Marta E. Hanson, o , c

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1 Marta E. Hanson, o , c History of Science, Medicine and Technology An Introduction to Historical Methods Fall 2014 Meetings Wednesdays 11:00-1:00 Department of the History of Science & Technology Seminar Room, Gilman Hall 301 This course is composed of three strands: 1. An introduction to current topics in the history of science, medicine, and technology. 2. An introduction to the history of the discipline(s). 3. An introduction to historical research and writing methods. Class time will be focused on discussion of assigned articles and of research tactics and strategies based on your own research project for the semester or year. Written assignments are designed to strengthen analytic skills and to complement your own ongoing research in other seminars. When the written assignments focus on your own research project during the second half of the course, you are still expected to take notes on each article in terms of methods and sources, contributions, limitations, and questions left unanswered. Articles on-line at MSE s e-reserves under Hanson. Weekly assignments have been listed separately. Please feel free to make an appt to meet with me to discuss anything you would like to discuss about the materials and assignments for this course. Required Book: Jan Golinski, Making Natural Knowledge: Constructivism and the History of Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998, second ed Available at B&N Campus Bookstore Optional Books: Ludmilla Jordanova, History in Practice 2 nd ed. (London: Hodder Arnold Publishers, 2006) and Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Columb, Joseph M. Williams, The Craft of Research (Univ of Chicago Press, 1995). Available on reserves. Week 1 Sept 3 Introduction: Practicing History & Historians What is history? What is the history of science, technology, medicine? Why do it? Who is doing it? Why do you want to do HSTM? We shall discuss the motivations, prospects, and contexts of a life of scholarship. As preparation read two of the autobiographical essays in A Life of Learning by historians found at the website of the American Council of Learning: ( The two recommended essays are by historian of science, Robert K. Merton (1994) and historian of medicine, Nancy G. Siraisi (2010). You may choose as well essays by other cultural and intellectual historians whose work interests you, such as Paul Oskar Kristeller, Carl E. Schorske, Lawrence Stone, Peter Brown, Natalie Zemon Davis, etc. Week 2 Sept. 10 From Whence We Came: the Scientific Revolution Issue Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd rev. ed., (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1970): 10-42, For a good summary of Kuhn and his influence in

2 the history of science, read Golinski, ch. 1, pp Andrew Cunningham and Perry Williams, De-centering the 'big picture': The origins of modern science and the modern origins of science, British Journal for the History of Science 26 (1993): Harold J Cook, The Cutting Edge of a Revolution? Medicine and Natural History Near the Shores of the North Sea, in JV Field and Frank AJL James, eds. Renaissance and Revolution. Humanists, Scholars, Craftsmen and Natural Philosophers in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge University Press, 1993): Peter Dear, What Is the History of Science the History Of? Early Modern Roots of the Ideology of Modern Science, Isis 26 (2005): Note: Several journals published 50-year anniversary reviews of Kuhn s Structure in 2012 (HSNS, EASTS, History of Science, etc). I will pass out some of these issues in the first class for you to review for this seminar. Week 3 Sept. 17 The History of Science and Constructivism Jan Golinski, Making Natural Knowledge: Constructivism and the History of Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998, second ed George Sarton, Notes on the reviewing of learned books, in Science 131 (1960): Week 4 Sept 24 Making Knowledge: Power and Patronage Review: Golinski, ch. 2, pp Stuart W Leslie, Profit and loss: The Military and MIT in the postwar era, Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 21 (1990): Martha Baldwin, The Snakestone Experiments: An Early Modern Medical Debate, Isis 86 (1995): Nicolas Jardine, The Places of Astronomy in Early-Modern Culture, The Journal of the History of Astronomy 29 (1998): Nathan Sivin, Calendar Reform and Occupation Politics, Ziran kexueshi yanjiu, 24 Supplement (2005): Week 5 Oct 1 Making Knowledge: The Workers Review: Golinski, ch. 2, pp David F Noble, Forces of Production. A Social History of Industrial Automation (Alfred P. Knopf, 1984): Steven Shapin, The Invisible Technician, American Scientist 77 (1989): Ann Secord, Science in the Pub: Artisan Botanists in Early Nineteenth-century Lancashire, History of Science 32 (1994): Kapil Raj, Colonial Encounters and the Forging of New Knowledge and National Identities: Great Britain and India, , Osiris 15 (2001): Week 6 Oct 8 Workplaces 1: The Laboratory Review: Golinski, ch. 3, pp Bruno Latour, Give Me a Laboratory and I will Raise the World, in Karin Knorr-Cetina and Michael Mulkay, eds., Science Observed (London: 1983): Owen Hannaway, Laboratory Design and the Aim of Science. Andreas Libavius versus Tycho Brahe, Isis 77 (1986):

