I am going to be doing some traveling for the next couple of weeks, and so there are likely to be no new posts in that time.\u00a0 In other news, starting in October, I will be teaching a year-long introduction to the history of science course here at Imperial.\u00a0 I’ve included a tentative lecture schedule and reading list below the fold.\u00a0 This isn’t set in stone yet, so comments and suggestions are welcome.<\/p>\n
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AUTUMN TERM<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n LECTURE 1. Course Overview & How to Argue Historically<\/strong><\/p>\n LECTURE 2. Scholastic Philosophy and the Medieval Cosmos<\/strong><\/p>\n Tutorial 1<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n *I assigned this in its entirety for my 2008 history of science course at the University of Maryland — huge disaster.\u00a0 But I really like how Lewis portrays Medieval thought as essentially bookish, and how this bookish culture revolves around an unspoken “model,” or cosmology.\u00a0 Pruning it down, I think it will also mesh well with the Grafton in Tutorial 2, but I’ll have to at least do some sort of intro to what’s going on, probably as early as lecture 1, if I want it to work.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n LECTURE 3. Renaissance Challenges<\/strong><\/p>\n LECTURE 4. Philosophical Reformers<\/strong><\/p>\n Tutorial 2<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n LECTURE 5. Experimental Philosophy\/The Place of Isaac Newton<\/strong><\/p>\n LECTURE 6. Alchemy, Matter Theory, and Chemistry<\/strong><\/p>\n Tutorial 3<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n LECTURE 7. The Enlightenment<\/strong><\/p>\n LECTURE 8. The Spirit of Improvement and Specialised Science Tutorial 4<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n LECTURE 9. Natural History, Natural Philosophy, and Mathematics in the 1700s<\/strong><\/p>\n LECTURE 10. Making Sense of the Earth: Life and Geology<\/strong><\/p>\n Tutorial 5<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n SPRING TERM<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n LECTURE 11. Science, Religion, and Ideology in the Nineteenth Century<\/strong><\/p>\n LECTURE 12. Darwin and His Place in the Sciences<\/strong><\/p>\n Tutorial 6<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n LECTURE 13. Laboratories and Universities<\/strong><\/p>\n LECTURE 14. The New Physics and Engineering<\/strong><\/p>\n Tutorial 7<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n *I was unaware of the Morrell until Andy Mendelsohn here at Imperial told me about it when I was looking for something on laboratories.\u00a0 It’s a bit long, but it pairs really nicely with Andy W.’s piece.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n LECTURE 15. The Social Sciences<\/strong><\/p>\n LECTURE 16. Origins and Facets of Twentieth-Century Biology<\/strong><\/p>\n Tutorial 8<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n *Note: These readings are all fairly dry.\u00a0 The objective is to try an exercise in “untangling” history, wherein disparate traditions in anthropology, biochemistry, and genetics all emerge out of the same 19th-century soup of physiology, evolutionary theory, and chemistry, before re-synthesizing to a degree in molecular biology.\u00a0 I’m still thinking of switching in Kohler on Drosophila, or something similar. LECTURE 17 Industry and the Expansion of Science<\/strong><\/p>\n LECTURE 18. Twentieth-Century Politics of Science and Technology<\/strong><\/p>\n Tutorial 9<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n
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