History of Science @ University of Wisconsin | Courses

Courses: Fall 2006

History of Science 201: The Origins of Scientific Thought

3 cr.; H (Humanities), E (Elementary); 1:00-2:15 TR, 6210 Social Science; 2 lectures and 1 discussion section per week. See also the parallel course, Integrated Liberal Studies 201, which meets with Hist. Sci. 201 and bestows natural science credit at the introductory level.

Instructor: Florence Hsia

This course is the first in a sequence of courses that examines the development of science in cultural and intellectual context from antiquity to the twentieth century. The class begins with an examination of perspectives towards the natural world in the poetry, philosophy, and medicine of ancient Greece. It follows the movement of the classical tradition into medieval Islam and Christendom, and concludes with the transformation of European science during the 16th and 17th centuries. Throughout our investigation of what 'science' has been in the past, we will pay particular attention to issues which still have relevance today, such as the interaction between science and religion, the importance of different institutional settings for science, and the relationship between science and government.

Grading will include frequent quizzes in discussion sections and essay exams.

History of Science 203: Science in the Twentieth Century: A Historical Overview

3 cr., Z (Humanities or Social Science), E (Elementary); 1:20 MW, 6104 Social Science; 2 hrs lecture, 1 hr discussion; Prerequisites: None; Open to Freshmen.

Instructor: Richard Staley

This course surveys the History of Science in the twentieth century, from the discovery of x-rays and radioactivity in the 1890s through to the complex of scientific and social questions raised by the human genome project and stem cell research in the present day. This period saw spectacular transformations in the reach of modern science and technology, accompanied by the increasing specialization and fragmentation of knowledge. Here we explore the changing dimensions of science in an age of unprecedented promise and conflict. Tracing the evolution of physics and biology and exploring the emergence of environmentalism through the course of the century, we examine major conceptual developments, the interaction of science and society, and the impact of war on science and technology. Course requirements include three take-home essays and class participation, with some informal writing for discussion sections.

History of Science 280: Honors Seminar: Studies in Science, Technology, and Medicine

Topic: Science, Medicine, and Technology in the Utopias

3 cr.; I (Intermediate), H (Humanities), satisfies Communications Requirement Part B; 1:20-3:15 PM W; 6304 Social Science. Prerequisites: Communications Requirement Part A must be satisfied. Open to non-honors students with consent of instructor. Open to Freshmen.

Instructor: Michael Shank

The idea behind this seminar is simple: we can learn much about the ideals, hopes, and fears about science, medicine, and technology in historical time by studying this imaginative literature from Plato to the late-twentieth century. Our readings of primary sources will mix classics with lesser-known works of utopian and dystopian fiction (including Plato, Thomas More, Francis Bacon, Tommaso Campanella, H.G. Wells, Edward Bellamy, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Evgeny Zamiatin, Aldous Huxley, and B. F. Skinner). We will use these works and some scholarship about them and their times to explore changing understandings of science, medicine, and technology, and also changing evaluations of their roles in society. The reading load is heavy (typically one work a week), but also very thought-provoking and often delightful. The seminar will include oral reports and also be writing-intensive (a weekly one-page assignment focused on the readings, and a 15-page research paper, to be revised in light of detailed critical suggestions about the argument and the style).

History of Science 322: Ancient and Medieval Science

(crosslisted with Medieval Studies)

3 cr.; 2 lectures and 1 discussion per week. H (Humanities), D (Intermediate or Advanced). Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. 9:55 MWF, 4308 Social Science.

Instructor: Frederick Gibbs

This course explores the inquiry into nature during antiquity and the Middle Ages in its intellectual, social, and cultural contexts, and how it operated among various political and religious institutions. The wide chronological and geographical coverage extends from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, through the classical Greek and Roman civilizations, through medieval Islam, to the beginnings of early modern Europe. Such breadth will illustrate the transformation of knowledge as it crosses cultural and linguistic boundaries. The course surveys a wide variety of disciplines, including astronomy/astrology, alchemy, biology, medicine (theory and practice), physics, and natural history, as well as the related enterprises of philosophy and theology. The goal of this course is to illustrate, using specific historical episodes, the trajectory of early western science, how the process of knowledge production depended heavily on various social, cultural, and political forces, and how such considerations ought inform our conception of modern science.

History of Science 323: The Scientific Revolution: from Copernicus to Newton

(crosslisted with History)

3 cr.; H (Humanities), D (Intermediate or Advanced). Essay exams and in-class exercises. Prerequisites; junior standing or consent of instructor. 11:00-12:15 TR; 4308 Social Science. Graduate students must enroll simultaneously in Hist. Sci. 623.

Instructor: Florence Hsia

An investigation of the renaissance and revolution in European science that began in 1543 with the heliocentric astronomy of Nicolaus Copernicus and ended with Isaac Newton's death in 1727. Throughout the course, we will pay particular attention to issues of tradition and novelty, institutional settings for scientific activity, and the relationship between science and religion. Topics covered will include the Copernican cosmology and the trial of Galileo, the mechanical philosophy, Newton's theory of gravitation, the appearance of new scientific organizations such as the Royal Society of London and the Paris Academy of Sciences, the role of science in European exploration and expansion, and 17th-century perceptions of the scientist's place in society.

History of Science 326: History of Physics: The Modern Period

3 cr.; H (Humanities), I (Intermediate); 11:00-12:15 TR, B231 Van Vleck; Prerequisites: Junior standing.

