Phillip Thurtle
Professor
Comparative History of Ideas
History
Adjunct Professor, Digital and Experimental Arts
Box 354300
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195
thurtle@uw.edu
206-412-9345
Education:
September 1994 to August 2002: Stanford University, Stanford, California.
Ph. D. in History and Philosophy of Technology and Science. Secondary fields in the Anthropology of Science and American Studies.
June 1994: Master of Arts in American History, Stanford University, Stanford, California.
January 1980 to March 1983: Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry, The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA.
Academic Appointments:
2018-: Professor, Comparative History of Ideas and History
2016-: Adjunct Professor in Digital and Experimental Arts
2018-: Chair, Comparative History of Ideas Department (3-year term), University of Washington
2016-2017: Acting Director, Comparative History of Ideas (6-month Term)
2010-2013: Director, Comparative History of Ideas (3-year term), University of Washington
2008-2018: Associate Professor in the Comparative History of Ideas and History, University of Washington.
2005-2008: Assistant Professor in the Comparative History of Ideas Program and History, University of Washington.
2007-2015: Adjunct Professor in Anthropology, University of Washington
2005-2016: Adjunct Professor in Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario.
2004-2005: Visiting Assistant Professor for Communication and the Comparative History of Ideas Program at the University of Washington.
2003-2005: Cross-appointment in the Institute for Political Economy, Carleton University.
2003-2005: Appointment to Graduate Faculty in Environmental Studies, Carleton University.
July 2002-2005: Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario.
March-June1997, March 1998-June 2001: Visiting Lecturer, School of Communications, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.
Research Grants and Awards:
2018: Digital Humanities Fellowship, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities.
2015: Digital Humanities Fellowship, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities.
2013-2014: Society of Scholars Fellowship, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities.
2009-2010: Science Studies Network Presentation Series, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities. Authored by Simon Werrett and co-organized by Alison Wylie, Sara Elwood, Angela Ginorio, Mott Greene, and Andrea Woody.
2008: Selected as the Center for New Media and History’s at George Mason University, NEH Fellowship Partner.
2008-2009: Science Studies Network focused research clusters, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities. Co-organized with Alison Wylie, Malia Fullerton, Celia Lowe, and Simon Werrett.
2008: Alfred P. Sloan, Exploring and Collecting History Online Grant, Administered by the Center for New Media and History at George Mason University.
2007: Science Studies Network and Colloquium, A Proposal for a Cross-disciplinary Research Network and Colloquium, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities. Co-organized with Alison Wylie, Malia Fullerton, Celia Lowe, and Simon Werrett.
2007: University of Washington Graduate School Research Award, subvention for manuscript publication.
2007: University of Washington Royalty Research Award, “Extended Development: Toward a Cultural History of Evolutionary and Developmental Biology.”
2005: Partner for Professor Ann Anagnost’s (Anthropology) Associate Professor Research Initiative from the Simpson Center for Humanities, University of Washington, “Embodiments of Value.”
2005: Freimuth Award for Travel, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Washington.
2005: North Carolina Biotechnology Center, Education Enhancement Grant for the production of “Reimagining Biocommerce: Owning Body Parts and Information” (Co-Primary Investigator along with Robert Mitchell, English, Duke University and Helen Burgess, Digital Technology and Culture, Washington State University in Vancouver).
2004: Faculty Research Award for the Carleton Immersive Media Studio (Co-investigator, along with others including Primary Investigator, Michael Jemtrud, Architecture, Carleton University).
2000-2001: Walter Simpson Chapin Humanities Center Award “Information and the Human Body” (along with Robert Mitchell, Comparative Literature, University of Washington).
1998-1999: Melvin and Joan Lane Graduate Fellowship in the History of Science and Technology.
1997 to 1998: Visiting Scholar, University of Washington.
1996-1997: Andrew P. Mellon Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, Stanford University.
1992-1996: History Department Fellowship, Stanford University.
1982 Student Research Award, The Evergreen State College Foundation.
Recognition of Teaching Excellence:
2020: One of five recipients of the University of Washington Undergraduate Research Mentor Award.
2013: One of five recipients of University of Washington’s Distinguished Teaching Awards.
2001 and 2005: Nominated for the University of Washington’s Distinguished Teaching Award.
2004: One of five nominees for Outstanding Graduate Student Educator, Carleton University Graduate Student Association
2004: Carlton University Student Association Outstanding Educator Award
2003: Carleton University Student Association Outstanding Educator Award.
2000: Outstanding Educator Award Delta Upsilon Fraternity, University of Washington.
Publications:
Books and Other Major Projects:
Biology in the Grid: Graphic Design and the Envisioning of the Life (University of Minnesota Press, 2018).
Living Fables/Losing My Wings (http://immaterialwings.org/, available in October 2018). Losing my Wings is an interactive web site that explores popular and scientific stories about human, humanoid, and animal loss of wings. Users can navigate between 7 different narrative paths as they explore how science and popular culture inform how we think about bodies. Project is written up here: https://simpsoncenter.org/news/2016/09/thurtle-gothic-why-we-dont-have-wings
Co-editor with Adam Nocek, Animating Biophilosophy, Inflexions, 2014.
