History of Science
- HIS 519/GSS 519/HOS 519: Topics in the History of Sex and Gender: History of Women/Gender/Sexuality in the U.S.This seminar surveys the allied fields of women's history, gender history, and the history of sexuality, situating recent works in the context of canonical texts and longstanding debates in the field. Please see instructor for a draft of the syllabus.
- HIS 586/HOS 586: American Technological HistoryThis reading course introduces History Dept. graduate students to historical literature on American technology from the Colonial Era through the Twentieth Century. A chronological survey of technological development highlights the variety of ways scholars have understood technology and its interactions with society and culture from a historical perspective.
- HOS 594/HIS 594: History of Medicine: The Cultural Politics of Medicine, Disease and HealthA broad survey of major works and recent trends in the history of medicine, focusing on the cultural politics of disease and epidemics from tuberculosis to AIDS, the relationship of history of medicine to the history of the body and body parts, the politics of public health in comparative national perspective. Surveying key controversies at the intersection of biology and medicine, the intellectual and political logic of specialization in fields such as genetics, health and political activism, and the relationship of class, race, and gender to shifting notions of disease and identity.
- HOS 599/HIS 599: Special Topics in the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine: AlchemyThis course takes alchemy as a starting point for exploring the history of medieval and early modern science and medicine. Alchemy's goals ranged from transmuting metals to prolonging life. They also invoke broader themes: religious belief, artisanal practice, secrecy, medical doctrine, experimental philosophy, visual culture. This Spring, the University Library will host an exhibition on alchemical imagery that seeks to combine these themes. We'll use this opportunity to investigate the historical approaches that inform modern presentations of art and science: from displaying artefacts, to reconstructing experiments in a modern laboratory.
- PHI 516/HOS 593: Special Topics in the History of Philosophy: Rationalist Physics: Descartes Hobbes and LeibnizIn this seminar, we examine a certain style of natural philosophy in the 17thC, which emphasizes metaphysics and rational principles, as found in Descartes, Hobbes, and Leibniz. Topics covered include speculations on the nature of body, the laws of nature, the notion of force, and large-scale principles that were taken to govern the material world. We study the mechanist thought in Descartes and Hobbes, and how it evolves into Leibniz's dynamics.