Instructor: Richard Staley

At the dawn of the twentieth century physicists won a new world view from the measurement of space and time and new theories of matter; by mid century they had delivered a weapon that shadowed an era; and at century's end cosmologists sought ways to describe the first seconds of evolution on the basis of astronomical observations. This course will explore the span of physics from the laboratory bench to the congressional lobbyist, and by setting the discipline in social context will investigate the changing relations between modern science and modern culture. In addition to tracing the unfolding philosophical and technological implications of physics, we will examine the nature of its debts to industry, military concerns and government, and explore the perspective that anthropologists and sociologists have offered on its practices. We chart the rise of the physics discipline from the opening of microphysics in the 1890s to its status as the pattern for big science (and beyond?) at the present. Our aim is to understand how the dynamic interplay between theory and experiment; the tensions between national and international interests; and the stresses and opportunities of hot and cold wars have all changed the nature of our knowledge of the physical world.

History of Science 339: Technology and Its Critics Since World War II

3 cr.; Z (Humanities or Social Science), A (Advanced); 1:00-2:15 TR; 6116 Social Science. Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. Graduate students must enroll concurrently in History of Science 639.

Instructor: Eric Schatzberg

This course examines intellectuals and activists who questioned the dominant faith in technology in the United States from World War II until roughly 1980. The course begins by examining the tremendous enthusiasm for science and technology that emerged after World War II, inspired by the new military technologies created by scientists and engineers. These technologies include the atomic bomb, radar, digital computers, and ballistic missiles.

Some people challenged this faith in the inevitable benefits of technological change. At first this challenge was limited to a few intellectuals who criticized the consumer society of the 1950s, with its bland suburbs, conformist white-collar bureaucracies, and mind-numbing advertising. In the late 1950s, this critique was taken up by new social movements that attacked the most dramatic technological achievement of World War II, the atomic bomb. In the early 1960s, critics shifted ground to new technologies, most importantly synthetic pesticides and the automobile, and made connections with the new environmental movement. Critics of technology drew strength from the counterculture of the 1960s, which encouraged political and social activism against large-scale technologies like nuclear power. The counterculture also strengthened groups seeking to create counter-technologies, such as solar energy. Even in the midst of today's enthusiasm for everything digital, technology's critics continue to expose the dark side of technological change.

History of Science 350: Frankenstein to Dracula: 19th Century British Literature and Science

(Meets with English 461: "From Frankenstein to Dracula: Nineteenth-Century British Literature, Science, and Culture," Prof. Susan D. Bernstein)

3 cr.; H (Humanities), D (Intermediate or Advanced); 9:30-10:45 TR; 4281 Helen C. White. Prerequisites: Sophomore Honors or Junior standing.

Instructor: Lynn Nyhart

This course investigates narratives of transformation and evolution from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), through Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859), to Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), in the broader context of nineteenth-century British culture. We will explore the interactions, similarities and differences among scientific, literary, and popular renderings of change over time and space (including those in scientific texts, novels, poems, magazine essays, and cartoons). At the level of form, we will consider the similarities and differences in scientific and literary genres with regard to openings, development, and modes of closure, and we will explore these issues in evolutionary theory itself, expressed as concerns over origins, transformation, and ends or goals. Delving more deeply into questions of what counts as “natural,” we will examine the problems of taxonomic organization, hierarchy, mixing, degeneration, monstrosity, and the supernatural, as they were produced in different genres. We will study debates accented by scientific theories that unsettled or fixed boundaries between species, sexes, and races. This course also investigates the nature of interdisciplinary work by asking what kind of evidence--that crucial “missing link”--counts when drawing different discourses into dialogue. At the deepest level, we wish students to arrive at a fundamental appreciation of the unities and disparities of Victorian culture, the common context of scientific, social, and literary thought.

Course requirements:
*Class attendance (over 3 absences affects course grade) and participation, including informal writing assignments as needed;
*1 short analytical paper (5 pages);
*1 research paper (8-10 pages)
*1 take-home final essay exam

History of Science 353: History of Ecology

(crosslisted with IES)

3 cr.; H (Humanities), I (Intermediate); 9:30-10:45 TR, 122 Ingraham; junior standing or consent of instructor.

Instructor: Gregg Mitman

To some, ecology represents a scientific discipline that studies the interactions between and among organisms and their environments. To others, it is synonymous with the environmental movement of the sixties, Earth First, and green politics.

This course explores the historical development of ecology as a professional science, with due attention paid to the political ramifications of particular ecological ideas and how they have been incorporated into environmental discussions surrounding wilderness preservation, the Dust Bowl, population control, the DDT controversy, and wildlife conservation in the Third World. Throughout the course, we will situate the history of ecological ideas and concepts within their cultural, political, and social environments, exploring the interrelated histories of nature’s economy and political economy, from colonialism to global capitalism, from laissez-faire individualism to the welfare state. We shall also highlight the places of study in which the science of ecology developed, from tropical islands to midwestern prairies, from pastoral landscapes to pristine wilderness, in our investigation of ecological attitudes toward the human place in nature.

A background knowledge of ecology or environmental issues is helpful, but not required.

History of Science 504: Society and Health Care in American History

(crosslisted with Med Hist and History)

3 cr.; B (Biological Science), I (Intermediate); 11:00-12:15 TR, 6225 Medical Science Center; Prerequisites: junior standing AND consent of instructor. Crosslisted with Med Hist and History.

