Emergence of Modern Science STSC 001 / HSOC 001 University of Pennsylvania Summer 2018 Tuesday, Thursday 9:00 am 12:50 pm Room TBD

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1 Emergence of Modern Science STSC 001 / HSOC 001 University of Pennsylvania Summer 2018 Tuesday, Thursday 9:00 am 12:50 pm Room TBD Instructor Tabea Cornel, M.A., B.Sc. 369 Claudia Cohen Hall cornelt@sas.upenn.edu Office hours Tuesday, Thursday 2 3 pm, and by appointment. Please sign up for office hours at least 24 hours in advance via . La Nature se dévoilant à la Science (Nature Unveiling Herself Before Science), created by Louis-Ernest Barrias (1899), Source: Wikipedia Course Description During the last 500 years, science has emerged as a central and transformative force that continues to reshape everyday life in countless ways. This introductory course will survey the emergence of the scientific world view from antiquity through the beginning of the 21 st century. By focusing on the life, work, and cultural contexts of those who created modern science, we will explore their core ideas and techniques, where they came from, what problems they solved, what made them controversial and exciting, and how they related to contemporary religious beliefs, politics, art, literature, and music. The course is organized chronologically and thematically. In short, this is a Western Civ course with a difference, open to students at all levels. Course Objectives This course will survey the global development of the practices, concepts, technologies, institutions, and identities that make up modern science, from early origins through to the present. The course is organized both chronologically and thematically. It offers an introduction to elements of world history as well as to central concerns of Science and Technology Studies. The course is intended for a wide variety of students. First-year students may find it a useful holistic introduction to their university studies; more advanced students may find it a helpful big picture to put what they know in broader perspective. We use a mix of lectures, audio-visual media, individual reading, group work, and in-class discussions to familiarize ourselves with the core ideas and selected detail of different episodes in the history of science. We also acquire a historical skillset: how to assess primary and secondary sources and critically debate them, and how to write a historical text. ~ 1 ~

2 Course Assignments and Grading Assignment 1, due Thursday, May 24: Response paper Middle Ages, words. Assignment 2, due Tuesday, May 29: Response paper Enlightenment, words. Assignment 3, due Thursday, May 31: Response paper Romanticism, words. Assignment 4, due Thursday, June 14: Abstract for final paper, words, plus bibliography of three or four key sources. Assignment 5, due Thursday, June 21: In-class presentation of final paper project, incl. Q&A. Assignment 6, due Sunday, July 1, 11:59 pm: Final paper, 2,000 2,500 words. Write about a knowledge producer from a marginalized population of your choice. (This can be a woman, non-white or LGBTQ+ individual, person with disability, non-scientist, experimental subject, laboratory animal, etc.) Illuminate the ways in which this knowledge producer embraced or rejected the current scientific standards of their time, and explain the extent to which they were sanctioned by the scientific community. Detailed instructions for each of the assignments will follow. Unless otherwise specified, all written assignments are due as hard copies at the beginning of class. All assignments have to be completed and submitted on time, and as instructed. Not following the guidelines will decrease your grade. Plagiarism in any assignment will result in a failing grade for that assignment, and may result in further disciplinary action, which may include receiving a failing grade for the course. The full text of the University s Code of Academic Integrity is available online at Your final grade will be based on your response papers (15 %), in-class presentation (10 %), abstract and bibliography (10 %), final paper (35 %), and participation (30 %). The instructor will not be available to talk about your assignment within 48 hours after posting the grade. Responsibilities The attendance of all classes in full is mandatory. If you have a medical, religious, or other acceptable reason for missing class, be sure to let the instructor know ahead of time, at least 24 hours if at all possible. Bring a pen/pencil and paper to class to take handwritten notes. If you have one, please also bring your tablet/laptop, but leave this device in your bag until instructed to take it out. Phone use is prohibited at all times and all phones have to be turned off or in completely silent mode. Violations of this rule will significantly affect your participation grade. Exceptions will be made for students who need special accommodations. Please talk to the instructor. Besides the above-mentioned assignments, completion of all readings before the beginning of the class for which they are assigned is mandatory. The readings provide important background and context for lectures and in-class activities. While you are reading, take notes on your thoughts and questions. Bring your notes to class. Active participation in class is essential. Not doing this work will result in a decrease of your participation grade. ~ 2 ~