Biofutures: Owning Body Parts and Information, a DVD-ROM co-authored with Robert Mitchell and Helen Burgess (Mariner 10 Series, University of Pennsylvania Press, October 2008). Now released as a WWW tool at http://www.biofutures.io/
The Emergence of Genetic Rationality: Space, Time, and Information in American Biology, 1870-1920 (University of Washington Press, In Vivo: Cultural Mediations of Biomedicine series, January 2008).
Co-editor with Robert Mitchell, Data Made Flesh: Embodying Information (Routledge, 2003).
Co-editor with Robert Mitchell, Semiotic Flesh: Information and the Human Body (University of Washington Press, 2002).
Refereed Articles and Book Chapters:
Phillip Thurtle, “Alienated Life: Toward a Theory of Goth Biology”, Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, Vol. 25, 2020, Issue 3, pages 53-63
“Ontogenesis Beyond Complexity: Conversations”, Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, Vol. 25, 2020, Issue 3, pages 146-183 (contributor).
“The Vitality of Animation”, Inflexions, vol. 7, 2014.
“Vitalizing Thought” (co-authored with Adam Nocek) article for Inflexions, vol. 7, 2014.
“’The Acme Novelty Library’: Comicbooks, Repetition, and the Return of the New,” Co-authored with Robert Mitchell, Configurations, Vol. 15, 2007, 267-297 (actually published in March 2009).
“The Poetics of Life: Luther Burbank, Horticultural Novelties, and the Space of Heredity” Literature and Medicine, Vol. 26, no. 1, Spring 2007: 1-24.
“The Material Poiesis of Information” co-authored with Robert E. Mitchell in Data Made Flesh: Embodying Information (Routledge, 2003).
“Bastard Birth: Middle Class Mores and the Rise of Genetic Rationality” in Data Made Flesh: Embodying Information (Routledge, 2003).
“Fleshy Data: Semiotics, information, and the Body” in Semiotic Flesh: Information and the Human Body (University of Washington Press, 2002).
"Harnessing Heredity in Gilded Age America: Middle Class Mores and Industrial Breeding in a Cultural Context", Journal of the History of Biology 2002 Spring; 35(1): 43-78.
Invited Publications:
“Composite lives: animating concepts of justice”, for Bugs and Beasts Before the Law Colloquium at the Henry Art Museum, Seattle, WA, 2020.
https://bambitchell.henryart.org/what-is-the-human-anyway/phillip-thurtle/
“Luther Burbank”, The Encyclopedia of Genetics, 2nd Edition, Elsevier, 2012.
Republished by request in Reference Modules in the Life Sciences, Elsevier, 2016.
“Conjuring Spirits: Comments on Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Catherine Parr” an invited short paper for the Viewpoints Series at The Henry Art Gallery. May 2015.
“David Starr Jordan”, The Oxford Encyclopedia of the History of American Science, Medicine and Technology, Ed. Hugh Slotten. Oxford University Press, 2015.
“From Spiderman to Alba: Transgenics in a post-nuclear world” (co-authored with Claudia X. Valdes). WWW publication of talk for Replace!: Second International Conference on History of Media, Art, Science, and Technology, Berlin, 2007.
“Biofeedback in the Arts: Listening as Experimental Practice” (co-authored with Claudia X. Valdes). WWW publication of talk, includes streaming video. For Refresh!: First International Conference on the History of Media, Art, Science, and Technology, Banff New Media Institute. Streaming video available at:
http://www.banffcentre.ca/bnmi/programs/archives/2005/refresh/lisiten.asp
Paper available at:
http://www.banffcentre.ca/bnmi/programs/archives/2005/refresh/conference_docs.asp
“Electrophoresis” for the Oxford University Press Companion to Contemporary Science (Oxford University Press, 2003).
"Genomic Book of the Dead: A Manual for More Conscious Death Experiences in the Twenty First Century" in Genesis: Contemporary Art Explores Human Genetics (Henry Art Gallery, Online Exhibition Catalogue, CD of exhibit released 2002).
“The unbearable depth of the surface: Lichtenstein’s landscapes” for the exhibition catalogue Shifting Ground: Transformed Views of the American Landscape created for the exhibition of the same name at The Henry Art Gallery, Seattle WA. (Henry Art Gallery, 2000).
“’The G Files’: Linking the ‘Selfish Gene’ and the ‘Thinking Reed’”. An essay commissioned for Stephen Jay Gould’s visit to Stanford University. Found at http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/gould/commentary/thurtle.html.
"The Creation of the Genetic Self and Its Implications for Biological Social Control." Stanford Humanities Review. Vol. 5, 1996, 81-100.
"Protein Sequencers," in Instruments of Science: A Historical Encyclopedia, ed. by Robert Bud, Stephen Johnston, and Deborah Warner (Hamden, CT: Garland Publishing, 1998).
