The ten-week survey will be little more than a reconnaissance. There will be no time to stake out exact boundaries or to measure very precisely; instead, we will seek out high points from which to appreciate broad vistas. We will be attentive both to the very familiar and to the very strange. With luck, special features of the landscape will seize our interests and cause us to linger a spell.

The scope of the course will be broad with respect to time (two centuries); to political geography; and to the practices and interests of those who, after 1840, called themselves scientists. Although we will admit a bias in favor of science pursued on the North American continent, we will not over-indulge provincialism. The sciences in the years 1700-1900 were dominated by European interests, rules, and practitioners.

You should come to class prepared to discuss the readings, and to make contributions to the work of historical interpretation. Grades will be based on a midterm (30%), a final exam (40%), and five quizzes, each work 6% (30%). Department policy requires that you complete all work in order to receive a grade. You may make up any quiz by writing a 3-4 page book review; please see me if you need to do this. You may also write a research paper (8-10 pages) in lieu of the midterm.

Required reading: Books are available at Groundworks bookstore in the old student center.

Martin Rudwick (1985) The Great Devonian Controversy: The Shaping of Scientific Knowledge among Gentlemanly Specialists, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Charles Darwin (1859) The Origin of Species, facsimile first edition, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Mark Twain (1894) The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson, New York: Signet Classics.


Week:

1.    Introduction and course requirements
     Thinking about science historically

Reading: Rudwick, pp. 3-60.


2.    Natural History and Natural Philosophy
     Institutions of Science

Reading: Rudwick, pp. 63-182

Recommended reading: Jack Morrell and Arnold Thackray, Gentlemen of Science: Early Years of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), Robert V. Bruce, "Bache and Company, Architects of American Science" from The Launching of American Science (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 217-224; Nathan Reingold, "Joseph Henry on the Scientific Life: An AAAS Presidential Address of 1850" fromScience, American Style (New Brunswick and London: Rutgers University Press, 1991), pp. 156-168

First Quiz


3.    Field and Museum
      Science, Colony, and Empire

Reading: Rudwick, pp. 183-275

Recommended: Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, "Curiosities and Cabinets: Natural History Museums and Education on the Antebellum Campus," Isis, 1998, 79:405-426.


4.    What Was the Great Devonian Controversy?

Reading: Rudwick, 276-397.

Quiz Two


5.    A Reflective Interlude

Reading: Rudwick, pp. 401-461

Midterm exam


6.    Instruments and Astronomy

Reading: William Herschell, 1811, "Astronomical observations relating to the construction of the heavens;" Robert W. Smith, "The Cambridge Network in Action: The Discovery of Neptune," Isis, 1989, 80:395-422.

Third quiz


7.    Light and Thermodymamics

Reading: To be announced


8.    Life Sciences (1)

Reading: Charles Darwin (1859) The Origin of Species.

Fourth Quiz


9.    Life Sciences (2)

Reading: Pudd'nhead Wilson


10.    Science at the End of the Nineteenth Century

Last Quiz (December 2)