3 Students are encouraged to take advantage of the instructor s office hours (see p. 1 of this document). Please make an appointment for office hours via at least 24 hours in advance to avoid conflicts. requests of any kind have to be made at least 24 hours in advance. Course Materials Many of the required readings are selections from secondary sources, teaching us how to craft a historical argument. In class, we attend more closely to primary-source texts as well as cultural representations of scientific knowledge and the history of science. All required course materials will be electronically accessible via Canvas. One copy of each monograph or edited volume amongst the required and suggested reading, if owned by the Penn Libraries, will be on reserve at the Rosengarten Reserve Service at Van Pelt Library. Class, Readings, and Assignment Schedule Tuesday, 5/22: Origins in Antiquity No readings. Thursday, 5/24: The Not-so-Dark Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the New Cosmos ~ Assignment 1 due: Response paper Middle Ages ~ al Andalusī, Ṣāʿid. Science in the Medieval World: Book of the Categories of Nations. Edited by Semaʿan I. Salem and Alok Kumar. History of Science Series 5. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991 (selections, ca. 50 pp., to be divided up amongst the class participants). Park, Katharine. Observation in the Margins, In Histories of Scientific Observation Edited by Lorraine Daston and Elizabeth Lunbeck. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Pomata, Gianna. Observation Rising: Birth of an Epistemic Genre, In Histories of Scientific Observation. Edited by Lorraine Daston and Elizabeth Lunbeck, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Tuesday, 5/29: The Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution ~ Assignment 2 due: Response paper Enlightenment ~ ~ Today s special: trip to the Rare Books Collection at Kislak Center ~ Arouet, François-Marie (Voltaire). Letter XIV: On Descartes and Sir Isaac Newton. Accessed February 22, Daston, Lorraine. The Empire of Observation, In Histories of Scientific Observation. Edited by Lorraine Daston and Elizabeth Lunbeck, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ~ 3 ~

4 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The Social Contract and the First and Second Discourses. Edited by Susan Dunn. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002 (selections, ca. 20 pp.). Shapin, Steven. Pump and Circumstance: Robert Boyle s Literary Technology. Social Studies of Science 14, no. 4 (1984): doi: / Thursday, 5/31: From the French Revolution through Romanticism to Population Control ~ Assignment 3 due: Response paper Romanticism ~ Cohen, I. B. The Triumph of Numbers: How Counting Shaped Modern Life. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2005 (selection: pp ). Jordanova, Ludmilla J. Nature Unveiling Before Science. In Sexual Visions: Images of Gender in Science and Medicine between the Eighteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Edited by Ludmilla J. Jordanova, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, You will also be assigned a selection of the following: Arnold, David. Deathscapes: India in an Age of Romanticism and Empire, Nineteenth-Century Contexts 26, no. 4 (2004): doi: / Herzig, Rebecca M. Suffering for Science: Reason and Sacrifice in Modern America. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2005 (selection: pp ). Rosenberg, Charles E. The Bitter Fruit: Heredity, Disease, and Social Thought. In No Other Gods: On Science and American Social Thought. Revised and expanded edition, Baltimore, London: Johns Hopkins University Press, Shields, Stephanie A. The Variability Hypothesis: The History of a Biological Model of Sex Differences in Intelligence. In Sex and Scientific Inquiry. Edited by Sandra G. Harding and Jean F. O Barr, Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press, Tuesday, 6/5: Darwinism and Molecularization in the Life Sciences ~ No assignment due; start collecting ideas on final paper project ~ Clause, Bonnie T. The Wistar Rat as a Right Choice: Establishing Mammalian Standards and the Ideal of a Standardized Mammal. Journal of the History of Biology 26, no. 2 (1993): doi: /bf Latour, Bruno. Give Me a Laboratory and I Will Raise the World. In The Science Studies Reader, New York: Routledge, Rosenberg, Charles E. Charles Benedict Davenport and the Irony of American Eugenics. In No Other Gods: On Science and American Social Thought. Revised and expanded edition, Baltimore, London: Johns Hopkins University Press, Thursday, 6/7: Changes in the Academy and the Chemists War ~ No assignment due; continue collecting ideas on final paper project ~ ~ 4 ~