"Electrophoretic Apparatus," in Instruments of Science: A Historical Encyclopedia, ed. by Robert Bud, Stephen Johnston, and Deborah Warner (Hamden, CT: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Book Reviews
Robert Carlson, Biology is Technology: The Promise, Peril, and New Business of Engineering Life (Harvard University Press, 2010) Isis, Vol. 4, 2012.
Lynn Nyhart, Modern Nature: The Rise of the Biological Perspective in Germany (University of Chicago Press, 2009), Journal of Modern History, Vol. 82, No. 4. (1 December 2010).
Margaret Derry, Horses in Society: A Story of Animal Breeding and Marketing Culture, 1800-1920 (University of Toronto Press, 2006), Agricultural History, Spring 2007.
Invited response to book review of Data Made Flesh: Embodying Information (Co-authored with Robert Mitchell). Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies, April 2005.
Invited response to book reviews of Semiotic Flesh: Information and the Human Body (Co-authored with Robert Mitchell). Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies, December 2003.
David E. Nye, Consuming Power: A Social History of American Energies
(MIT Press, 1997). For History and Technology, vol. 16, 1999, 108-110.
Papers Presented
“Envisioning Development Through Animation” for the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, March 2019, Seattle, Washington
“Goth Biology” Plenary for the Posthumanites Network, February 2019, Tempe, Arizona
“Imaginative Botany”, in the roundtable Active Imagination & Fringe Science: Scholars Under the Influence of Exegesis, November 2018, Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, Toronto, Canada.
“The Organism Envisioned”, November 2018, Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, Toronto, Canada.
“Animating Biological Worlds”, June 2018, Plenary for the Society for Animation Studies, Montreal, Canada.
“Liquid time: Flies, Forms, Durations and the Importance of Moisture”, November 2017, Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, Phoenix, US.
“Liquid Love: Flies, Forms, Feelings, and the Importance of Moisture”, June 2017, Half-Plenary Panel, European Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, Basel, Switzerland.
“Animation and Development”, Invited Speaker at the “Ontogenesis Workshop”, April 2017, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
“Losing my Wings: Supernatural Fables of Development”, March 2017, invited presentation at Hertzberg School of Arts, Media, an Engineering, Arizona State University.
“William Bateson’s Waves of Living Flesh”, Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, Atlanta, November 2016.
“Losing My Wings: An Interactive Fable of Evolutionary and Developmental Biology”, invited presentation for the University of British Columbia Science and Technology Studies Colloquium, March 2016.
“A Carbon Theory of Annihilation” for “Idiot Science Panel’ for the Society of Literature Science and the Arts, Houston, November 2015.
Invited respondent for the panel “Swarm, Hive, Flock: Considering Media Archeological Approaches to Events and Objects” for the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Seattle, March 2014.
“Losing my wings: A new type of evolutionary story”, Modern Language Association, Chicago, January 2014.
“Why I Lost My Wings”, TedXSalon, 17 September 2013.
“Careers: From a Path to a Landscape”, TedXUofW, 20 April 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLx3sZuxYpU
“What Super Heroes are Made of” TEDXRanier, Seattle, 10 November 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkKymhU7yi0
“Losing my wings: Toward a Gothic Theory of Biological Change” Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, September 2012.
“The Vitality of Animation”, invited speaker, Listasafn Íslands Museum
(National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland), June 23, 2012.
“Manufacturing horticultural novelties: Variance and standardization in the production and marketing of Luther Burbank’s creations”, invited participant, Yale Workshop on “Plants, animals, and ownership”, June 2-5, 2011.
"Theories of Intermediality", Keynote Address, Technologies of Transmediality, Bristol, England, January 2011.
"Genaffect: The Feeling Gene and the Spatial Politics of Evolutionary and Developmental Biology", Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, Indianapolis, Indiana, October 2010.
"The Poetics of Wandering", The History of Science and Literary Form Speaker Series, Duke University, October 2010.
"Vital Imagery: Animation and Life", Gale Memorial Lecture Series, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, April 2010.
"From Gene Action to Gene Feeling: The Spatial Politics of Evolutionary and Developmental Biology", Geography Colloquium, University of Washington, April 2010.
“SUPER-naturalisms: The Transformative Spaces of Contemporary Media, Critical Digital Studies Workshop, Pacific Centre for Technology and Culture, University of Victoria, May 2009.
“Supernaturalisms”, Plenary Speaker for University of Washington Comparative Literature Graduate Conference, May 2009.
“The Gothic Spaces of the Butterfly’s Wing: The Supernatural Politics of Evo Devo,” Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, Charlotte, North Carolina, November 2008.
Panel Participant for the Seattle Innovation Symposium, “Are Digital Natives Wired Differently”, University of Washington, Seattle, June 2008.
“Animating Literacy”, for the Digital Literacy, Louise M Davies Forum at the University of San Francisco, May 2008.
“The Extended Development Project: An Interactive Online Database,” for Project Bamboo (humanities and arts computing), University of California at Berkeley, April 2008.
