HIST 105CW: Science and Technology in the Cold War. Spring Quarter, 2016 SYLLABUS

Transcription

1 HIST 105CW: Science and Technology in the Cold War Spring Quarter, 2016 SYLLABUS Professor: Elena Aronova Class Location: GIRV 1112 Class Times: MWF, 10:00 10:50 Office Location: HSSB 4215 Office Hours: Wednesday 11 AM to 12 PM; 1 to 2 PM COURSE DESCRIPTION: When the Cold War began in the aftermath of World War II, scientists found themselves in its very middle. Political decision makers relied on the expertise of physicists and engineers in matters related to nuclear arms and other high-tech military equipment. Within short time, many other disciplines from both the sciences and the humanities became entangled with Cold War politics. This course looks at the history of science during the Cold War and the particular ways in which scientists, scientific instruments, and scientific institutions shaped and were shaped by the Cold War. The evolving relationships between science and Cold War geopolitics will be explored through key episodes from the natural as well as social sciences on both sides of the ideological divide. LEARNING OBJECTIVES: The learning objectives of this class are: Ø To learn how to closely analyze works of science, literature, and popular media with attention to what they reveal about social and historical processes. Ø To analyze how developments in science and technology transcend and reshape geopolitical borders Ø To learn how to analyze different scholarly interpretations of the history of science and technology in the Cold war, and undertake your own analyses of primary documents and artifacts Ø To apply these skills in different writing assignments for this course, addressing aspects of the history of science and technology during the Cold War and their impacts in America and around the world. COURSE READINGS: Please purchase the following book: Audra J. Wolfe, Competing with the Soviets: Science, Technology, and the State in Cold War America (Johns Hopkins Introductory Studies in the History of Science). (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013).

2 All other readings for this class will be available as PDF s on Gaucho Space website. This is an upper division history class expect to read ca. 55 pages per week! We will also be using films from the period and the documentaries. Films will be assigned for viewing outside of class. All video material will be available on Gaucho Space. ASSIGNMENTS, GRADING AND ATTENDANCE: 1. The Reading Journal (4 entries total) 30% of your grade Length: Due date: Where: 3-4 paragraphs ( words) Friday in the designated weeks (see below) To Reading Journal entries assignments on Gaucho Space I understand that you will be able to spend about six hours per week outside the class in preparation for this course. To use this time efficiently and to be able to trace your progress throughout this course, I am opting out the midterm exam and ask instead that you keep a journal of your reflections on the readings throughout the course. I ask that you post a journal entry every other week or so (a total of four journal entries for the quarter), responding to all readings assigned for a selected week, and making meaningful connections between them (if you choose Week 4 you will need to address at least 2 additional reading that you can pick from the previous week s reading). Please note: a journal entry is not intended as a regurgitation of the readings you will have completed for the class; it is not intended as busy work. Instead, journal entries are the space for you to work through your ideas as the course progresses. You are welcome to summarize the main argument(s) of the reading(s) in the first couple of sentences, but the reminder of the entry should be your own thoughtful engagement with the argument. The rubrics I use to assign grades for the journal entries is posted on the course Gaucho Space page under Evaluation. 2. One short paper 25% of your grade In addition, you will write an essay of 1500 words (about 5 pages) in response to the prompt. The journal entries will serve you as a preparation for the essay, so the more thoroughly you do your weekly journal the easier it will be for you to write this essay, as well as the final paper. The essays should be uploaded on GauchoSpace AND submitted as hardcopies in class on the due date specified for this assignment. 3. Final paper 35% of your grade You will write a longer final take-home final essay of words (10-12 pages) that addresses some aspect of the history of science during the Cold War and discusses its impact in America or around the world.

3 4. Class discussion and participation 10% of your grade There will be in-class analyses/reactions to the course readings and responding to questions about the readings, which requires you to be present in the class in order to participate and get credit. Attendance is therefore not mandatory but strongly suggested. READING SCHEDULE Week 1. The Cold War and the Atomic age (54 pages) Wolfe, pp (the Intro and ch.1) David Kaiser, The Atomic Secret in Red Hands? American Suspicions of Theoretical Physicists during the Cold War, in Cathryn Carson and David A. Hollinger, eds., Reappraising Oppenheimer: Centennial Studies and Reflections (Berkeley, Ca.: Office for History of Science and Technology, 2005), pp David Holloway, Parallel Lives? Oppenheimer and Khariton, in Cathryn Carson and David A. Hollinger, eds., Reappraising Oppenheimer: Centennial Studies and Reflections (Berkeley, Ca.: Office for History of Science and Technology, 2005), pp Arthur Roberts, Take Away Your Billion Dollars, Physics Today 1/7(1948): Watch The Day after Trinity (1981) (available on GauchoCast) Week 2. Big Science and the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex (55 pages) Ø April 6 (Wed): guest speaker Prof. Peter Westwick Ø April 8 (Fri): 1 st Journal Entry due Wolfe, pp (ch. 2 and 3)