5 Collins, Harry M., and Trevor Pinch. The Golem: What You Should Know about Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998 (selection: pp ). Forman, A. W. For the Sake of the Record. North American Review 210, no. 765 (1919): Professors of Germany. To the Civilized World. North American Review 210, no. 765 (1919): Weber, Max. Science as a Vocation. In The Vocation Lectures. Edited by David Owen and Tracy B. Strong, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Tuesday, 6/12: Relativity, the Physicists War, and the Rise of Sexology ~ No assignment due; continue collecting ideas on final paper project ~ ~ Today s special #1: Screening of The Einstein Theory of Relativity (1923) ~ ~ Today s special #2: Screening of Kinsey (2004) ~ Kinsey, Alfred C., Wardell B. Pomeroy, and Clyde E. Martin. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1948 (selection: skim pp , pay more attention to pp. vii xv, ). Russell, Bertrand. The ABC of Relativity. In Science and Culture in the Western Tradition: Sources and Interpretations. Edited by John G. Burke, Scottsdale: Gorsuch Scarisbrick Publisher, U.S. Department of Energy. The Manhattan Project: Einstein s Letter, Accessed February 24, (read description on the website and the scan of Einstein s original letter in the upper right). Thursday, 6/14: The Cold War and Big Science ~ Assignment 4 due: Abstract and bibliography for final paper ~ ~ Today s special: Screening of Hidden Figures (2016) ~ Rohde, Joy. Gray Matters: Social Scientists, Military Patronage, and Democracy in the Cold War. Journal of American History 96, no. 1 (2009): doi: / U.S. Government Printing Office. Science the Endless Frontier: A Report to the President by Vannevar Bush, Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, July Accessed February 24, (skim entire text, pay more attention to Letter of Transmittal, President Roosevelt s Letter, Summary of the Report ). Tuesday, 6/19: Digital Life, Big Data, and Environmental Impacts ~ No assignment due; continue work on final paper project ~ ~ 5 ~

6 Oreskes, Naomi, and Erik M. Conway. Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2010 (selection: pp , ). Steffen, Will, Paul J. Crutzen, and John R. McNeill. The Anthropocene: Are Humans Now Overwhelming the Great Forces of Nature? AMBIO 36, no. 8 (2007): doi: / (2007)36[614:taahno]2.0.co;2. Vaidhyanathan, Siva. The Googlization of Everything (and Why We Should Worry). Updated edition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011 (selections: pp. 1 12, ). Thursday, 6/21: Genes, Brains, and the Risky New World ~ Assignment 5 due: In-class presentation of final paper project ~ Deleuze, Gilles. Postscript on the Societies of Control. October 59 (1992): 3 7. (If needed, read up on Michel Foucault s concept of discipline in Wikipedia s Panopticism article the subsections on Background and Foucault s Discipline and Punish might suffice.) Ericson, Richard V., and Aaron Doyle. Risk and Morality. In Risk and Morality. Edited by Richard V. Ericson and Aaron Doyle, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, Hacking, Ian. Risk and Dirt. In Risk and Morality. Edited by Richard V. Ericson and Aaron Doyle, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, You will also be assigned a selection of the following: Lock, Margaret. Seduced by Plaques and Tangles: Alzheimer s Disease and the Cerebral Subject. In Neurocultures: Glimpses into an Expanding Universe. Edited by Francisco Ortega and Fernando Vidal, Frankfurt am Main, New York: Peter Lang, Meloni, Maurizio. The Cerebral Subject at the Junction of Naturalism and Antinaturalism. In Neurocultures: Glimpses into an Expanding Universe. Edited by Francisco Ortega and Fernando Vidal, Frankfurt am Main, New York: Peter Lang, Nelkin, Dorothy. The Social Power of Genetic Information. In The Code of Codes: Scientific and Social Issues in the Human Genome Project. Edited by Daniel J. Kevles and Leroy E. Hood, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Tuesday, 6/26: What Is This Thing Called Science? ~ No assignment due; continue work on final paper project ~ Chalmers, Alan F. What Is This Thing Called Science? 4th ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2013 (selections: TBD). ~ Sunday, 7/1: Final Paper Due ~ ~ 6 ~