3 Jole Shackelford, Tycho Brahe, Laboratory Design, and the Aim of Science. Reading Plans in Context, Isis 84 (1993): William Newman Alchemical symbolism and concealment: the chemical house of Libavius, in Peter Galison and Emily Thompson, The Architecture of Science, MIT Press. Graeme Gooday, Placing or Replacing the Laboratory in the History of Science?, Isis 99 (2008): Week 7 Oct. 15 Workplaces 2: The Field & The Museum Review: Golinski, ch. 3, pp Donna Haraway, Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden, New York City , in Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science (Routledge, 1989): Susan Leigh Star, James R. Griesemer, Institutional Ecology, Translations and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Social Studies of Science 19.3 (1989): Paula Findlen, Possessing Nature. Museums, Collecting and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (University of California Press, 1994): Lynette Schumaker, A Tent with a View: Colonial Officers, Anthropologists, and the Making of the Field in Northern Rhodesia, Osiris 11 (1996): Bruno Strasser, Laboratories, Museums and the Comparative Perspective: Alan A. Boyden s Quest for Objectivity in Serological Taxonomy, , Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 40 (2010): Note: We will organize a visit to the Walters Museum s Reconstruction of a Cabinet of Wonders Week 8 Oct 22 Writing Knowledge Review: Golinski, ch. 4, pp Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air Pump (Princeton University Press, 1985): Steven M. Stowe, Writing Orthodoxy at the Bedside, in Doctoring the South. Southern Physicians and Everyday Medicine in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (University of North Carolina Press, 2004): Lorraine Daston, Taking note(s), Isis 95 (2004): Ann Blair, Note-taking as an art of transmission, Critical Inquiry 31 (2004): Charlotte Furth, Producing Medical Knowledge through Cases: History, Evidence, and Action, in Furth, Zeitlin, Hsiung, eds., Thinking With Cases: Specialist Knowledge in Chinese Cultural History (Honolulu: University of Hawai i Press, 2007): Week 9 Oct 29 Making Knowledge: The Tools Review: Golinski ch. 2, pp ; and ch. 5, pp Larry Owens, Vannevar Bush and the Differential Analyzer: The Text and Context of an Early Computer, Technology and Culture 27 (1986): Deborah Jean Warner, What is a Scientific Instrument, When Did it Become One, and Why? British Journal for the History of Science 23 (1990): Simon Schaffer, Machine Philosophy: Demonstration Devices in Georgian Mechanics, Osiris 9 (1993): Ellen B Koch, In the Image of Science? Negotiating the Development of Diagnostic Ultrasound