Instructor: Ronald Numbers

Lecture-Seminar. Health care in America since the colonial period; emphasis on social developments.

History of Medicine 507: Health, Disease and Healing I

(crosslisted with Med Hist and History)

3 cr., H (Humanities), I (Intermediate); 8:50-10:50 M, 155 Van Hise; Lab 8:50 W, 155 Van Hise; Prerequisites: junior standing.

Instructor: Thomas Broman

This course presents an in-depth survey of medicine and public health from its most remote origins through approximately 1650. There are three principal themes. The first focuses on the evolving concepts of illness, beginning with the ideas of the Hippocratics, who lived during the fifth and fourth centuries b.c. We will study how their ideas were taken up and transformed by later scholars, with particular emphasis being paid to medicine in medieval Islam and the reception of medical science in western Europe after 1100 a.d. We will also pay close attention to the teaching and practice of anatomy in the new universities of Europe. The second theme studies the medical practitioners of this era, focusing primarily on physicians but also paying significant attention to surgeons, apothecaries, midwives and the various other healers who together comprised the practice of healing in the ancient and medieval worlds. The third theme centers on the evolution of health as a social and political problem. It begins with the emergence of hospitals in Constantinople and Baghdad, two large medieval cities where caring for the sick poor became a matter of pressing concern. We then follow the evolution of public health through the period of the Black Death in the later fourteenth century and beyond, and the significant changes to the idea of caring for the poor that came in with the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century.

Each week there will be one 50-minute lecture on Wednesday to introduce the week’s subject, followed by a 2-hour seminar on Monday to discuss the readings in depth. Depending on the complexity of the material, readings for the seminar meeting will be 100 pages per week. Readings depend primarily on a packet of readings, but we will also have recourse to two textbooks: Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine by Nancy Siraisi, and Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe by Mary Lindemann.

Written work will consist of 3 take-home essay assignments, each of 5-6 pages in length.

History of Science 509: The Development of Public Health in America

(crosslisted with Med Hist)

3 cr.; B (Biological Science), I (Intermediate);1:00-2:15 TR; 1010 Medical Science Center. Prerequisites: junior standing AND consent of instructor.

Instructor: Judith Leavitt

This course surveys the history of public health in the United States from the colonial period to the late twentieth century, emphasizing many issues in the development of public responsibility for health that are relevant at the beginning of the 21^st century, including responses to epidemic diseases. The course is run as a seminar/discussion, and part of the student requirements include regular and constructive class participation.

History of Science 517: Monsters and Science: A History of Vertebrate Paleontology

(crosslisted with Geology)

3 cr.; H (Humanities), I (Intermediate); Prerequisites: junior standing. Internet course only.

Instructor: Joseph Skulan

A History of Vertebrate Paleontology describes the origin and development of vertebrate paleontology, with particular emphasis on how paleontologists have struggled to parlay the popular appeal of their science into power, if not respectability, in academic and scientific communities. View the website for information on this course.

History of Science 553: International Health and Global Society

(crosslisted with Med Hist and Population Health)

3 cr.; I (Intermediate), Z (Humanities or Social Science); 9:30-10:45 TR; 155 Van Hise. Perquisites: Junior or Senior standing.

Instructor: Richard Keller

Intense concern over the burgeoning of emerging infectious diseases–along with the renewed vigor of known epidemics–has heightened medical, media, and popular attention to the international dimensions of health in a globalizing society. Yet historians have long recognized the “microbial unification of the world” as a phenomenon that dates at least to the Black Death of the fourteenth century. Drawing on a wide range of historical and anthropological materials and methods, this course explores the history of public health and medicine as international phenomena, concentrating chiefly on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Specific topics include the connections between global pandemics such as cholera and plague to European colonial expansion; the rise of international aid organizations; historical and contemporary anxieties about global migration and the spread of disease; and the international dimensions of a global medical marketplace. Particular themes include the connection between culture and medical ideas and practices; and the tensions of practicing medicine in multi-cultural settings. Open to advanced undergraduates and graduate students.

HistSci 561: Greek and Roman Medicine and Pharmacy

(crosslisted with Classics, Med Hist, History & S&A Phm)

3 cr.; H (Humanities), D (Intermediate or Advanced); 2:30-3:45 TR; 3335 Sterling Hall. Prerequisites: junior or senior standing or consent of instructor.

Instructor: John Scarborough

Greek and Roman medicine and drug lore from the Pre-Socratics to Oribasius (c. 600 B.C.-A.D. 350), including the backgrounds of ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian medicine.

History of Science 623: Studies in Early Modern Science

(crosslisted with History)

1 cr.; A (Advanced); 5:00-6:00 pm T, 6304 Social Science. Prerequisites: grad standing; concurrent registration in History of Science 323 or consent of instructor.

Instructor: Florence Hsia

Advanced readings in the primary and secondary literature of the history of 16th and 17th-century science, with emphasis on current historiographic issues. Open only to graduate students. This course must be taken by graduate students concurrently with History of Science 323. One 60-minute meeting per week.

History of Science 639: Studies in Technology and Its Critics Since World War II

1 cr.; 9:55 W; 6109 Social Science. Perquisites: Grad standing; concurrent registration in History of Science 339.

