Courses: Spring 2008
History of Science 180: Freshman Honors Seminar
Topic: Science, Medicine, and Technology in the Utopias
3 cr.; H (Humanities), E (Elementary); 2:25-5:00 R, 5231 Social Science; Prerequisites: Open to Freshmen only or consent of instructor.
Instructor: Michael Shank
Behind this seminar lies the idea that we can learn much about the ideals, hopes, and fears about science, medicine, and technology in the real societies of historical time by studying this imaginative literature about imaginary societies from Plato to the late-twentieth century. Our readings of primary sources will mix classics with lesser-known works of utopian and dystopian fiction. As currently envisioned, the readings will include Plato (excerpts), Thomas More, Francis Bacon, Tommaso Campanella, H.G. Wells, Edward Bellamy, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Evgeny Zamiatin, Aldous Huxley, B. F. Skinner, and Ursula LeGuin. We will use these works and some scholarship about their authors and their times to explore both changing understandings of science, medicine, and technology, and changing evaluations of their proper roles in society.
While the reading load is heavy (typically one work a week), it is also thought-provoking and delightful. The seminar will be primarily discussion oriented. Assignments also include oral reports and will be writing-intensive (a weekly one-page assignment focused on the readings, and a 15-page research paper on a new work new to us and you, to be revised in light of detailed critical suggestions about the argument and the style).
History of Science 201: The Origins of Scientific Thought
(meets with ILS 201)
3 cr.; H (Humanities), E (Elementary); 9:30-10:45 TR, 5206 Social Science, 2 lectures and 1 discussion section per week. See also the parallel course, Integrated Liberal Studies 201, which bestows natural science credit at the introductory level. Prerequisites: None; open to freshmen.
Instructor: Michael Shank
This course is the first in a sequence of three 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 Near East and 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, the main thread will be astronomy and cosmology, with some attention to other aspects of nature. We will pay particular attention to issues which still have relevance today, such as the interaction between science and religion and the importance of different institutional settings for science.
Grading will include frequent quizzes in discussion sections and essay exams.
History of Science 202: The Making of Modern Science
(meets with ILS 202)
3 cr.; H (Humanities), E (Elementary); 1:20 MW; 5206 Social Science, 2 lectures and 1 discussion section per week. Prerequisite: Open to Freshmen
Instructor: Richard Staley
This course offers an introduction to the history of the sciences between the work of Isaac Newton in the late seventeenth century and Albert Einstein in the early twentieth, with the aim of understanding how science came to be so important in modern culture. Investigating the historical significance of such fundamental scientific concepts as gravity, energy, and evolution, and the complex interrelations between theory and experiment, we study the changing ways that scientific and social values have been interwoven in Western culture. Setting the work of individual scientists in social context the course traces links between ideas, instruments and institutions across both disciplinary and national boundaries. Our studies deliver insight into the changing relations among science and technology, science and religion and science and the state, as we explore the rise of laboratory-based sciences, the changing cultural status of the scientist, and the professionalization of the scientific disciplines.
History of Science/History of Medicine 212: The Physician in History
(crosslisted with Med Hist)
3 cr.; H (Humanities), E (Elementary); 2:25 MW, 5206 Social Science, 2 lectures and 1 discussion section per week. Prerequisites: Open to Freshmen, for Honors credit concurrent registration in Hist Sci/Hist Med 284 or consent of instructor.
Instructor: Thomas Broman
General Description: This course presents an introductory survey of the history of medicine from Antiquity to the 20th Century, and is aimed primarily at students interested in careers in the health professions. It explains how the understanding of health and illness has evolved in Western culture, showing why particular ideas of illness came into dominance at different moments in history. Most importantly, by providing the "long perspective" on the history of medicine, the course attempts to challenge some widely held assumptions about how the advancement of science has contributed to modern medicine.
The historical survey is divided into four units, each of which is based in a different view of the body. The first unit, called “The Humoral Body” explains the exceptionally flexible ideas of illness and its causes that were first developed in the ancient world and persisted for many centuries until well past 1700. Some of the ideas first developed in humoral medicine, such as the intimate interactions between the body and its environment, are still with us today. The second unit, “The Anatomical-Morphological Body,” examines the body as a collection of discrete parts, each of which performs a particular function in the body’s overall economy. This anatomical view of the body also first took form in the ancient world, although anatomically based approaches to the study of illness really only became influential in the 1700s and 1800s. The third unit, “The Infected Body,” looks at how illness first came to be seen not merely as something affecting individuals, but also as something having important consequences for society as a whole. This kind of thinking first emerged in the wake of the Black Death in 14th-century Europe, and it was important in the development of the Germ Theory of Disease in the latter part of the 19th century. Finally, the fourth unit of the course will look at “the body obsessively observed,” an appropriate label for the kind of medical practice that evolved during the twentieth century, when physicians developed the idea that seemingly no one’s health could be maintained without incessant medical attention and supervision. Needless to say, this is the view of health and illness that persists in our own time. In this unit we also consider how health has become something that can be purchased like any other consumer product, as for example in the case of plastic surgery to correct minor flaws in one’s appearance.
