by Dr Lo Yi Ci

We live in a world of measures: They tell us whether we need to lose weight, how efficiently a company is running, and how quickly our world is warming. How did measures, especially numerical ones, come to be so ubiquitous and so important in our lives? What do we gain and lose when we use them? In this course, we will track how important themes in modern world history established the necessity of standardized measurement in modern life, and critically examine the mixed legacies of this trend across diverse disciplines and fields of practice.