上课地点三教106
第七十六讲：
释读伽利略书信：交谊、知识与共同体的实验
Reading Galileo’s Letters: Experiments in Friendship, Knowledge, and Community
2026年9月17日10:10-12:00
汉娜·马库斯（Hannah Marcus）
哈佛大学科学史系教授
哈佛大学科学史系教授、哈佛学院教授，并兼任哈佛大学历史科学仪器收藏馆主任。研究十五至十七世纪欧洲科学与医学史，特别是被天主教会列入《禁书目录》之科学与医学著作的流传与接受史。与斯坦福大学葆拉·芬德伦（Paula Findlen）教授共同主持伽利略通信工程，并合作撰写《伽利略的书信：友谊的实验》（Galileo’s Letters: Experiments in Friendship）。代表作为《禁知：近代早期意大利的医学、科学与审查制度》（Forbidden Knowledge: Medicine, Science, and Censorship in Early Modern Italy, University of Chicago Press, 2020），2025年获丹·大卫奖（Dan David Prize）。
摘要：
The Tuscan mathematician, physicist, and astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) is one of history’s most iconic and controversial figures. As Galileo navigated fame and infamy, he did so through letters. His correspondence traversed Europe in public mail pouches, through diplomatic messengers, and written in code. Today, there are 3,272 surviving letters to or from Galileo and his many friends, family members, disciples, and rivals across Europe. Galileo’s correspondence is a record of family and friendships, his intellectual evolution, his professional interactions with other scientific figures, and his relations with patrons, brokers, and publishers. Last but hardly least, his letters are a unique cultural artifact of Galileo the writer and master of vernacular prose. This talk examines letters as an essential aspect of Galileo’s personal and scientific career and proposes new approaches for studying early modern correspondence.
第七十七讲：
湿婆神、LED灯、电风扇与扩音器：多感官技术政治与亚洲神圣空间的去政治化
2026年10月15日10:10-12:00
曹寅
北京大学历史学系长聘副教授
曹寅，北京大学历史学系长聘副教授，研究方向为全球史、近现代印度史、南亚东南亚区域国别研究。目前关注19-20世纪全球热带地区的基础设施、多物种生态链、人员技术流动和现代国家建设。著有Chinese Sojourners in Wartime Raj, 1942-45 (OUP, 2022); 《自行车、港口与缝纫机：西方基建与日常技术在亚洲的相遇》（北京大学出版社2022年版）；From Policemen to Revolutionaries: A Sikh Diaspora in Global Shanghai, 1885-1945 (Brill, 2018)。
摘要：本研究考察19世纪以来现代国家建构进程中神圣空间的政治化与去政治化。文章以新加坡印度教寺庙的多感官历史为案例，探讨LED灯、电风扇、扩音器以及其他消费型感官技术，如何在强化信众神圣体验的同时，又使这种体验趋于廉价化。当标准化的技术装置逐渐取代过去营造神圣体验所必需的情感劳动与身体投入时，寺庙空间也日益脱离那些在历史上塑造信众情感与感官经验的工业空间。与此同时，随着新加坡印度教捐赠委员会（Hindu Endowments Board）以及政府能源、建筑和安全监管部门的不断介入，电气化逐渐成为一种基础设施治理形式，使神圣空间趋于世俗化，并最终失去了原有的政治性功能。换言之，现代印度教寺庙被新加坡威权型政府重塑为一种由技术精心调控的空间，并由此催生了新的宗教消费模式，使其与当代国家建构的治理目标相契合。
第七十八讲：Print Technology and Geographic Knowledge in Late Qing China
2026年10月29日10:10-12:00
雷震（John N. Alekna）
北京大学科学技术与医学史系助理教授
雷震，北京大学科学技术与医学史系助理教授，普林斯顿大学博士，牛津大学硕士。他的研究方向为中国、东亚与南亚近代（从19世纪到现在）科技史，特别关注通信技术、知识交流和科学理论的演化。他曾获得Fulbright 奖学金、Blakemore奖学金，并于2023年春赴剑桥大学李约瑟研究所任李氏基金研究员。2024年春于斯坦福大学出版社出版了他的第一本专著Seeking News, Making China: Information, Technology, and the Emergence of Mass Society。他最近的文章发表在Technology & Culture和Late Imperial China等期刊。
摘要：Wei Yuan’s Haiguo Tuzhi 海國圖志, edited and published from earlier sources in the aftermath of the First Opium War, introduced Chinese readers to many aspect of global geography they had never considered before. It contained previously unknown information about Europe, South Asia, North and South America, and even many nearer countries. Why was public geographical information about the world so rare in China until the mid to late nineteenth century? Contrary to popular believe and previous historiography, it was not that few Chinese went abroad. Chinese travelled all over the world in the early modern period. They were present in Europe, North, Central, and South America, African trading ports, Middle Eastern pilgrimage routes, and South Asian metropolises. And yet, writing about these places in the Chinese language was non-existant. Why? Using the collected series 小方壺齋輿地叢鈔 as an important case study of Ming-Qing travel literature, we will examine when and why certain narratives were published or not published. The talk will offer a discussion of two competing explanations. The first argument is political and cultural: that laws, customs, and regulations prevented people from appearing to have traveled. While rational within their own frameworks, these laws and customs may have had detrimental impact on the understanding of global economics, technological development, and geopolitical facts. The other explanation is material and technological. It argues that print capitalism as it existed in China did not encourage widespread publication on the same scale as in Europe. Fewer writings made it to print, perhaps in part because of the limitations of Chinese print technology. Here the 小方壺齋 series will offer several relevant examples.