Course Requirements: Aside from attendance in discussion sections, the basic requirement for the course consists of a mixture of four take-home essays, ranging from one page to seven pages, which are based in the readings and meant to illustrate the major issues in each unit. Discussion sections may also feature some shorter and more informal writing assignments.
Texts: Packet of photocopied readings.
History of Science/History of Medicine 284: The Physician in History - Honors
(crosslisted with Med Hist)
1 cr.; H (Humanities), E (Elementary); 4:30-6 PM T, 6101 Social Science. Prerequisites: Concurrent registration for honors in Hist Sci/Hist Med 212 or consent of instructor. Open to freshmen.
Instructor: Thomas Broman
This course is a one-credit honors option that accompanies HOS/HOM 212. By signing up for this course and registering simultaneously for honors in 212, you will receive 4 credits of honors course work. Because we meet in a seminar-type discussion format, enrollment is limited to 12.
The theme for 284 this time will be “Plague in History.” We will examine how the idea of “plague” took root in the ancient world and study how it evolved through the Black Death in the Middle Ages and down through the epidemics of cholera in the 19th century and AIDS today. The emphasis of these discussions is not so much on the details of how many people died at different times, but instead on how the idea of plague has made itself felt in history through various writings. We will be reading a wide variety of historical materials, along with works of fiction such as Albert Camus’ famous novel The Plague and Connie Willis’s excellent novel Doomsday Book.
Requirements: Apart from doing assigned readings and attending the 9 or 10 discussions during the semester, each student is asked to prepare one 2–3 page "think piece" as an introduction for one week's discussion, and to expand the think piece into a 5-page paper at the end of the semester.
History of Science 323: The Scientific Revolution: from Copernicus to Newton
3 cr.; H (Humanities), D (Intermediate or Advanced); 1:00-2:15 TR; B223 Van Vleck. Graduate students must enroll simultaneously in Hist. Sci. 623. Prerequisites: Junior standing or consent of instructor.
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); 2:30-3:45 TR, 6102 Soc. Sci; 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 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 333: History of Modern Biology
3 cr.; H (Humanities), D (Intermediate or Advanced); 11-12:15 TR; 6112 Social Science. Prerequisites: Junior standing or consent of instructor
Instructor: Lynn Nyhart
The word “biology” was coined in 1800, to describe a science of life that would be more than “mere” natural history–a science that would unite all the living world into a single scheme. From then to now, the desire to find a single “key” to life has been a powerful motivator. In this year’s course, we focus on a series of efforts to unify the study of life around a single theme or idea, including Lamarck and Treviranus’ “Biologie” of 1800; the cell theory; Darwinian evolution; the theory of the gene (“classical” genetics); the “modern” evolutionary synthesis of the 1940s; DNA and molecular biology; systems ecology; the “new synthesis” of sociobiology in the 1970s; recombinant DNA and genomics; and the newest evolutionary synthesis, evo-devo. Across these topics, we will grapple with biologists’ ideas about reductionism, holism, and levels of biological organization; analyze different modes of scientific practice (fieldwork, lab work, theorizing); and consider the institutional and broader politics of biology as it has developed over the last century or so. Finally, we will also consider how these various themes are reflected in the ways that the history of biology has been written, by critically examining and comparing scientists’ and historians’ accounts.
General requirements: Because this course revolves in good part around discussion, its success depends on its participants’ having read the material carefully and being willing to talk about it. We will read both ‘primary sources’ (scientific writings by participants) and ‘secondary sources’ (writings by historians and scientists reflecting analyzing what happened), with an emphasis on the latter. The reading load for any given week (2 sessions) will range from 100 pages to a (shortish) book. Sample readings from past years: Robert Kohler, Lords of the Fly; James Watson, The Double Helix; E.O. Wilson, Naturalist, Jan Sapp, Genesis: The Evolution of Bilogy.