4 Rebecca S. Lowen, Creating the Cold War University: The Transformation of Stanford (University of California Press, 1997), pp (ch. 6, Building Steeples of Excellence ) Primary sources: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address, 17 January 1961 Alvin M. Weinberg, Impact of Large-Scale Science on the United States. Science 134, no (1961): Week 3. Science and the Global Cold War (58 pages) Ø April 13 (Wed): guest speaker Prof. Salim Yaqub Wolfe, pp (ch.4) Sarah Bridger, Scientists at War: The Ethics of Cold War Weapons Research (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015), pp Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Southeast Asia (Study S-266: JASONs Report 1967), pages to read: 1-8; 13-15; Watch CNN 1999 documentary, episode 11 Vietnam (available on GauchoCast) Week 4. What is Cold War science? (18 pages) Ø April 22 (Fri): 2 nd Journal Entry due Ø April 22 (Fri): Short Paper Prompt available Naomi Oreskes, Science in the Origins of the Cold War, in N. Oreskes and J. Krige, eds. Science and Technology in the Global Cold War (The MIT Press, 2014), pp Revisit the reading assigned for the previous weeks for your Paper #1

5 Week 5. Cold War Scientific Spaces I: Information Technologies (56 pages) Jon Agar, Science in the Twentieth Century and Beyond (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012), pp Slava Gerovitch, Mathematical Machines of the Cold War: Soviet Computers, American Cybernetics and Ideological Disputes in the early 1950s, Social Studies of Science 31/2 (2001): Recommended: Jonathan Auerbach and Lisa Gitelman, Microfilm, Containment, and the Cold War, American Literary History 19, no. 3 (2007): Vannevar Bush, As We May Think, The Atlantic Monthly (July 1945) Watch In Your Defense (1961) (the link embedded in Week 5 bloc on GauchoSpace) Week 6. Cold War Scientific Spaces II: Social Sciences and the Sciences of Human Nature (54 pages) Ø May 2 (Mon): Short Paper due David C. Engerman, Social Science in the Cold War, Isis 101 no. 2 (2010): Rebecca Lemov, Hypothetical Machines : The Science Fiction Dreams of Cold War Social Science, Isis vol. 101, no. 2 (2010): Primary sources: Margaret Mead, Soviet Attitudes Toward Authority: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Problems of Soviet Character (The RAND Series, 1951), pp. 1-11,

6 NSC-68 Report (1950), excerpts (22 pages) Watch The Manchurian Candidate (1962) (available on GauchoCast) Week 7. Cold War Scientific Spaces III: Scientific Internationalism and Making Global Environment (52 pages) Ø May 13 (Fri): 3 rd Journal Entry due Wolfe, pp (ch. 6) Simone Turchetti and Peder Roberts, Knowing the Enemy, Knowing the Earth, in Turchetti and Roberts, eds. The Surveillance Imperative: Geosciences during the Cold War and Beyond (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), pp Arnold W. Frutkin, International Cooperation in Space (1965), pp. 1-10; Week 8. Cold War Scientific Spaces IV: The Strangelovian Sciences (31 pages) Wolfe, pp (ch. 5) Paul Erickson, Mathematical Models, Rational Choice, and the Search for Cold War Culture, Isis 101 (2010): Thomas Schelling, The Reciprocal Fear of Surprise Attack (1958), pages to read: 1-9; Watch Dr. Strangelove (1964) (available on GauchoCast) Week 9. The End of Consensus

7 (59 pages) Ø May 27 (Fri): 4 th Journal Entry due Wolfe, pp (ch. 7, 8, and the Epilogue) Jon Agar, What happened in the 1960s? BJHS 41/4 (2008): , pages to read: Science For The People magazine ( ) ( -- sift through early issues of the archive of SFTP magazine and pick one article of your choice (6-8 pages) Watch Journey to the Safest Place on Earth (2015) Week 10. Cold War legacies (33 pages) Daniel Kevles, Big Science and Big Politics in the United States: Reflections on the Death of the SSC and the Life of the Human Genome Project, Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 27/2 (1997): Recommended: Joseph Masco, Sensitive But Unclassified: Secrecy and the Counter-Terrorist State, Public Culture 22/3 (2010): Watch Secrecy (2008) (on GauchoCast)