Instructor: Eric Schatzberg

This one-credit graduate discussion seminar is required for students taking HistSci 339 and cannot be taken without concurrent enrollment in that course. The seminar will provide graduate students with advanced discussion and additional readings supplementing the themes in HS339, as well as additional written work.

History of Science 668: Global AIDS: Interdisciplinary Perspectives

(crosslisted with Med Hist, meets with IS 603)

3 cr.; A (Advanced); 2:30-5:00 T, 155 Van Hise; Prerequisites: junior standing

Instructor: Richard Keller rckeller@wisc.edu

How and in what ways is AIDS an international pandemic? How does a disease provide a critical filter for mapping the patterns and mechanisms of global interaction in the twenty-first century? This interdisciplinary seminar explores these questions from medical, social, and humanistic perspectives. By drawing on the expertise of UW faculty and visiting scholars, the seminar will provide an intensive introduction to the HIV/AIDS pandemic as a means of examining the intricate relationships between biology, culture, and society in an era of globalization. A central focus for the course is the inextricability of connections between the epidemiological, political, economic, and historical dimensions of HIV/AIDS. Key themes include the origins of AIDS; the biology and physiology of AIDS; disease, poverty, and development; race, gender, and vulnerability; risk and transmission in local social worlds; the politics of HIV/AIDS research and prevention; epidemics and epizootics: the links between human and simian AIDS; and the experience of AIDS. One of the principal goals of this seminar is to explore the ways in which HIV/AIDS opens a window on some of the critical social, political, and economic developments of the past three decades. Looking at the world through the lens of HIV/AIDS offers insight into the sexual revolution, globalization, economic development, world trade, drug addiction, religious revivalism, and the place of science and medicine in intimate lives. Our goal is thus to examine AIDS as a specific medical problem, but also to interrogate how the disease both reflects and refracts many of the principal debates of our time.

Admission to this course is via a short application and consent of instructor.
Please send an email to Professor Keller with:

Your Name
Student ID number
UW Email address
Major or Program
Year in School
A one-paragraph explanation of why you want to take this course, including how it relates to your major and to your plans for the future.

Application deadline is Friday, March 24 at 12 noon. Students will be notified either of their authorization to enroll in the class or their place on the waiting list by Friday, March 31. Students who are authorized to enroll will then be able to register for International Studies 603/Medical History 668/History of Science 668 online. Student authorizations to enroll will expire in two weeks. Students on the waiting list will be notified by email and authorized to enroll if and when space in the class becomes available. Late applications will be accepted but will likely result in a place on the course waiting list.

HistSci 720: Proseminar: Historiography and Methods

3 cr.; 8:50-11:00 F; 7130 Social Science. Prerequisites: graduate standing.

Instructor: Michael Shank

This seminar is designed to orient first-year graduate students in the Department of the History of Science to work in the field. It offers a sampling of classic and current work in the historiography of science (broadly understood to include technology and medicine). Graduate students in other departments who are interested in exploring the field, or in completing a minor in either History of Science or Science and Technology Studies are also welcome. The seminar will be reading- and discussion-intensive.

Assignments will include issue papers, leadership in discussion, book reviews, and a historiographical paper. The reading load is relatively heavy. In addition to many articles, the readings are likely to include ( ISBN 0-226-03731-2)Ian Hacking, The Social Construction of What? (Harvard UP, 1999), Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions rev. ed. (Univ. Chicago Press, 1970), and Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The "Objectivity Question" and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge UP, 1988); and Ludmilla Jordanova, History in Practice (Oxford UP, 2000).

History of Science 919: Great Books in American Medicine and Public Health

(crosslisted with Med Hist)

3 cr.; 1:15-3:15 W, 1406 MSC; Prerequisites: Grad standing and consent of instructor.

Instructor: Judith Leavitt and Ronald Numbers

This graduate reading seminar will examine 12-14 of the “best” recent books in the history of american medicine and public health. Students will be required to write several short essays on the books and one longer final historiographical essay, as well as to make in class presentations.

History of Science 919: Ecology and Disease in Historical and Contemporary Perspective

(crosslisted with Med Hist, meets with IES 900

3 cr.; 9:00-11:30 W, 272 Enzyme Ins; Prerequisites: Grad standing and consent of instructor.

Instructor: Gregg Mitman and Jonathan Patz

Malaria. Avian Influenza. Asthma. The emergence and spread of such diseases has drawn recent attention to the ways in which human and wildlife health problems are intimately related to environmental change. While disease ecology has become a focus of interdisciplinary exchange across the fields of medicine, public health, wildlife and veterinary medicine, conservation biology, ecology, geography, sociology, environmental history, and other disciplines, ecological approaches to the understanding of health and disease have a long history. In this seminar we will explore that history and consider how such past efforts at integrating ecology and health can inform research questions, directions, and policy addressing current and future environmental health challenges. The seminar will dovetail with the first EcoHealth ONE conference to be held in Madison in the fall of 2006 that will provide a unique forum to (1) advance emerging, highly interdisciplinary scientific work in this arena, (2) promote the interaction of a diverse audience concerned with sustainable health and environment, and (3) consider how to address challenges in an effective and unified way.

HistSci 950: History of Science Colloquium

0-1 cr.; A (Advanced); 3:30 -5:30 W, 6102 Social Science; Prerequisites: History of Science major; graduate standing.

Instructor: Florence Hsia

Intended for graduate majors in the history of science, this requires regular attendance at History of Science colloquia, averaging 4 or 5 per semester. May be taken for 1 credit or 0 credits. Required of first and second semester graduate students in History of Science.


