustrated (March 1983)

“Reindustrialization Past and Present,” Technology Review (November/December 1982)

[Co-author] “Warren K. Lewis, Chemical Engineer,” Modern Scientists and Engineers McGraw-Hill (1980), vol. 2, pp. 227-228


Chapters in Books

“An Historian’s View,” in The Network Society: A Cross-cultural Perspective, ed. Manuel Castells (Edward Elgar, 2004)

“Nature out of Control: Cultural Origins and Environmental Implications of Large Technological Systems,” in Cultures of Control, ed. Miriam R. Levin (Harwood, 2000).

“The Political and Feminist Dimensions of Technological Determinism,” in Does Technology Drive History?  The Dilemma of Technological Determinism, eds. Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx (The MIT Press, 1994).

“Jules Romains, Unanimisme, and the Poetics of Urban Systems,” in Literature and Technology, eds. Mark L. Greenberg and Lance Schachterle, Vol. 5, Research in Technology Studies (Lehigh University Press, 1992)

“Does Technology Shape the Future?” in MIT: Shaping the Future, ed. Kenneth R. Manning (The MIT Press, 1991)

“Lewis Mumford as a Historian of Technology in Technics and Civilization,” in Lewis Mumford: Public Intellectual, eds. Thomas P. Hughes and Agatha Hughes (Oxford University Press, 1991)

“Consumer Cooperatives and Leagues,” “Charles Gide,” “Gabriel Tarde,” “Georges d’Avenel,” and “Jean-Marie Guyau” in Historical Dictionary of the Third French Republic, 1870-1940, ed. Patrick H. Hutton (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986)

“The Fashion of Durability” and “Dressing Down Tastefully: An Elegy for Design Research” in The Durability Factor, ed. Roger Yepsen (Rodale Press, 1982)


Reviews

Of David Edgerton, The Shock of the Old, in Interdisciplinary Science Reviews (December 2007)

Of Jerry Wiesner, Scientist, Statesman, Humanist: Memories and Memoirs, in the British Journal of the History of Science (June 2006)

Of Joel Mokyr, Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy, in Technology and Culture (March 2003)

Of Sharon Marcus, Apartment Stories: City and Home in Nineteenth-Century Paris and London, in French Politics, Culture, and Society (Spring 2001)

Of David Nye, American Technological Sublime, in The New York Times Book Review (December 1, 1994)

Of Alain Corbin, The Lure of the Sea, and John Stilgoe, Alongshore, in American Historical Review (Winter 1994)

Of Whitney Walton, France at the Crystal Palace, in Victorian Studies (Autumn 1994)

Of Julie Wosk, Breaking Frame: Technology and the Visual Arts in the Nineteenth Century, in Isis (December 1993)

Of Andrew Ross, Strange Weather, In Technology and Culture (April 1993)

Of Mike Davis, City of Quartz, in Journal of American History (March 1993)

Of David Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (March 199)

Of “When the Eiffel Tower Was New,” art exhibit at The MIT Museum, for Technology and Culture (January 1991)

Of Henry Petroski, The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance in Issues in Science and Technology (Spring 1990)

Of Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and the ideology of Western Dominance in Technology Review (May/June 1990)

Of Londa Schiebiner, The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modern Science in Technology Review (April 1990)

Of Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Disenchanted Night: The Industrialization of Light in the Nineteenth Century in Issues in Science and Technology (Fall 1989)

Of Bruno Latour, The Pasteurization of France in Issues in Science and Technology (Spring 1989)

Of Sheldon Glashow, Interactions: A Journey through the Mind of a Particle Physicist and the Matter of this World in The New York Times Book Review (September 11, 1988)

Of Robert V. Bruce, The Launching of Modern American Science 1846-1876 in The New York Times Book Review (May 17, 1987)

Of David Horowitz, The Morality of Spending: Attitudes toward the Consumer Society in America, 1875-1940 in Technology and Culture, vol. 27, no. 4 (October 1986)

Of Howard Segal, Technological Utopianism in American Culture in Technology Review (January 1986)

Of Chandra Mukerji, From Graven Images: Patterns of Modern Materialism in The Historian: A Journal of History, vol. 48, no. 1 (November 1985)

Of Kirkpatrick Sale, Dwellers in the Land: The Bioregional Vision in The New York Times Book Review (October 6, 1985)

Of Jeremy Bernstein, Three Degrees above Zero: Bell Labs in the Information Age in The New York Times Book Review (October 14, 1984)

Of Michael Winstanley, The Shopkeeper’s World 1830-1914 in Business History Review, vol. 58, no. 2 (Summer 1984)

Of Neil McKendrick, John Brewer, and J. H. Plumb, The Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialization of Eighteenth-Century England in Technology and Culture, vol. 25, no. 2 (April 1984)

Of William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D. 1000 in Technology Review (November/December 1983)

Of George Daniels and Mark Rose (eds.), Energy and Transport: Historical Perspectives on Policy Issues in Isis, vol. 74, no. 4 (1983)

Of Murray Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom:  The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy in Technology Review (April 1983)

Of Jerome Deshusses, The Eighth Night of Creation in Technology Review (January 1983); reprinted in Contemporary Issues Criticism, Detroit: Gale Research Company,   (1984), vol. 1

Of William R. Catton, Jr., Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change in Technology Review (May/June 1981)

Of Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave in Technology Review (October 1980); reprinted in Contemporary Issues Criticism, Detroit: Gale Research Company (1982), vol. 1


Research Reports

[Co-author] The Promise of America, Science Research Associates (1969)


Newspaper Columns

“The ‘Electronic Cottage’: It’ll Never Happen,” The Boston Globe (May 3, 1983)

“Reordering Mass Consumption,” The Christian Science Monitor (May 11, 1983)

“Let’s Share the Austerity,” The Boston Globe (December 28, 1982)

“The Office as a Utopian Dream World,” The Boston Globe (August 7, 1982)

“Finding Time for Democracy,” The Christian Science Monitor (April 13, 1982)

“Two Kinds of Ethics,” The New York Times (February 18, 1982)

“Solidarism, an Answer to Reagan Darwinism,” The New York Times (July 2, 1981)

“Corrupting the Public Imagination,” The Christian Science Monitor (March 20, 1981)

“High Life in the Oval Office,” The New York Times (February 25, 1981)

“Making an Asset of Austerity,” The Christian Science Monitor (July 29, 1980)