Undergraduate writing requirements: There will be three take-home essays. All undergraduates are also required to turn in regular one-page typed responses to the readings.
Graduate writing requirements: 20+ pages of scholarly prose (5 book reviews, a bibliographic or historiographical essay to prepare for prelims, a research paper, a dissertation proposal) as determined by your individual needs. Graduate students will meet separately from undergrads to discuss the readings and read a small number of additional books.
History of Science 350: Special Topics
Topic: History of the Printed Scientific Book and Journal
3 cr.; H (Humanities), D (Intermediate or Advanced); 3:30-5:30 M; 984 Memorial Library. Prerequisites: Sophomore Honors or Junior standing.
Instructor: Robin Rider
Using as examples rare books in Special Collections and a variety of other printed and electronic resources, this course will explore the printing and publication of science from the late 15th century to the present, with attention to cultural, economic, social, esthetic, and technological factors affecting the dissemination of scientific ideas. The reading list will draw from history of science and technology, history of the book, and cultural history.
History of Science 401: History of Pharmacy
(crosslisted with S&A Pharmacy)
2 cr.; H (Humanities), I (Intermediate); 11:00 TR, 2006 Rennebohm; Prerequisites: Junior standing or consent of instructor.
Instructor: John Scarborough
Pharmaceutical field, from antiquity to modern medical care; professional; structuring in principle countries of the West.
History of Science 473: History of Mathematics
(crosslisted with Math)
3 cr.; X (either Humanities or Natural Science), A (Advanced); 11:00 MWF, B223 Van Vleck; Prerequisites: Consent of instructor, Math 222 or similar background.
Instructor: Robert Wilson
Some of the major forces shaping mathematical thought in the last few centuries arose as the topics in beginning calculus were being developed.
We will try to keep two things going at once. They are the changing nature of what people thought mathematics really is and what makes it work over the last 2500 years, together with attention to some specific developments such as (a) concepts of the infinite or infinitesimal, as seen in calculus, (b) showing why things are really true that had previously been taken as obvious, as seen in algebraic formalisms and terminology, and (c) discoveries about what truth in mathematics can mean, as seen in mathematical logic.
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 MW, 1010 Medical Science Center; Prerequisites: Junior standing AND consent of instructor.
Instructor: Ronald Numbers
Lecture-Seminar. Health care in America since the colonial period; emphasis on social developments.
History of Science 531: Women and Health in American History
(crosslisted with Med Hist and Women’s Studies)
3 cr., B (Biological Science), I (Intermediate); 9:30-10:45 TR; 227 Van Hise; Prerequisites: Junior standing AND consent of instructor.
Instructor: Judith Houck
Women’s relationship to medical institutions, constructions of disease, and their own bodies differs from that of men. This course examines historically the health issues women have faced and how those issues have differed according to race and class. In particular, it explores the personal experiences and the medical views of womens life-cycle events, the role of women as health care providers and activists, and the effect of gender on the perception and meaning of illness.
History of Science 555: Undergraduate Seminar
Topic: Science and Exploration
3 cr.; A (Advanced);. 1:20-3:15 W; 6116 Social Science. Prerequisites: Open to History of Science majors only; initial preference to seniors.
Instructor: Florence Hsia
This seminar introduces majors in History of Science to the process of doing history, not just reading it. The course will guide students through the steps involved in producing a 15 to 25-page paper based on original historical research using primary sources. These steps include selecting a topic, creating bibliographies, analyzing historical sources, constructing arguments about historical questions, and writing/revising an historical research paper. Most of the required work will consist of library research and writing.
The topic for this semester focuses on how European concepts of nature colored - and were themselves colored by - early modern European exploration of the globe during the two centuries or so following Christopher Columbus' 'discovery' of the New World.
History of Science 562: Byzantine Medicine and Pharmacy
(crosslisted with S&A Pharmacy, History, Medical History and Medieval Studies)
3 cr.; H (Humanities), D (Intermediate or Advanced); 2:30-3:45 TR, 115 Psychology; Prerequisites: Junior or Senior standing or consent of instructor.
Instructor: John Scarborough
Byzantine and Islamic medicine and drug lore from Oribasius to the beginnings of the Italian Renaissance (c. 350-c. 1400 A.D.).
History of Science 623: Studies in Early Modern Science
(crosslisted with History)
1 cr.; A (Advanced); 5:00-6:00 T, 6105 Social Science. Prerequisites: Graduate 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 668 Lecture 1
Topic: A History of Western Disability
(crosslisted with Med Hist)
3 cr.; A (Advanced); 2:30-5:00 T, 487 Van Hise; Prerequisites: Junior standing.