Home Department News » People » Graduate Program » Undergrad Program Course Descriptions Fall Spring Summer Electronic Resources Contact	Courses: Fall 2006 History of Science 201: The Origins of Scientific Thought 3 cr.; H (Humanities), E (Elementary); 1:00-2:15 TR, 6210 Social Science; 2 lectures and 1 discussion section per week. See also the parallel course, Integrated Liberal Studies 201, which meets with Hist. Sci. 201 and bestows natural science credit at the introductory level. Instructor: Florence Hsia This course is the first in a sequence of courses that examines the development of science in cultural and intellectual context from antiquity to the twentieth century. The class begins with an examination of perspectives towards the natural world in the poetry, philosophy, and medicine of ancient Greece. It follows the movement of the classical tradition into medieval Islam and Christendom, and concludes with the transformation of European science during the 16th and 17th centuries. Throughout our investigation of what 'science' has been in the past, we will pay particular attention to issues which still have relevance today, such as the interaction between science and religion, the importance of different institutional settings for science, and the relationship between science and government. Grading will include frequent quizzes in discussion sections and essay exams. History of Science 203: Science in the Twentieth Century: A Historical Overview 3 cr., Z (Humanities or Social Science), E (Elementary); 1:20 MW, 6104 Social Science; 2 hrs lecture, 1 hr discussion; Prerequisites: None; Open to Freshmen. Instructor: Richard Staley This course surveys the History of Science in the twentieth century, from the discovery of x-rays and radioactivity in the 1890s through to the complex of scientific and social questions raised by the human genome project and stem cell research in the present day. This period saw spectacular transformations in the reach of modern science and technology, accompanied by the increasing specialization and fragmentation of knowledge. Here we explore the changing dimensions of science in an age of unprecedented promise and conflict. Tracing the evolution of physics and biology and exploring the emergence of environmentalism through the course of the century, we examine major conceptual developments, the interaction of science and society, and the impact of war on science and technology. Course requirements include three take-home essays and class participation, with some informal writing for discussion sections. History of Science 280: Honors Seminar: Studies in Science, Technology, and Medicine Topic: Science, Medicine, and Technology in the Utopias 3 cr.; I (Intermediate), H (Humanities), satisfies Communications Requirement Part B; 1:20-3:15 PM W; 6304 Social Science. Prerequisites: Communications Requirement Part A must be satisfied. Open to non-honors students with consent of instructor. Open to Freshmen. Instructor: Michael Shank The idea behind this seminar is simple: we can learn much about the ideals, hopes, and fears about science, medicine, and technology in historical time by studying this imaginative literature from Plato to the late-twentieth century. Our readings of primary sources will mix classics with lesser-known works of utopian and dystopian fiction (including Plato, Thomas More, Francis Bacon, Tommaso Campanella, H.G. Wells, Edward Bellamy, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Evgeny Zamiatin, Aldous Huxley, and B. F. Skinner). We will use these works and some scholarship about them and their times to explore changing understandings of science, medicine, and technology, and also changing evaluations of their roles in society. The reading load is heavy (typically one work a week), but also very thought-provoking and often delightful. The seminar will include oral reports and also be writing-intensive (a weekly one-page assignment focused on the readings, and a 15-page research paper, to be revised in light of detailed critical suggestions about the argument and the style). History of Science 322: Ancient and Medieval Science (crosslisted with Medieval Studies) 3 cr.; 2 lectures and 1 discussion per week. H (Humanities), D (Intermediate or Advanced). Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. 9:55 MWF, 4308 Social Science. Instructor: Frederick Gibbs This course explores the inquiry into nature during antiquity and the Middle Ages in its intellectual, social, and cultural contexts, and how it operated among various political and religious institutions. The wide chronological and geographical coverage extends from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, through the classical Greek and Roman civilizations, through medieval Islam, to the beginnings of early modern Europe. Such breadth will illustrate the transformation of knowledge as it crosses cultural and linguistic boundaries. The course surveys a wide variety of disciplines, including astronomy/astrology, alchemy, biology, medicine (theory and practice), physics, and natural history, as well as the related enterprises of philosophy and theology. The goal of this course is to illustrate, using specific historical episodes, the trajectory of early western science, how the process of knowledge production depended heavily on various social, cultural, and political forces, and how such considerations ought inform our conception of modern science. History of Science 323: The Scientific Revolution: from Copernicus to Newton (crosslisted with History) 3 cr.; H (Humanities), D (Intermediate or Advanced). Essay exams and in-class exercises. Prerequisites; junior standing or consent of instructor. 11:00-12:15 TR; 4308 Social Science. Graduate students must enroll simultaneously in Hist. Sci. 623. Instructor: Florence Hsia An investigation of the renaissance and revolution in European science that began in 1543 with the heliocentric astronomy of Nicolaus Copernicus and ended with Isaac Newton's death in 1727. Throughout the course, we will pay particular attention to issues of tradition and novelty, institutional settings for scientific activity, and the relationship between science and religion. Topics covered will include the Copernican cosmology and the trial of Galileo, the mechanical philosophy, Newton's theory of gravitation, the appearance of new scientific organizations such as the Royal Society of London and the Paris Academy of Sciences, the role of science in European exploration and expansion, and 17th-century perceptions of the scientist's place in society. History of Science 326: History of Physics: The Modern Period 3 cr.; H (Humanities), I (Intermediate); 11:00-12:15 TR, B231 Van Vleck; Prerequisites: Junior standing. Instructor: Richard Staley At the dawn of the twentieth