“The Emergence of Genetic Rationality”, invited talk for New Books in Print Seminar Series, sponsored by the Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, April 8, 2008.
“From Spiderman to Alba: Transgenics in a Post-nuclear World,” (Co-authored with Claudia X. Valdes), Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, Portland, Maine, November 2007.
“Biology beyond the fold: The temporal virtuosity of the animated gene,” accepted, Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, Portland Maine, November 2007.
“From Spiderman to Alba: Transgenics in a Post-nuclear World,” (Co-authored with Claudia X. Valdes), accepted as poster presentation, Re:Place, 2007: The Second International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology, November 2007, Berlin.
“From Spiderman to Alba: Transgenics in a Post-nuclear World,” (Co-authored with Claudia X. Valdes), accepted, Mutamorphosis: Challenging Arts and Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic, November, 2007.
“Information Processing and the History of Genetics,” Invited talk for the seminar "The cultures of genetics: historical, philosophical and sociological perspectives” at the Ècole Normale Supérieur organized by Christophe Bonneuil, Jean Gayon, Michael Morange, and Jean-Paul Gaudillière. November 12, 2007, Paris, France.
“Unanticipated intimacies: Embracing the artwork of Patricia Piccinini”, invited lecture for the Frye Art Museum in conjunction with the exhibit “Hug: Recent Work by Patricia Piccinini,” Frye Art Museum, Oct 13, 2007.
“The Novelty of Life: Luther Burbank, Industrial Agriculture, and the Heredity of Wandering,” accepted for “Why We Need AgrilCultural Studies Seminar” at the Cultural Studies Association, Portland, Oregon, April 2007.
‘”I Believe That Comic Book Heroes Walk the Earth’: Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral Becomings in a Monstrous World,” Presented at the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts. New York, New York, November 2006.
“Embodying Information 1900/2000: Information Processing and the Human Body” invited presentation for The Virtual Knowledge Studio for the Humanities and Social Sciences (VKS), Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Amsterdam, NL. Summer 2006.
“’The Acme Novelty Library’: Thinking past fidelity with the return of the new.” Presented with Robert Mitchell), International Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, Amsterdam, 2006.
“’Biofeedback and the Arts’: Listening as Experimental Practice,” (co-authored with Claudia X. Valdes) for the Annual Conference of the Society for Science, Literature, and the Arts, University of Chicago, October, 2005.
“’Biofeedback and the Arts’: Listening as Experimental Practice,” (co-authored with Claudia X. Valdes) for Refresh!: First International Conference on the History of Media, Art, Science, and Technology, Banff New Media Institute, September 2005.
“’Dark Genesis’: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral Becomings in a Monstrous World, or How I Became Elemental and Lived to Tell the Tale” for Comic Book Cultures: A Colloquium, Duke University, April 2005.
“Art and the Biology of the Patriot Act” for Art, Law, and the Patriot Act, University at Buffalo, April 2005.
“Embodying Information 1900/2000: Information Processing and Genetic Knowledge at the Turn of Two Centuries.” University of Washington, February 2005.
Panel Participant, “Reading Between the Frames: Exciting New Directions in Comic Book Scholarship,” for Comparative History of Ideas Salon, University of Washington, February 2005.
“Reading Between the Panels: New Research in Comic Books” for Research Exposed! Presented by the Undergraduate Research Program at UW. Winter 2004.
“From Wandering to Processing: From the Space-time of Natural History to the Space and Time of Classical Genetics” and Chair of Genes and Society panel, The Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association, Winnipeg, July 2004.
Panel Chair, “Sociology of the Body” for Musings and Scribblings: Carleton University Sociology and Anthropology Graduate Student Conference, Ottawa, May 2004.
“The ‘Acme Novelty Library’: Using Comics to Understand the Affective-Phenomenological Domain of Media,” for Uncensoring Mediamorphis Conference, sponsored by the Ottawa Public Interest Group, Ottawa May 2004.
The Poetics of Wandering and the Hybrid Body,” at Materialities Incorporated: The 2nd Annual Social Theory and Critical Discourses Working Group Conference, Ottawa May 2004.
"From the Poetics of Wandering to the Poetics of Processing: The Space and Time of Classical Genetics," Science and Literature Society, Austin 2003.
"Thought from the Outside: Using Animation to Think Beyond Norms," Social Theory and Critical Discourses Working Group, Carleton University, September 2003.
"Comics and Sequence," Washington State University in Vancouver, 2003.
"The Genomic Book of the Dead: Discourse Networks of Death in the Post-Genomic Era," Social Theory and Critical Discourses Working Group, Carleton University, 2003.
"Animating Your Genome," Science and Literature Society, Pasadena, 2002.
Panel Participant of “Interdisciplinary Collaborations in the Humanities, Arts, and Sciences , and Literature Society, Pasadena, 2002.
"The Genomic Book of the Dead: A Manual for More Conscious Death Experiences in the 21st Century" Religion and Genomics Conference, Duke University, 2002.
