Devin Kennedy

Biography

Devin Kennedy is Assistant Professor of History and currently the Evelyn and Herbert Howe Bascom Professor of Integrated Liberal Studies.

Kennedy’s research centers on the history of computer science and digital technology. His first book, Coding Capital: Computing in the Postwar US Economy situates the history of computer science within developments in the US economy, tracing how the manufacturing and financial industries molded technology and scientific research towards their needs, and how in turn, computing supported the emergence of a financialized economy. Kennedy’s next projects concern aspects of the history of academic computer science, including a history of computational complexity theory, and a study of concepts of time in computer design. His work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Association for Computing Machinery.

He is the co-lead of the interdisciplinary Uncertainty and Artificial Intelligence Group hosted at the Institute for Research in the Humanities, and the Chair of the Library Resources Committee for Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities (LRC-ASH).

Professor Kennedy regularly teaches a course on the history of computer technology and its social consequences (HS 150: The Digital Age), and the second half of the History of Science survey (ILS/HS 202). He is interested in working with graduate students working in topics related to 20th century technology and science (especially computing and data) as well as the history of capitalism and business.

Education

Ph.D., M.A., Harvard, History of Science
AB Princeton, Comparative Literature

Selected Publications

• Co-editor, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing Special Series: ‘Computing Capitalisms: Business, History, and Information Technology.’ [Forthcoming]
• “The Machine in the Market: Computers and the Infrastructure of Price at the New York Stock Exchange, 1965–1975.” Social Studies of Science 47, no. 6 (December 1, 2017): 888–917.
• “The People’s Utility.” Logic Magazine. Issue 5 (2018)

Advisor To

• Yu-Hsuan Wang

Selected Awards

• Appel Fellowship in History and Technology, New-York Historical Society
• 2017 IEEE Life Member’s Fellowship in the History of Electrical and Computing Technology
• 2017 John E. Rovensky Fellowship in U.S. Business or Economic History, Business History Conference

History Courses

• History 201 – The Historian’s Craft: “The History of Data and Data Science” – Syllabus 2021 (pdf)
• History of Science 150 – The Digital Age – Syllabus 2024 (pdf)
• History of Science 202 – The Making of Modern Science – Syllabus 2022 (pdf)
• History of Science 350 – Special Topics—Science and Technology in the Global Cold War – Syllabus 2020 (pdf)
• History of Science 555 – Undergraduate Seminar in History of Science – “Digital Capitalism” – Syllabus 2021 (pdf)
• History of Science 720 – Methods and Historiography in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology – Syllabus 2024 (pdf)
• History 952 – The Atomic Bomb in American, Japanese & Global History – Syllabus 2025 (pdf)