century physicists won a new world view from the measurement of space and time and new theories of matter; by mid century they had delivered a weapon that shadowed an era; and at century's end cosmologists sought ways to describe the first seconds of evolution on the basis of astronomical observations. This course will explore the span of physics from the laboratory bench to the congressional lobbyist, and by setting the discipline in social context will investigate the changing relations between modern science and modern culture. In addition to tracing the unfolding philosophical and technological implications of physics, we will examine the nature of its debts to industry, military concerns and government, and explore the perspective that anthropologists and sociologists have offered on its practices. We chart the rise of the physics discipline from the opening of microphysics in the 1890s to its status as the pattern for big science (and beyond?) at the present. Our aim is to understand how the dynamic interplay between theory and experiment; the tensions between national and international interests; and the stresses and opportunities of hot and cold wars have all changed the nature of our knowledge of the physical world. History of Science 339: Technology and Its Critics Since World War II 3 cr.; Z (Humanities or Social Science), A (Advanced); 1:00-2:15 TR; 6116 Social Science. Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. Graduate students must enroll concurrently in History of Science 639. Instructor: Eric Schatzberg This course examines intellectuals and activists who questioned the dominant faith in technology in the United States from World War II until roughly 1980. The course begins by examining the tremendous enthusiasm for science and technology that emerged after World War II, inspired by the new military technologies created by scientists and engineers. These technologies include the atomic bomb, radar, digital computers, and ballistic missiles. Some people challenged this faith in the inevitable benefits of technological change. At first this challenge was limited to a few intellectuals who criticized the consumer society of the 1950s, with its bland suburbs, conformist white-collar bureaucracies, and mind-numbing advertising. In the late 1950s, this critique was taken up by new social movements that attacked the most dramatic technological achievement of World War II, the atomic bomb. In the early 1960s, critics shifted ground to new technologies, most importantly synthetic pesticides and the automobile, and made connections with the new environmental movement. Critics of technology drew strength from the counterculture of the 1960s, which encouraged political and social activism against large-scale technologies like nuclear power. The counterculture also strengthened groups seeking to create counter-technologies, such as solar energy. Even in the midst of today's enthusiasm for everything digital, technology's critics continue to expose the dark side of technological change. History of Science 350: Frankenstein to Dracula: 19th Century British Literature and Science (Meets with English 461: "From Frankenstein to Dracula: Nineteenth-Century British Literature, Science, and Culture," Prof. Susan D. Bernstein) 3 cr.; H (Humanities), D (Intermediate or Advanced); 9:30-10:45 TR; 4281 Helen C. White. Prerequisites: Sophomore Honors or Junior standing. Instructor: Lynn Nyhart This course investigates narratives of transformation and evolution from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), through Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859), to Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), in the broader context of nineteenth-century British culture. We will explore the interactions, similarities and differences among scientific, literary, and popular renderings of change over time and space (including those in scientific texts, novels, poems, magazine essays, and cartoons). At the level of form, we will consider the similarities and differences in scientific and literary genres with regard to openings, development, and modes of closure, and we will explore these issues in evolutionary theory itself, expressed as concerns over origins, transformation, and ends or goals. Delving more deeply into questions of what counts as “natural,” we will examine the problems of taxonomic organization, hierarchy, mixing, degeneration, monstrosity, and the supernatural, as they were produced in different genres. We will study debates accented by scientific theories that unsettled or fixed boundaries between species, sexes, and races. This course also investigates the nature of interdisciplinary work by asking what kind of evidence--that crucial “missing link”--counts when drawing different discourses into dialogue. At the deepest level, we wish students to arrive at a fundamental appreciation of the unities and disparities of Victorian culture, the common context of scientific, social, and literary thought. Course requirements: Class attendance (over 3 absences affects course grade) and participation, including informal writing assignments as needed; 1 short analytical paper (5 pages); 1 research paper (8-10 pages) 1 take-home final essay exam History of Science 353: History of Ecology (crosslisted with IES) 3 cr.; H (Humanities), I (Intermediate); 9:30-10:45 TR, 122 Ingraham; junior standing or consent of instructor. Instructor: Gregg Mitman To some, ecology represents a scientific discipline that studies the interactions between and among organisms and their environments. To others, it is synonymous with the environmental movement of the sixties, Earth First, and green politics. This course explores the historical development of ecology as a professional science, with due attention paid to the political ramifications of particular ecological ideas and how they have been incorporated into environmental discussions surrounding wilderness preservation, the Dust Bowl, population control, the DDT controversy, and wildlife conservation in the Third World. Throughout the course, we will situate the history of ecological ideas and concepts within their cultural, political, and social environments, exploring the interrelated histories of nature’s economy and political economy, from colonialism to global capitalism, from laissez-faire individualism to the welfare state. We shall also highlight the places of study in which the science of ecology developed, from tropical islands to midwestern prairies, from pastoral landscapes to pristine wilderness, in our investigation of ecological attitudes toward the human place in nature. A background knowledge of ecology or environmental issues is helpful, but not required. History of Science 504: Society and Health Care in American History (crosslisted