People
Jennifer S. Light
US History; History of Science and Technology; Urban History
Office: Frances Searle 2-152
Phone: 847-467-7106
E-mail: light
northwestern.edu
Jennifer S. Light is Associate Professor of Communication Studies, History, and Sociology and a Faculty Associate at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. She received an AB (History and Literature) and a PhD (History of Science) from Harvard University, and an MPhil from Cambridge University (History and Philosophy of Science) where she was the Lionel de Jersey Harvard Scholar.
Professor Light teaches a broad range of undergraduate and graduate courses on the history of information and communication technology in the United States.
Light’s research investigates the work of technical experts in the American political process, with special interest in the history of efforts to bring scientific management to the nation’s cities. She is the author of two books on the sociology of scientific urban knowledge: The Nature of Cities: Ecological Visions and the American Urban Professions, 1920-1960 and From Warfare to Welfare: Defense Intellectuals and Urban Problems in Cold War America. Together, the books explain the dominance of specific scientific models for understanding and managing cities during the twentieth century – and what difference such conceptualizations of city problems and solutions made in how US history unfolded. These studies were made possible by grants from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and the Haynes Foundation/Historical Society of Southern California. The Nature of Cities received Honorable Mention for the 2009 Lewis Mumford Prize (Best Book in American Planning History).
Professor Light’s current research continues to document the influences of technical experts on American technological and political history, paying greater attention to the hidden assumptions embedded in the urban models these figures employ. She is at work on a book-length study of the history of civic games as well as a longer-term project on the history of pre-electronic urban information systems focused on the development of analytical maps. These projects have been generously supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Robert and Kaye Hiatt Fund. Early results from this work have appeared in Technology and Culture (“Taking Games Seriously”) and are forthcoming in Journal of Urban History (“Nationality and Neighborhood Risk at the Origins of FHA Underwriting”).
Light is also the author of articles appearing in New Media and Society; Technology and Culture; Journal of Urban History; Harvard Educational Review; Ecumene; Environment and Planning D: Society and Space; Journal of the American Planning Association; New Directions for Evaluation; International Journal of Urban and Regional Research; and Gender, Place, and Culture; and has contributed to anthologies including Using History to Improve Computer Science Education; Living in the Information Age: A New Media Reader ; Gender and Technology: A Reader; and Virtual Geographies: Bodies, Spaces, Relations. She serves on the editorial boards of the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing and the Journal of Communication, and participated in the Association for Computing Machinery’s recent oral history project.
northwestern.edu