History of Science 5970 Research, Criticism, and Analysis Mondays 1:30 4:20

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1 HSCI Kathleen Crowther PHSC kcrowther@ou.edu History of Science 5970 Research, Criticism, and Analysis Mondays 1:30 4:20 Course Description: This course is composed of four strands: 1) an introduction to current literature in the history of science, medicine and technology; 2) an introduction to the history of our discipline(s); 3) an introduction to historical research and writing; and 4) an introduction to the faculty and resources of the University of Oklahoma s History of Science Department. I have divided the semester into three units, the first on the history of science, the second on the history of medicine and the third on the history of technology. Within these units, we will explore some of the major issues and ongoing debates in each subfield and we will discuss the origins and history of each subfield. In addition to the weekly reading assignments, I have prepared a series of written exercises to develop and improve your research and analytic skills. Several of these assignments are designed to complement ongoing research in other seminars. Finally, throughout the semester department faculty and affiliates will visit the seminar. These visits will generally last 30 minutes and come either at the beginning or the end of class. They will provide other professors in the department with an opportunity to introduce themselves to you and to explain their areas of research. You are encouraged to ask them questions about their research and career trajectories, as well as their views on the state of the field and on the historiographic issues discussed in class Course Books: The following books are available in paperback and can be purchased. You are not required to buy all of them; I will put copies on reserve in the History of Science Collections. All other readings are in the History of Science Collections or available on line. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2 nd edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, c1970) Mario Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993) Sheila M. Rothman, Living in the Shadow of Death: Tuberculosis and the Social Experience of Illness in American History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994) Luise White, Speaking with Vampires: Rumor and History in Colonial Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000) Barbara Duden, The Woman Beneath the Skin: A Doctor s Patients in Eighteenth-Century Germany, trans. Thomas Dunlap (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, c1991) Nadja Durbach, Bodily Matters: The Anti-Vaccination Movement in England, (Durham, [N.C.]: Duke University Press, 2005) Francesca Bray, Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China (University of California Press, 1997) (also available on line)

2 HSCI Gregory J. Downey, Telegraph Messenger Boys: Labor, Technology, and Geography, (New York: Routledge, 2002) Course Schedule: Week 1 8/25 Week 2 9/1 Week 3 9/8 Introductory discussion NO CLASS: Labor Day Holiday Science I. Origins, Big Questions, Historical Methodology Roy Porter, The History of Science and the History of Society, in R.C. Olby, G.N. Cantor, J.R.R. Christie and M.J.S. Hodge (eds.), Companion to the History of Modern Science (London: Routledge, 1990), pp Andrew Cunningham and Perry Williams, De-centring the big picture : The Origins of Modern Science and the modern origins of science, British Journal for the History of Science 26 (1993): Nicholas Jardine and Marina Frasca-Spada, Splendours and Miseries of the Science Wars Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science (1997) 28: Adrian Wilson and T.G. Ashplant, Whig history and present-centred history, Historical Journal 31 (1988): T.G. Ashplant and Adrian Wilson, Present-centred history and the problem of historical knowledge, Historical Journal 31 (1988): Graeme Gooday, John M. Lynch, Kenneth G. Wilson, and Constance K. Barsky, "Does Science Education Need the History of Science?" Isis 2008, 99: Jane Maienschein, Manfred Laubichler and Andrea Loettgers, "How Can History of Science Matter to Scientists?" Isis 2008, 99: Zuoyue Wang and Naomi Oreskes, "History of Science and American Science Policy" Isis 2008, 99: Assignment: Choose a year from the 1930s, the 1950s, the 1970s and the 1990s from Isis and look through the issues. Then look at a few very recent issues of Isis as well as the Isis web page. Come prepared to discuss the changes and continuities in the journal over time. Questions you might consider include: What kinds of topics were covered? What kinds of arguments were made? Was there a chronological or geographical focus? Can you tell what sorts of people were publishing? What kinds of sources did they use? What else was in the journal besides scholarly articles? How does Isis currently define its mission and readership? Week 4 9/15 Science II. Revolutions in Science

3 HSCI Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Peter Barker, "Understanding Change and Continuity" in F.J. Ragep and S.P. Ragep (eds.), Tradition, Transmission, Transformation: Proceedings of Two Conferences on Pre- Modern Science Held at the University of Oklahoma (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996), pp Week 5 9/22 Science III. Science in Cultural Context Mario Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier Assignment: Find and read three reviews of Biagioli's Galileo, Courtier. Bring these reviews to class and be prepared to discuss the following questions: What does each reviewer see as the main or most important aspects of the book? What flaws (if any) do the reviewers find? How does the reviewer assess the importance of the book? Is it a significant contribution to the history of science? If so, in what way? Which review(s) did you find most useful and why? How did you find these reviews? What do you think is the point of reading book reviews? Week 6 9/29 Science IV: Scientific Work Deborah E. Harkness, The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), pp. xv-xviii, Daniel P. Todes, Pavlov's Physiology Factory: Experiment, Interpretation, Laboratory Enterprise (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), parts I and II. Assignment: In about five pages, present a primary source (or type of source) you are using in a current research project. Analyze the problems and prospects of the source: who produced this source? Why did they produce it? What cautions are necessary in using it? Be prepared to present your analysis to the class. Week 7 10/6 Science V: Popular Science Katherine Pandora and Karen A. Rader, "Science in the Everyday World: Why Perspectives from the History of Science Matter" Isis 2008, 99: Kathleen Crowther, Wonderful Secrets of Nature: Natural Knowledge and Religious Piety in Reformation Germany, Isis 94.2 (June, 2003): Francesco de Ceglia, "Rotten Corpses, a Disembowelled Woman, a Flayed Man. Images of the Body from the End of the 17th to the Beginning of the 19th Century. Florentine Wax Models in the First-Hand Accounts of Visitors" Perspectives on Science 14, (2006),

