"Feeling with Numbers"
December 11–12, 2025
Much of our lives are organized by numbers. We vote, check our bank statements, weigh ourselves, and rank our preferences. We participate in the census, polls, and surveys. We imagine that numbers are objective, rigorous or “hard.” This image of quantification doesn’t capture our emotional relationship to certain numbers. Scholars of quantification have neglected this dimension. To redress this, our workshop will focus on people’s emotional relations with numbers. Participants will consider three overarching questions: How do we feel with numbers? How do numbers govern our feelings? And how do these number-feelings motivate our actions? Scholars will examine these questions in three broad contexts, as individuals, members of groups, or as the producers, consumers and users of numbers.
Convener
Contact
Participants
Camille
Beaurepaire
INSEE - Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques
Bruce G.
Carruthers
Fellow
2013/2014
Northwestern University
Emmanuel
Didier
Fellow
2013/2014
École Normale Supérieure de Paris
Lorraine J.
Daston
Permanent Fellow
Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin
Siyu
Li
Aix-Marseille Université
Andrea
Mennicken
Fellow
2013/2014
King's College London
Mary S.
Morgan
Fellow
1995/1996
The London School of Economics and Political Science
Theodore M.
Porter
Fellow
2013/2014
University of California, Los Angeles
Michael K.
Power
Fellow
1995/1996
The London School of Economics and Political Science
Hilton
Simmet
Harvard University
Aashish
Velkar
The University of Manchester
Jessica
Wang
The University of British Columbia