第七十九讲：谁发明了有限元方法？
2026年11月12日10:10-12:00
王涛
中国科学院自然科学史研究所青年研究员
王涛，中国科学院自然科学史研究所青年研究员，德国哥廷根大学数学系访问学者，现任中国数学会数学史分会副秘书长。主要从事近现代数学史研究工作，出版《默默无言散异香：廖山涛传》《中国计算数学的初创》《数学与逻辑》等著作，荣获中国数学会数学史分会首届数学史青年优秀论文奖。
摘要：关于重大科学成果的发明，历史上往往存在不同的解释路径，有限元方法便是一个典型案例。长期以来，国际学术界主要从工程路径理解有限元方法的起源，而数学路径的重要作用则相对受到忽视，这也使有限元方法的发明及其形成路径成为一个十分值得讨论的问题。本报告将结合近年来国内外最新研究成果，对有限元方法的发明历程进行系统考察，重新审视中国数学家冯康及其团队在有限元方法形成中的贡献与地位。
第八十讲：Sleek. Technology, Aesthetics, and Politics in Postwar Italy
2026年11月26日10:10-12:00
Massimo Mazzotti
加州大学伯克利分校历史系教授、Thomas M. Siebel科学史讲席教授
Massimo Mazzotti's research interests lie at the intersection of the history of science and science studies. He is especially interested in the historicity and situatedness of mathematics, logic, and deductive reasoning, and in the social processes that can make them universally valid. He is also interested in using technological systems and artifacts as ways of entry for the explorations of specific forms of social organization and power distribution. His past and present research projects have focused primarily on the early modern and Enlightenment period, with significant incursions into the nineteenth and twentieth century.
摘要：
This talk interrogates the intersection of industrial design and political imagination in postwar Italy through the lens of the Olivetti company. By analyzing a curated selection of iconic objects and architectures, I delineate the "Olivetti Style"—a singular iteration of mid-century modernism—and situate it against the prevailing American aesthetic of the era. Through an examination of typewriters, calculators, buildings, and early computing systems, the presentation reveals how their forms embodied a radical new social vision, offering a window into a lost future that never fully materialized.
第八十一讲：林业、林学与林政：近代中国东北森林的资源化
2026年12月10日10:10-12:00
池翔
中国社会科学院近代史研究所副研究员、中国社会科学院大学历史学院副教授
池翔，中国社会科学院近代史研究所副研究员，主要研究方向为中国近现代社会经济史、环境史和东北区域史。出版专著《林业的生成：近代中国东北的森林治理与产业秩序（1860-1931）》（中国社会科学院青年学者文库），合著The Institutions of Land Property Rights in China: Transformation and Development (1560-1950)，在《近代史研究》、《中国经济史研究》、Korean Journal for the History of Science等刊物发表中英文论文多篇。主持国家社科基金青年项目1项。
摘要：
近代中国东北的森林为何成为国家、地方与国际势力竞逐的焦点？它又是如何被重新定义并转化为可管理、可动员的国家资产？本讲座通过多语种史料与跨国视角，探讨德国和日本林学知识在近代中国的转译，如何将森林与国运、文明进步相联系，改变了国家看待森林资源的方式。考察清末鸭绿江流域木把群体与传统筏运体系在外来势力介入下的延续与重组，以及“文明”与“落后”的话语如何重新定义本地技术；并讨论民国时期“国有林”制度与森林调查如何重塑国家与地方的资源权力关系。通过这些变化，重新审视近代东北森林资源形成过程中知识、劳工与制度之间的互动，以及人与自然、国家与地方之间持续的协商、冲突与合作。
第八十二讲：The Tin Centuries: Technology and Statecraft in Qing China
2026年12月24日10:10-12:00
王懿君
纽约大学历史系助理教授
Yijun Wang is assistant professor of history at New York University. Her research interests include history of technology, material culture, and gender in early modern China. She is currently working on a new project on the longue durée history of oranges centered on East Asia. Wang received her BA from Tsinghua University (2010) and her MA (2015) and PhD (2019) from Columbia University.
摘要：
How did a mundane metal bind miners and officials to global capitalism and an emerging technocratic state? Tin was everywhere in early modern China—lining tea chests, shaping religious vessels, alloyed into coins. Yet beneath this ordinary metal lies a story of migration, technology, and governance. Join Yijun Wang as she discusses her new book, The Tin Centuries, which uncovers how tin connected miners in Yunnan and Southeast Asia, entrepreneurs and traders across oceans, and Qing officials confronting unprecedented demands on natural resources.
By following tin’s movement from mountains and islands to imperial mintage and treasuries, Wang discusses how the “social technology” of mining enabled Chinese migrant miners to establish large-scale operations and dominate extraction in the mountains of Southwest China and on Bangka, an island off the coast of Sumatra. At the same time, she shows how Qing bureaucrats turned mining administration into a crucible for technocratic statecraft in which practical skill stood alongside Confucian learning. In doing so, her book reveals how a seemingly humble metal reflected the changing trajectory of Qing statecraft and foreshadowed China’spath toward modernity within an expanding global economy.