with Med Hist and History) 3 cr.; B (Biological Science), I (Intermediate); 11:00-12:15 TR, 6225 Medical Science Center; Prerequisites: junior standing AND consent of instructor. Crosslisted with Med Hist and History. Instructor: Ronald Numbers Lecture-Seminar. Health care in America since the colonial period; emphasis on social developments. History of Medicine 507: Health, Disease and Healing I (crosslisted with Med Hist and History) 3 cr., H (Humanities), I (Intermediate); 8:50-10:50 M, 155 Van Hise; Lab 8:50 W, 155 Van Hise; Prerequisites: junior standing. Instructor: Thomas Broman This course presents an in-depth survey of medicine and public health from its most remote origins through approximately 1650. There are three principal themes. The first focuses on the evolving concepts of illness, beginning with the ideas of the Hippocratics, who lived during the fifth and fourth centuries b.c. We will study how their ideas were taken up and transformed by later scholars, with particular emphasis being paid to medicine in medieval Islam and the reception of medical science in western Europe after 1100 a.d. We will also pay close attention to the teaching and practice of anatomy in the new universities of Europe. The second theme studies the medical practitioners of this era, focusing primarily on physicians but also paying significant attention to surgeons, apothecaries, midwives and the various other healers who together comprised the practice of healing in the ancient and medieval worlds. The third theme centers on the evolution of health as a social and political problem. It begins with the emergence of hospitals in Constantinople and Baghdad, two large medieval cities where caring for the sick poor became a matter of pressing concern. We then follow the evolution of public health through the period of the Black Death in the later fourteenth century and beyond, and the significant changes to the idea of caring for the poor that came in with the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. Each week there will be one 50-minute lecture on Wednesday to introduce the week’s subject, followed by a 2-hour seminar on Monday to discuss the readings in depth. Depending on the complexity of the material, readings for the seminar meeting will be 100 pages per week. Readings depend primarily on a packet of readings, but we will also have recourse to two textbooks: Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine by Nancy Siraisi, and Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe by Mary Lindemann. Written work will consist of 3 take-home essay assignments, each of 5-6 pages in length. History of Science 509: The Development of Public Health in America (crosslisted with Med Hist) 3 cr.; B (Biological Science), I (Intermediate);1:00-2:15 TR; 1010 Medical Science Center. Prerequisites: junior standing AND consent of instructor. Instructor: Judith Leavitt This course surveys the history of public health in the United States from the colonial period to the late twentieth century, emphasizing many issues in the development of public responsibility for health that are relevant at the beginning of the 21^st century, including responses to epidemic diseases. The course is run as a seminar/discussion, and part of the student requirements include regular and constructive class participation. History of Science 517: Monsters and Science: A History of Vertebrate Paleontology (crosslisted with Geology) 3 cr.; H (Humanities), I (Intermediate); Prerequisites: junior standing. Internet course only. Instructor: Joseph Skulan A History of Vertebrate Paleontology describes the origin and development of vertebrate paleontology, with particular emphasis on how paleontologists have struggled to parlay the popular appeal of their science into power, if not respectability, in academic and scientific communities. View the website for information on this course. History of Science 553: International Health and Global Society (crosslisted with Med Hist and Population Health) 3 cr.; I (Intermediate), Z (Humanities or Social Science); 9:30-10:45 TR; 155 Van Hise. Perquisites: Junior or Senior standing. Instructor: Richard Keller Intense concern over the burgeoning of emerging infectious diseases–along with the renewed vigor of known epidemics–has heightened medical, media, and popular attention to the international dimensions of health in a globalizing society. Yet historians have long recognized the “microbial unification of the world” as a phenomenon that dates at least to the Black Death of the fourteenth century. Drawing on a wide range of historical and anthropological materials and methods, this course explores the history of public health and medicine as international phenomena, concentrating chiefly on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Specific topics include the connections between global pandemics such as cholera and plague to European colonial expansion; the rise of international aid organizations; historical and contemporary anxieties about global migration and the spread of disease; and the international dimensions of a global medical marketplace. Particular themes include the connection between culture and medical ideas and practices; and the tensions of practicing medicine in multi-cultural settings. Open to advanced undergraduates and graduate students. HistSci 561: Greek and Roman Medicine and Pharmacy (crosslisted with Classics, Med Hist, History & S&A Phm) 3 cr.; H (Humanities), D (Intermediate or Advanced); 2:30-3:45 TR; 3335 Sterling Hall. Prerequisites: junior or senior standing or consent of instructor. Instructor: John Scarborough Greek and Roman medicine and drug lore from the Pre-Socratics to Oribasius (c. 600 B.C.-A.D. 350), including the backgrounds of ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian medicine. History of Science 623: Studies in Early Modern Science (crosslisted with History) 1 cr.; A (Advanced); 5:00-6:00 pm T, 6304 Social Science. Prerequisites: grad standing; concurrent registration in History of Science 323 or consent of instructor. Instructor: Florence Hsia Advanced readings in the primary and secondary literature of the history of 16th and 17th-century science, with emphasis on current historiographic issues. Open only to graduate students. This course must be taken by graduate students concurrently with History of Science 323. One 60-minute meeting per week. History of Science 639: Studies in Technology and Its Critics Since World War II 1 cr.; 9:55 W; 6109 Social Science. Perquisites: Grad standing; concurrent registration in History of Science 339. Instructor: Eric Schatzberg This one-credit graduate discussion seminar is required for students taking HistSci 339 and cannot be taken without concurrent enrollment in that course. The seminar will provide