"The Genomic Book of the Dead: Death, Life, and Representation in the 21st Century," Second European Conference of the International Society for Literature and Science, May 2002.
Panel participant, "Paradigms Lost and Found: The Implications of the Human
Genome Project" Sponsored by the Henry Art Gallery and the Animating Democracy Initiative, April 2002.
"Your Animated Future: Phenomenology, Comics, and Online Scholarship" Invited Speaker at Washington State University at Vancouver, March 2002.
“Human Embodiment 1900/2000” Georgia Tech University, February 2002.
"The World of Stephen Jay Gould" for the Seattle Arts and Lectures Series, October 2001.
Panelist discussing Homo Sapiens 1900 (Peter Cohen Director) at the Seattle Jewish Film Festival, March 2001.
“Materializing Nature: Landscape in a Consumer Culture” Henry Art Gallery, Seattle Washington, May 2000.
“Information and Democracy,” panel participant in Information Technology and Democracy: Seminars on the Information Age, Sponsored by the University of Washington School of Library and Information Science, invited for 22, January 2000 and 28, April 2000.
“The Emergent Structure of Cyberspace: Implications for Multi-Cultural Diversity” for the Curriculum Transformation Institute: Exploring Difference in Multicultural Classrooms, Sponsored by the University of Washington and Shoreline Community College, Summer 1999.
“Information Processing and the Rise of Genetic Reasoning,” Stanford University, Autumn 1998.
“The Phenomenology of the Cubby Hole: The Wooten Desk as Technology of Early Industrial Networks of Exchange,” Society for the History of Technology, Annual Conference, 1998 (Co-organizer of session on “Technology and Modernity”).
“Space and Speciation: Turn-of-the-Century Debates on the Origins of the Species,” Rice University, Spring 1998.
“Filing and Information Processing in Biological Thought” Sarah Lawrence College, Spring 1998.
“Harnessing Heredity in Gilded Age America: Rational Reproduction in a Cultural Context,” History of Science Society, Annual Conference, 1997.
“Harnessing Heredity: Rational Reproduction in Victorian America,” University of Washington History of Science Reading Group.
"Engineering Organisms, Disciplines, Institutions, and Epistemologies at the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine at Stanford University," University of Washington History of Science Reading Group.
"A Horse is a Horse, (Unless of Course...): Horse Breeding, Eugenics, Education, Industrial Philanthropy, and Biological Determinism in Turn of the Century United States." Western Social Science Association, 37th Annual Conference, 1995.
"The Foals of Electioneer: Human Nature Limited by the Needs of Industrial Capitalism." Columbia History of Science Meeting, 1995.
"The Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine at Stanford University: A Case Study in the Relationship of the Clinical and the Basic Sciences." West Coast History of Science Society, 1994.
"The Development of the Beckman Center for Molecular Genetics: A Case Study Investigating the Relationship of Departmental Problem Solving, Patronage, and Scientific Disciplines," Science, Technology, and Economics Workshop, Stanford University, 1994.
Peer Reviewed Publications in the Sciences
Kwok WW; Kovats S; Thurtle P; Nepom G.T., HLA-DQ Allelic Polymorphisms Constrain Patterns of Class II Heterodimer Formation. Journal of Immunology, Vol 150(6):2263-72, 1993.
Gaur, L.K., Heise, E.R., Thurtle, P.S., Nepom, G.T., Conservation of the HLA-DQB2 Locus in Nonhuman Primates. Journal of Immunology, Vol. 149(7):2530, 1992.
Gaur, L.K., Heisse, E.R., Thurtle, P.S., Nepom, G.T., Is DQß Functional among Non-Human Primates? In "Molecular Evolution of the Major-Histocompatibility."
J. Klein and D. Klein eds., Springer-Verlag, 1991.
Kwok, W.W., Thurtle, P.S., Nepom, G.T., A Genetically Controlled Pairing Anomaly Between HLA-DQa and HLA-DQß Chains. Journal of Immunology Vol.143 No. 11 p3598, 1989.
Kwok, W.W., Schwartz, D., Nepom, B.S., Hock, R.A., Thurtle, P.S., Nepom, G.T., HLA-DQ Molecules Form a-ß Heterodimers of Mixed Allotype. Journal of Immunology, Vol.142 No.9 p3123, 1988.
Service
Editorial Duties
January 2003-2016: Series Co-editor, In Vivo: Cultural Mediations of Biomedicine, University of Washington Press.
Books Published in the Series:
Jose van Dijck, The Transparent Body: A Cultural Analysis of Medical Imaging (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005).
Eve Keller, Generating Bodies and Gendered Selves: The Rhetoric of Reproduction in Early Modern England (Seattle: University of Washington Press, due December 2006).
Phillip Thurtle, The Emergence of Genetic Rationality: Space, Time, and Information in American Biology (Seattle: University of Washington Press, January 2008).
Anneke Smelik and Nina Lykke, eds., Bits of Life: Feminism and the New Cultures of Media Technoculture (Seattle: University of Washington Press, March 2008).