4 HSCI Adrian Desmond, "Artisan Resistance and Evolution in Britain, " Osiris, 2 nd series, 1987, 3: Jose van Dijck, "Bodyworlds: The Art of Plastinated Cadavers" Configurations 9, no. 1 (2001): Week 8 10/13 Medicine I. Origins, Big Questions, Historical Methodology Frank G. Huisman and John Harley Warner (eds.), Locating Medical History: The Stories and Their Meanings (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), chapters 1, 7, 8 and 16. In addition, pick one other chapter and come to class prepared to present it to the class. Assignment: Choose a year from the 1930s, the 1950s, the 1970s and the 1990s from Bulletin of the History of Medicine. Then look at a few very recent issues as well as the web page. Come prepared to discuss the changes and continuities in the journal over time. Week 9 10/20 Medicine II. Patients Perspective Sheila Rothman, Living in the Shadow of Death, pp Luise White, Speaking with Vampires, pp Week 10 10/27 Medicine III. Historicizing the Body Barbara Duden, The Woman Beneath the Skin, chapter 1 (pp. 1-49) and chapter 4 (pp ) Mary E. Fissell, "The Politics of Reproduction in the English Reformation" Representations 87 (Summer, 2004), pp Gianna Pomata, "Menstruating Men: Similarity and Difference of the Sexes in Early Modern Medicine," in Valeria Finucci and Kevin Brownlee (eds.), Generation and Degeneration: Tropes of Reproduction in Literature and History from Antiquity to Early Modern Europe (London: Duke University Press, 2001), pp Lisa Cartwright, "A Cultural Anatomy of the Visible Human Project" in P. Treichler, L. Cartwright and C. Penley (eds.), The Visible Woman: Imaging Technologies, Gender, and Science (New York and London: New York University Press, 1998), pp Shigehisa Kuriyama, The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine (New York: Zone Books, 1999), pp. 7-14, Assignment: In about five pages, compare and contrast any two of the assigned readings. Focus on differences in arguments, methodology and sources. Week 11 Medicine IV. Medicine, Science and Politics

5 HSCI /3 Nadja Durbach, Bodily Matters Assignment: Write a book review of Durbach's Bodily Matters. Your review should be 500 to 700 words and suitable for publication in a scholarly journal such as Isis or the Bulletin. Bring several copies of your review to class we will read and discuss both the reviews and the book. Week 12 11/10 Technology I. Origins, Big Questions, Historical Methodology John Staudenmaier, Recent Trends in the History of Technology, American Historical Review 95 (1990): Trevor J. Pinch and Wiebe E. Bijker, The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other, in The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, ed. Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes, and Trevor J. Pinch (Cambridge, Mass., 1987), pp Langdon Winner, Do Artifacts Have Politics? in The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1986), pp Merritt Roe Smith, Technological Determinism in American Culture, in Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx (eds.), Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism (Cambridge, Mass., 1994), pp Assignment: Choose a year from the 1950s, the 1970s and the 1990s from Technology and Culture. Then look at a few very recent issues as well as the web page. Come prepared to discuss the changes and continuities in the journal over time. Week 13 11/17 Technology II. Technological Systems Thomas P. Hughes, Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), pp Lynn White, jr., Medieval Technology and Social Change (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964, c1962), Preface (pp. v-vii) and chapter 1. Stirrup, Mounted Shock Combat, Feudalism, and Chivalry (pp. 1-38). Assignment: Make a list of as many journals in the history of science, medicine, and technology as you can. Pick three that are particularly interesting to you and come prepared to describe them to the class. Look through a few recent issues as well as the journal s web page. What kinds of articles do they publish? Is there a chronological or geographical focus? What sorts of

6 HSCI scholars publish here? Who reads it? What else is in the journal besides scholarly articles? (Note: Do not choose Isis, the Bulletin of the History of Medicine or Technology and Culture.) Week 14 11/24 Technology III. Consumers of Technology Ruth S. Cowan, The Consumption Junction: A Proposal for Research Strategies in the Sociology of Technology, in The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, ed. Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes, and Trevor J. Pinch (Cambridge, Mass., 1987), pp Ronald Kline and Trevor Pinch, Users as Agents of Technological Change: The Social Construction of the Automobile in the Rural United States, Technology and Culture 37 (1996): Jeffrey L. Meikle, American Plastic: A Cultural History (New Brunswick and London: Rutgers University Press, 1997), intro and chapter 1. Joel D. Howell, Technology in the Hospital: Transforming Patient Care in the Early Twentieth Century (Johns Hopkins, 1996), pp Week 15 12/1 Technology IV. Technology and Gender Francesca Bray, Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China Assignment: In seven to ten pages, analyze one primary source in relation to one secondary source. Does your reading of the primary source support the secondary source? Refute it? Complicate it? Come prepared to discuss with the class. Week 16 12/8 Technology V. Technology and Work Philip Scranton, "None-Too-Porous Boundaries: Labor History and the History of Technology," Technology and Culture 29 (1988): Gregory J. Downey, Telegraph Messenger Boys, pp. TBA