graduate students with advanced discussion and additional readings supplementing the themes in HS339, as well as additional written work. History of Science 668: Global AIDS: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (crosslisted with Med Hist, meets with IS 603) 3 cr.; A (Advanced); 2:30-5:00 T, 155 Van Hise; Prerequisites: junior standing Instructor: Richard Keller rckeller@wisc.edu How and in what ways is AIDS an international pandemic? How does a disease provide a critical filter for mapping the patterns and mechanisms of global interaction in the twenty-first century? This interdisciplinary seminar explores these questions from medical, social, and humanistic perspectives. By drawing on the expertise of UW faculty and visiting scholars, the seminar will provide an intensive introduction to the HIV/AIDS pandemic as a means of examining the intricate relationships between biology, culture, and society in an era of globalization. A central focus for the course is the inextricability of connections between the epidemiological, political, economic, and historical dimensions of HIV/AIDS. Key themes include the origins of AIDS; the biology and physiology of AIDS; disease, poverty, and development; race, gender, and vulnerability; risk and transmission in local social worlds; the politics of HIV/AIDS research and prevention; epidemics and epizootics: the links between human and simian AIDS; and the experience of AIDS. One of the principal goals of this seminar is to explore the ways in which HIV/AIDS opens a window on some of the critical social, political, and economic developments of the past three decades. Looking at the world through the lens of HIV/AIDS offers insight into the sexual revolution, globalization, economic development, world trade, drug addiction, religious revivalism, and the place of science and medicine in intimate lives. Our goal is thus to examine AIDS as a specific medical problem, but also to interrogate how the disease both reflects and refracts many of the principal debates of our time. Admission to this course is via a short application and consent of instructor. Please send an email to Professor Keller with: Your Name Student ID number UW Email address Major or Program Year in School A one-paragraph explanation of why you want to take this course, including how it relates to your major and to your plans for the future. Application deadline is Friday, March 24 at 12 noon. Students will be notified either of their authorization to enroll in the class or their place on the waiting list by Friday, March 31. Students who are authorized to enroll will then be able to register for International Studies 603/Medical History 668/History of Science 668 online. Student authorizations to enroll will expire in two weeks. Students on the waiting list will be notified by email and authorized to enroll if and when space in the class becomes available. Late applications will be accepted but will likely result in a place on the course waiting list. HistSci 720: Proseminar: Historiography and Methods 3 cr.; 8:50-11:00 F; 7130 Social Science. Prerequisites: graduate standing. Instructor: Michael Shank This seminar is designed to orient first-year graduate students in the Department of the History of Science to work in the field. It offers a sampling of classic and current work in the historiography of science (broadly understood to include technology and medicine). Graduate students in other departments who are interested in exploring the field, or in completing a minor in either History of Science or Science and Technology Studies are also welcome. The seminar will be reading- and discussion-intensive. Assignments will include issue papers, leadership in discussion, book reviews, and a historiographical paper. The reading load is relatively heavy. In addition to many articles, the readings are likely to include ( ISBN 0-226-03731-2)Ian Hacking, The Social Construction of What? (Harvard UP, 1999), Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions rev. ed. (Univ. Chicago Press, 1970), and Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The "Objectivity Question" and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge UP, 1988); and Ludmilla Jordanova, History in Practice (Oxford UP, 2000). History of Science 919: Great Books in American Medicine and Public Health (crosslisted with Med Hist) 3 cr.; 1:15-3:15 W, 1406 MSC; Prerequisites: Grad standing and consent of instructor. Instructor: Judith Leavitt and Ronald Numbers This graduate reading seminar will examine 12-14 of the “best” recent books in the history of american medicine and public health. Students will be required to write several short essays on the books and one longer final historiographical essay, as well as to make in class presentations. History of Science 919: Ecology and Disease in Historical and Contemporary Perspective (crosslisted with Med Hist, meets with IES 900 3 cr.; 9:00-11:30 W, 272 Enzyme Ins; Prerequisites: Grad standing and consent of instructor. Instructor: Gregg Mitman and Jonathan Patz Malaria. Avian Influenza. Asthma. The emergence and spread of such diseases has drawn recent attention to the ways in which human and wildlife health problems are intimately related to environmental change. While disease ecology has become a focus of interdisciplinary exchange across the fields of medicine, public health, wildlife and veterinary medicine, conservation biology, ecology, geography, sociology, environmental history, and other disciplines, ecological approaches to the understanding of health and disease have a long history. In this seminar we will explore that history and consider how such past efforts at integrating ecology and health can inform research questions, directions, and policy addressing current and future environmental health challenges. The seminar will dovetail with the first EcoHealth ONE conference to be held in Madison in the fall of 2006 that will provide a unique forum to (1) advance emerging, highly interdisciplinary scientific work in this arena, (2) promote the interaction of a diverse audience concerned with sustainable health and environment, and (3) consider how to address challenges in an effective and unified way. HistSci 950: History of Science Colloquium 0-1 cr.; A (Advanced); 3:30 -5:30 W, 6102 Social Science; Prerequisites: History of Science major; graduate standing. Instructor: Florence Hsia Intended for graduate majors in the history of science, this requires regular attendance at History of Science colloquia, averaging 4 or 5 per semester. May be taken for 1 credit or 0 credits. Required of first and second semester graduate students in History of Science.	jump to course level: 200 300 500 600 700 900 previous semesters:
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