Instructor: Walton Schalick
Disability is a word which surrounds us. From debates about end-of-life issues to Social Security from test-taking ‘allowances’ to Not-Dead-Yet, from Medicaid cutbacks to Terry Schiavo, disability is in the media, on our lips and in our ears. What is disability? How has disability changed over time and in different cultures? Where does such an idea come from? What social, cultural, and political assumptions is it based upon? Examining a wide range of historical arguments about the nature and purpose of disability, from pre-history to Plato, to medieval theologians, to more contemporary works, we will approach the history of disability in Western thought and social practice in terms of its relation to arguments about the role of human development and the formulation of personhood, citizenship, and social well being. The readings will include a thick mixture of primary sources in translation and secondary sources, both classic and newly published. We will encounter a variety of techniques and tools used by historians and other scholars as we course through the sessions. The emphasis of our discussions will be the characteristics of disability in a variety of centuries and cultures as well as lacunae in our understanding and debates in the literature.
History of Science 668 Lecture 2
Topic: Alternative Medicine in America
(crosslisted with Med Hist)
Instructor: Eric Boyle
3 cr.; A (Advanced); 2:30-3:45 TR, 579 Van Hise; Prerequisites: Junior standing.
This seminar provides a survey of alternative medical thought, institutions, and practitioners and examines changing concepts of health and disease in the history of the United States. In particular, we will discuss the nature of competition in the medical marketplace; points of negotiation between mainstream medicine, popular understandings of health, and alternative or complementary practices; competing definitions of science in medical research and practice; the role of institutions in health care delivery; and the relationship between politics and health care alternatives.
History of Science 668 Lecture 3
Topic: Medical Technology
(crosslisted with Med Hist)
Instructor: Eric Boyle
3 cr.; A (Advanced); 11:00-12:15 TR, 2121 Mech Engr; Prerequisites: Junior standing.
This seminar examines how technology came to play a dominant role in medical research and practice in the twentieth century. We will discuss the relationship between technology and the production of medical knowledge; the important role played by technological advances in the process of medical professionalization; the complex relationships between technology, medical institutions, consumers, and industry; and the ways in which technology has played an integral role in shaping discussions of gender, sexuality, class, and race.
History of Science 903: Galileo Galilei-Life, Work, & Times
3 cr.; 1:20-3:15 M; 6116 Social Science; Prerequisites: Graduate standing or consent of instructor.
Instructor: Michael Shank
This seminar will serve as a thick introduction to one of the central figures in both the history and the historiography of science, to say nothing of science and religion. Interpretations of his achievement and its context thus span an extraordinary range. The course will devote attention to his writings and their historical and geographical contexts (Pisa, Padua, and Florence), and the many interpretations of both his scientific work and his trial.
Seminar responsibilities will include active participation, discussion leadership, oral book reviews, and a research paper that uses sixteenth and seventeenth century sources.
Among others, readings will include much of Galileo’s Dialogue on the two Chief World Systems; Drake, ed., Opinions and Discoveries of Galileo; Finocchiaro, ed., The Galileo Affair; Drake, Galileo at Work; Blackwell, Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Bible; McMullin, ed., The Church and Galileo; Sobel, Galileo’s Daughter; and assorted articles in a course reader.
History of Science 919: Gender Health and Illness in United States History
(crosslisted with Med Hist)
3 cr.; 2:30-5:00 M, 209 Van Hise; Prerequisites: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.
Instructor: Judith Houck
How are health and illness gendered? This seminar will explore the gendered experience and construction of both health and illness in American history. It will explore four central questions: How do gendered constructions of health, fitness, and illness create and reinforce racial and class divisions? How have health concerns led to race, class, and sex-centered social activism? How and why are issues of health and illness important to nationalism? How are health, illness, and consumerism linked?
This should be considered a reading seminar. Assignments will include book reviews, class presentations, and a historiographical essay.
History of Science 925: Seminar: Research & Thesis
1-3 cr.; 12:05 W, 7130 Social Science; Prerequisite: History of Science major; graduate standing.
Instructor: Lynn Nyhart
Preparation of Masters paper for second year History of Science graduate students.
History of Science 950: History of Science Colloquium
0-1 cr.; A (Advanced); 3:30 -5:30 W, 6102 Social Science; Prerequisite: History of Science major; graduate standing.
Instructor: Richard Staley
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.