Melinda Cooper, Life as Surplus: Biotechnology in the Neoliberal Era (Seattle: University of Washington Press, March 2008).
Marsha Rosengrten, HIV: A Traffic in Information as Flesh (Seattle: University of Washington Press, due 2009).
Robert Mitchell, Media Life: Bioart and the Vitality of Media (Seattle: University of Washington Press, due 2010).
Elizabeth Wilson, Affect and AI (Seattle: University of Washington Press, due 2010).
Richard Doyle, Darwin’s Pharmacy: Sex, Plants, Rhetoric and the Evolution of the Noösphere (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2011).
Todd Meyers, The Clinic and Elsewhere: Addiction, Pharmaceuticals, and the Afterlife of Therapy (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2012).
Robert Brain, Physiological Aesthetics: Experimentalizing Life and Art in Fin-de-Siècle Europe (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015)
Des Fitzgerald, Tracing Autism: Uncertainty, Ambiguity, and the Affective Labor of Neuroscience (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2017)
February 2008-present, Advisory Board, Inflexions: A Journal for Research-Creation, WWW journal published through the Concordia University Sense Lab.
March 2000-January 2007: Co-editor of Humanities Net, H-SCI-MED-TECH. An international distribution list on the history of medicine, science, and technology serving 2000 subscribers.
January, 2007-present: Member of the Editorial Board of Humanities Net, H-SCI-MED-TECH. An international distribution list on the history of medicine, science, and technology serving 2000 subscribers.
University of Washington Service
Committees
2020-2021: Search Committee for a position in the Humanities Division for Data Sciences
2019-2020: Digital Humanities Fellowship Selection Committee
2017-2020: Royalty Research Funds Selection Committee
2016-2017: Selection Committee for the Distinguished Teaching Award
2014-2020: Organizing Committee for the Digital History Colloquium, Department of History
2013-2016: Executive Committee for the Science Studies Network at University of Washington
2008-2012: Selection Committee Library Research Award
2008-2010: Selection Committee Huckabay Graduate Fellowship (2008-2010)
2011: Honors Curriculum Committee
2010: Ad-Hoc committee on Interdisciplinarity
CHID Scholarship Committee
CHID Curriculum Committee
CHID Committees on Teaching Assistant Selection
CHID Committees on Undergraduate Award Selection
CHID 390 Committee
Digital Humanities Task Force
Chair of Search Committee for Lecturer in Comparative History of Ideas
Search Committee for a joint position between Comparative History of Ideas and the Jackson School for International Studies.
Million Year Curriculum, 2014-2016
Other forms of service and pubic scholarship
2020: Invited Participant, “What is Human Anyway?” Colloquium for Bugs and Beasts Before the Law, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, Museum, November 2020.
2020: Co-Organizer and commentator for Awe.SOME Symposium on Metaphysical Energies, October, 2020.
2019: Co-Organizer for the Design Trouble Symposium (with Daniela Rosner, Audrey Dejardins, Afroditi Psarra, and Sareeta Amrute. March 2019.
2018: “William Bateson and the Waves of Animal Form”, invited lecturer for Serious Fun: We’ve Got Rhythm, University of Washington College of Arts and Sciences.
2016: Invited Panelist for a discussion of the exhibit, “Utopia Neighborhood Club”, Jacob Lawrence Gallery, Seattle, November 2016,
2016: Invited Speaker for “Variations on Time”, a talk on temporality at the Henry Gallery, Seattle, April 2016.
2015: Invited Panelist for Bio-Fictions at the Institute for Systems Biology, May, 2015.
2014-2016: Co-organizer of Molecular Shadows Salon. Monthly meeting to discuss the relationship between science and the arts.
2013: Invited Panelist, on Women in Science at the Seattle Repertory Theater, February, 2013.
2012: Invited panelist discussing John Tresch's The Romantic Machine: Utopian Science and Technology after Napoleon, Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, September 2012.
2012: Invited panelist discussing Odin’s Horse by Robert Koon at Mirror Stage Theater, 11 November 2012.
2012: Invited participant in upcoming exhibit Icons of Science Fiction, Science Fiction Museum, Seattle
2012: Invited participant in Re-inventing University-level Learning Workshop, University of Washington, Bothell
2011: Panel Participant on “Streaming in from the Moon: The Artwork of Carolee Schneeman” at the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle
2009: Panel Presentation on Disabilities and Human Rights, UW Student Disability Commission, May 2009
2009: Panel presentation on the role of the arts and humanities in society: Arts Link, May 2009
2008: Organized and Presented in Science Studies Network Panel Discussions: “Digital Humanities in Science Studies” and “Space as an Analytic”
2007-2009: Elected Member at Large for the Executive Committee of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts.
2007: Difficult Dialogues Pedagogy Workshop (with other members of the Comparative History of Ideas), “Navigating Difficult Dialogues: Promoting Difference, Dialogue, Communities, and Change”, December 1 and 8, 2007.
