Associate Professor, Department of History
About
On Sabbatical AY 2022–2023.
Henry Cowles is a historian of science and medicine. He writes and teaches about a range of topics, including psychology, addiction, self-help, and expertise. In addition to the History Department, he is affiliated with the Science, Technology, & Society Program, the Doctoral Program in Anthropology and History, and the Weinberg Institute for Cognitive Science. Current projects include a material history of mental health since 1800 and a history of habit from the celebration of daily routine in Thoreau's Walden to the rise of “persuasive technologies" in Silicon Valley and beyond.
Zoom Hour: By Appointment
Undergraduate Courses:
Minds and Brains in America
American Addictions
Self-Help to Self-Care
Recent Academic Publications:
The Scientific Method: An Evolution of Thinking from Darwin to Dewey (Harvard University Press, 2020)
"Special Issue: How to Be an Expert," Historical Studies in the Natural Science (February 2022)
"Special Issue: Pandemic Subjects," Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences (February 2021)
"Habit and the Limits of History," Reviews in American History (June 2020)
"A Claim for Cognitive History" and "Another Claim for Cognitive History," Behavioral and Brain Sciences (November 2019/March 2020)
Recent Non-Academic Publications:
"Sciences of Dune," LARB (March 2022)
"Horrible Sanity," LARB (June 2021)
"The Machine Stops," LARB (February 2021)
"Peak Brain," LARB (November 2020)