4 in the Cultures of Surgery and Radiology, Technology and Culture 34 (1993): Richard Sorrenson, The Ship as a Scientific Instrument in the Eighteenth Century, Osiris 11 (1996): Week 10 Nov 5 Making Knowledge: Material Practices Review: Golinski, ch. 1, pp Katharine Park, "The Life of the Corpse: Division and Dissection in Late Medieval Europe," Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 50 (1995): Annemarie Mol, Making Links, Missing Links: The Performance of Some Atheroscleroses, in Marc Berg & Annemarie Mol, eds. Differences in Medicine (Duke University Press, 1998): Francesca Bray, Technics and Civilization in Late Imperial China: An Essay in the Cultural History of Technology, Osiris 13 (1998): Chandra Mukerji, Tacit Knowledge and Classical Technique in Seventeenth-Century France: Hydraulic Cement as a Living Practice among Masons and Military Engineers, Technology & Culture 47 (Oct 2006): Week 11 Nov 12 Drawing Knowledge: Visualization Practices Review: Golinski, ch. 5, pp Jerome J. Bylebyl, Interpreting the Fasciculo Anatomy Scene, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 45 (1990): Shigehisa Kuriyama, Between Mind and Eye: Japanese Anatomy in the Eighteenth Century, Paths to Asian Medical Knowledge, ed. by Charles Leslie and Allan Young (University of California Press): Thomas L Hankins, Blood, Dirt and Nomograms: A Particular History of Graphs, Isis 90 (1999): Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, Objectivity (Zone Books, 2007): pp ; plates Week 12 Nov 19 Histories of Science, Technology, and Medicine and Their Others Review: Golinski, Coda: The Obligations of Narrative, pp Margaret C. Jacob, Science Studies after Social Construction: The Turn Toward the Comparative and the Global, in Victoria E. Bonnell, Lynn Hunt, eds. Beyond the Cultural Turn (1999): Ludmilla Jordanova, The Social Construction of Medical Knowledge, in Frank Huisman and John Harley Warner, eds., Locating Medical History: The Stories and Their Meanings (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), pp Gianna Pomata and Nancy Siraisi, Introduction, in idem., Historia. Empiricism and Erudition in Early Modern Europe (MIT Press, 2005): Lorraine Daston, Toward a History of Reason, in Beretta, et al. eds. Aurora Torealis: Studies in the History of Science and Ideas in Honor of Tore Frängsmyr (Sagamore Beach: Science History Publications, 2008): Lorraine Daston, Science Studies and the History of Science, in Critical Inquiry, Summer 2009, pp Dominique Pestre, The Historical Heritage of the 19th and 20th Centuries: Techno-science, Markets and Regulations in a Long-term Perspective, History and Technology 23.4 (Dec 2007):

5 Week 13 Nov Thanksgiving Holiday Week 14 Dec 3 No class a handout of practice questions will be sent in advance to prepare for the take-home exam. Week 15 Mon Dec hour Take-home exam

6 Marta E. Hanson, Welch 314 o , c History of Science, Medicine and Technology An Introduction to Historical Research Methods Fall 2010 Meetings Wednesdays 11:00-1:00 History of Science Seminar Room, 300 Gilman ASSIGNMENTS ONLY Week 1 Sept 3 Introduction: Practicing History & Historians Be prepared also to present a self-evalution (orally) of your abilities (strengths and weaknesses) as practicing historians. Submit a statement on your research interests. Week 2 Sept 10 From Whence We Came: the Scientific Revolution Issue 1 Assignment: Summarize the reappraisal of the scientific revolution issue of one of the sources. What is the author s or authors main argument. How is it substantiated? Week 3 Sept 17 The History of Science and Constructivism 2 Assignment: Write a critical book review of Golinski words. Read the following for approach: George Sarton, Notes on the reviewing of learned books, in Science 131 (1960): See also handout on book review structure. Week 4 Sept 24 Making Knowledge: Power and Patronage 3 Assignment: Write an abstract about one of these articles, summarizing the article rather than recounting it in detail. Cut to the chase; get to the core of the argument; keep it succinct. (600 words,1 pg.) Week 5 or 6 TBA LIBRARY SESSION WITH CHRISTINE RUGGERE Weds 9-11 at Institute of Medicine Library. We ll have the seminar in the Welch library afterwards. Assignment: Prepare by working through exercises in library research handout. Week 5 Oct 1 Making Knowledge: The Workers Assignment: The History of the Disciplines Part I. You may work as a group on this project over two weeks. Choose a representative year from the 1930s, the 1950s, the 1970s and the 1990s from Isis, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, or Technology and Culture. (nb. T&C only starts in choose a year from the early 1960s, the '70s and the '90s). Analyze the changes and continuities in the journals over time. Questions you might consider include: What kinds of topics and arguments were made? Was there a chronological or geographical focus? Can you tell what sorts of people were publishing? What sources did they use? What else was in the journal besides scholarly articles? In what journals were most of the articles chosen for this class