2007: Teachers as Scholars and Seattle Arts and Lectures Seminar Leader, “Biotechnology and the Artistic Imagination”, October 13 and 27, 2007.
2007: Organized and/or presented in Science Studies Network Panel Discussions: “The Cultural Study of Science,” “New Media Technology,” and “Art and Science.”
2005-2016: Panel Chair for The Annual University of Washington Undergraduate Research Symposium, University of Washington, May 2006.
2005, 2006, 2016: invited lecturer for “Research Exposed! Presented by the Undergraduate Research Program at UW.
2005: Panel Participant, “Visual Knowledge” for the Roundtable for Practical Pedagogy, University of Washington, May 2005.
2004: Faculty Sponsor for the Great Lakes Graduate Conference in Political Economy
2001: Teachers as Scholars Seminar Leader (with Stuart Sutton), “The Information Democracy”
Winter of 2002: Co-Founder (with Ronjon Paul Datta) of “Social Theory and Critical Discourses Working Group” Carleton University, Ottawa University, and York University.
Spring 2000-2001: Founded and administrated the "UW Gaming Group"
2000: Teachers as Scholars Seminar Leader (with Stuart Sutton and Karen Pettigrew), “The Information Democracy”
1999-2000: Faculty Sponsor for the University of Washington Chapter of Women in Communications
2000: Panel Chair “Media Literacy and Shifting Contexts of Signification” for Writing Machines: Communication Technology and Literature, UW Comparative Literature Graduate student Conference, April 2000.
2000: Invited Presentation at the Honors Brown Bag Lunch Series, "From Survivor to Blair Witch Project–The current prevalence of the 'reality effect' in popular culture,” November 2000.
1999: Founder of University of Washington's "New Media Theory Group" now known as the "Digital Media Working Group."
1995-1996: Researcher and Consultant on “The History of Silicon Valley Project” at Stanford University. This project involved the creation of an online distributed database for documenting the history of Silicon Valley in its own medium.
Other Administrative Experience
2001-2002: Co-Director (with Kevin Kawamoto) of the Digital Media Laboratory in the School of Communications, University of Washington.
Fall 1998-Summer 1999: Academic Adviser and International Programs Coordinator, Comparative History of Ideas Program, University of Washington.
Teaching
Awards for Curricular Reform
2019: Faculty for the Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities at the University of Washington (along with Audrey Desjardin, Tyler Fox, Heidi Biggs, and Nat Mengist) “Creating Alternate Worlds”.
2016: Faculty for Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities at the University of Washington (along with Rebecca Cummins, Tyler Fox, and Joel Ong). “Excitations: Energy Studies in the Arts and Humanities”.
2012: Recipient of an award from the Simpson Center for the Humanities to teach “CHID 480: The Natural History of Love” using Microsoft’s Chroonozoom: A Tool for the Visualization of Big History for Spring Quarter 2013.
2008: Walter Simpson Chapin Humanities Center, Danz Course Award “Science and its Critics” a class planned for Winter 2009 (along with Maynard Olson, Medicine and Genome Sciences).
2008: Faculty for Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities at the University of Washington (along with Carrie Bodle, Axel Roesler, and Jentery Sayers, University of Washington).
2007: Walter Simpson Chapin Humanities Center, Danz Course Award “The Power of Perspective” a class planned for Fall 2007 (along with Axel Roessler, The program of Design in the Department of Art).
2006: Walter Simpson Chapin Humanities Center, Danz Course Award “Animation in Theory and Practice” a class planned for Spring 2007 (along with Stephanie Andrews, Digital and Experimental Arts).
2005: Walter Simpson Chapin Humanities Center, Danz Course Award "Becoming Strangers: Travel, Trust, and the Everyday" a class planned for Autumn Quarter 2005 (along with Brian Reed, English, University of Washington).
2005: Co-investigator, President’s Diversity Appraisal Implementation Fund, University of Washington, “Comparative Exploration of Diversity: Interdisciplinary Knowledges and Personal Engagements” (along with Jeannette Bushell, Amy Peloff, and Georgia Roberts, Comparative History of Ideas, University of Washington).
2005: Faculty for Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities at the University of Washington (along with Ellen Garvens, Art, Ariana Russell, Art, and Brian Reed, English, University of Washington).
2004: Walter Simpson Chapin Humanities Center, Danz Course Award "Eye and Mind: Art, Science, and Perception" a class planned for Winter Quarter 2005 (along with Elizabeth Rutledge, Medicine, University of Washington).
2004: Faculty for Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities at the University of Washington (along with Kari Tupper, Women’s Studies and Comparative History of Ideas; and Claudia X. Valdes, Digital and Experimental Arts, University of Washington).
2002: Tools for Transformation "A Three Year Proposal for an Interdisciplinary Course on Science and Society" from University of Washington. (Co-investigator with Jeffrey Bonadio, Bioengineering; and Kari Tupper, Women’s Studies and the Comparative History of Ideas, University of Washington).
2001-2002: Walter Simpson Chapin Humanities Center, Danz Course Award "In Vivo: Traversing Artistic and Scientific Conceptions of Life" a class taught during Spring Quarter 2002 (along with Elizabeth Rutledge, Medicine, University of Washington, and Marta Lyall, Art, University of Washington).
Courses Designed and Taught
While at the University of Washington:
CHID 498: Experimental Futures: World Building in Science, Art, and Literature
CHID 495: Miyazaki and the Vitality of Animation
HUM 498: Energy Studies in the Arts and Humanities
CHID 480: Love: A Natural History
CHID 390: Madness: The Politics of Unreason
HUM 207: Science and Its Critics, co taught with Maynard Olson (Genome Sciences and Medicine)
CHID 222: Biofutures
HUM 498: Fifth Annual Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities: Media and the Senses (seminar), co taught with Axel Roesler (Design), Carrie Bodle (Art), and Jentery Sayers (English)
HUM 204: The Role of Perspective in History, Science, and Design (Team Taught with Axel Roesler, Design, University of Washington
CHID 490: CHID Research Seminar, "The Politics of Memory"
CHID 490: CHID Research Seminar, “Love and Attraction”
HUM 203: The World in Motion: Animation in Theory and Practice (Team Taught with Stephanie Andrews, Digital and Experimental Arts, University of Washington)
CHID 490: CHID Research Seminar, “The Politics of Memory”
HUM 201: Becoming Strangers: Travel, Trust, and the Everyday (Team Taught with Brian Reed, English)
HUM 498: Becoming Strangers: Travel, Trust, and the Everyday (Team taught with Brian Reed, English, Ellen Garvens, Art, and Arianna Russel, Art)
H & AS 251 B: Eye + Mind: Art, Science, and Perception
CHID 498: Gilles Deleuze Reading Group
CHID 498: Animating Cultural Theory
CHID 270: Communication Matters: The Materiality of Communication Practices (Taught by Myself and Team Taught with Giorgia Aiello, Communication)
HUM 102: Eye + Mind: Art, Science, and Perception
CHID 390: Interpretation of Texts and Culture
HUM 498: Third Annual Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities
“Trauma, Time, and Embodiment”
HUM 200: In Vivo: Traversing Scientific and Artistic Observations on Life
(Team-taught with Elizabeth Rutledge, Molecular Biologist, this class also includes an optional laboratory component)
CMU 200: Introduction to Mass Communication
CMU 302: The Cultural Impact of Information Technology
(Cross listed with the Comparative History of Ideas Program, CHID 370)
CMU 403: Visual Culture
CMU 418: The Cultural History of Communication Practices
CMU 418: The Information Society
CMU 507: Computers and Critical Thought
While at Carleton University:
SOCI 5209: Graduate Seminar in Science and Technology Studies
SOCI 4501: Sociological Studies of Science and Technology
SOAN 3805: Introduction to Cultural Studies
SOCI 2400: Introduction to the Cultural Studies of Science and Technology
In addition, I have the following teaching experience from Stanford University, Stanford California
Fall 1995: "The Darwinian Revolution" (Guest Lecturer on Population Genetics and the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis).
Fall 1995: "The History of Silicon Valley" (Guest Lecturer on the Development of Recombinant DNA and the Relation of Biochemistry to Medicine, demonstrated the use of computer supported multi-media as a teaching aide).
Spring 1994: "The Origins of Life: An Investigation of the Historical and Philosophical Issues Concerning Origins of Life Research" (Instructor and course creator)
Fall 1994: "The Industrial Revolution: Historical and Cultural Perspectives" (Teaching Assistant and Guest Lecturer on Conflict and Labor in Industrial America).
Fall 1993: "The Darwinian Revolution" (Teaching Assistant and Guest Lecturer on the Mendelian-Biometrician Debate and its Relation to the Development of Eugenic Research).
Spring 1993: "The History of Twentieth Century Physics" (Teaching Assistant).
Full Term International and National Study Away Programs Designed and Led:
Summer 2021: In Vivo: Arts, Science, and Society, Friday Harbor, WA
Summer 2014: “Iceland: Regeneration-Matter, Myth, and Memory
Summer 2013: “When Islands Sing: The Human and Non-Human Resonances of the Faroe Islands
Summer 2012: “Iceland: Regeneration-Matter, Myth, and Memory
Summer 2010: “Iceland: Regeneration-Matter, Myth, and Memory
Summer 2008: “Iceland: Regeneration-Matter, Myth, and Memory
Graduate Supervisions at University of Washington
(Note that Comparative History of Ideas does not have a graduate program)
Gust Burns, Co-chair, English
Nancy White, Comparative Literature, completed.
Adam Nocek, Comparative Literature, completed.
Graduate Supervisions at Carleton University
Heidi Rimke (Carleton Senate Award for Outstanding Dissertation)
Craig MacFarlane (Distinction)
Chantele Denis (Distinction)
Karine Peppin
Patrick Burke
Gerald Morton
Karim Hasan
Elizabeth Kim
hillip Thurtle Curriculum Vitae 26 December 2020