7 published? What are the major changes you see over the life of the journal? Other Possible Journals: British Journal of the History of Science, Minerva, Osiris, Social History of Medicine, Social Studies of Science, Medical History. For history of Chinese Science/East Asian Science Technology and Medicine, see Hanson, New Directions in the History of Science in East Asia, East Asian Science Technology & Medicine 19 (2002): Week 6 Oct 8 Workplaces 1: The Laboratory Optional Read: The Craft of Research, Part I, Research, Researchers, and Readers, Jordanova, History in Practice, ch. 1, Introduction, Assignment continued: The History of the Disciplines. Write up your conclusions for distribution due in class today. Be prepared to introduce the main findings of your research in 10 minutes. Week 7 Oct 15 Workplaces 2: The Field & The Museum Optional Read: The Craft of Research, Part II Asking Questions, Finding Answers, Jordanova, History in Practice, ch. 5 Periodisation, Written Assignment based on your research: Write on the questions you are asking, the primary sources you are planning to use, and your reasoning for the periodization you have chosen in your research paper. Do any of the readings so far help you think about your own project? If yes, explain. Include a preliminary bibliography. (2 pp. essay, 4-5 citations) Week 8 Oct 22 Writing Knowledge Optional Read: The Craft of Research, Part III Making a Claim and Supporting it, pp Jordanova, History in Practice, ch. 7 Historians Skills, Written Assignment: Write an overview of the secondary literature on your research topic, a literature review in 3 pp. Pay attention to how you position your own research in the field. Include a bibliography. (You will return to this in week 12) Week 9 Oct 29 Making Knowledge: The Tools Optional Read: The Craft of Research, Part IV Preparing to Draft, Drafting, and Revising, pp Written Assignment: Making an argument Complete a preliminary outline of your research paper asking yourself what kinds of evidence and sources you will be using. What work is your evidence doing for your central argument? What interpretative methods are you employing? (2-3 pp.) (You will return to this in week 12) Week 10 Nov 5 Making Knowledge: Material Practices

8 Optional Read: 1The Craft of Research, III, Making a Claim and Supporting it. Jordanova, History in Practice, ch. 4 The Status of Historical Knowledge, Written Assignment: Primary sources You are not required to turn in anything this week. I will return my comments on your assignment the previous week on primary sources and evidence. For your final written assignment, you should be thinking about your sources in terms of the sources reliability, typicality, and historical value. What are the problems and prospects of your sources? Who produced this source? Why did they produce it? What cautions are necessary in using it? Week 11 Nov 12 Drawing Knowledge 9 Written Assignment: Is there a visual dimension to your research project? Do any of the articles for this week open up possibilities of new material to consider or new approaches to interpretation for your own research? If there are no connections with your own work, compare and contrast two of the articles in terms of selection of sources & their interpretation. (2 pp.) Week 12 Nov 19 Histories of Science, Technology, and Medicine and Their Others Optional Read: Review The Craft of Research, Part IV, 12 Communicating Evidence Visually, p ; and IV, 14 Revising your organization and argument, Assignment: Revise your literature review from week 8 based on our comments and the assignments related to your own research up to this point in the course. Update accordingly the detailed outline of your research project from week 8 and turn in with your lit review. (4-5 pp.) Week 13 Nov 24-8 Thanksgiving Holiday Week 14 Review Week No Class Final Literature Review Assignment: How does your own research paper fit into larger themes in history? Based on the literature review and research outline you submitted in week 12, situate your research in a broader interpretive field. What are the historical issues? What are the lines of debate? Where does your research fit into the previous conversation on the topic? (10 pages) Read: Jordanova, History in Practice, ch. 2, Mapping the Discipline of History, 35-58; and ch. 3 History and Other Disciplines, 59-86, ch. 8 Trends, Week 15 Mon Dec 15 Fri Dec 19 History Medicine First Year Exam 1 methods question for History of Medicine students Literature Reviews Due for everyone.