History of Science & Technology

AMS 245 Feminist & Indigenous Science (4 Credits)

In this course, we will consider such questions as: What do we know and how do we know it? What knowledges count as science? How is knowledge culturally situated? How has science been central to colonialism and capitalism and what would it mean to decolonize science(s)? Is feminist science possible? We will look at key sites and situations in media and popular culture, in science writing, in sociological accounts of science, in creation stories and traditional knowledges in which knowledge around the categories of race, gender, sex, sexuality, sovereignty, and dis/ability are produced, contested and made meaningful. {H}{S}

Fall, Spring, Variable

ANT 135/ ARC 135 Introduction to Archaeology (4 Credits)

Offered as ANT 135 and ARC 135. This course studies past cultures and societies through their material remains and explores how archaeologists use different field methods, analytical techniques and theoretical approaches to investigate, reconstruct and learn from the past. Data from settlement surveys, site excavations and artifact analysis are used to address economic, social, political and ideological questions across time and space. This course is taught from an anthropological perspective, exploring key transitions in human prehistory, including the origins of food production, social inequality and state-level societies across the globe. Relevance of archaeological practice in modern political, economic and social contexts is explored. First-years and sophomores only. Enrollment limited to 30. {N}{S}

Fall, Spring, Annually

ANT 224/ ENV 224 Anthropos in the Anthropocene: Human-Environment Relations in a Time of Ecological Crisis (4 Credits)

Offered as ANT 224 and ENV 224. Anthropology seeks to understand human life in all its complexity, but what constitutes the human is far from straightforward. This course examines the changing ways that Anthropos is being understood in an era of rapid global climate change and our planet’s sixth mass extinction event, both driven by human activities. We review perspectives on the relationship between humans and their environment from various cultural perspectives, considering how they engage notions of race, class, and gender, and what they imply for nature conservation. Topics include modernity, pets, cyborgs, kinship, symbiosis, extinction, species invasions, settler colonialism and the Anthropocene concept. Enrollment limited to 30. {S}

Fall, Spring, Variable

ANT 229 Africa and the Environment (4 Credits)

In Western discourses, African environments are defined by violence, famine and degradation, symptoms of African cultures that resist Western values such as private property, democracy and environmentalism. This course encourages students to think critically about such portrayals by learning about specific environments in Africa and how humans have interacted with them across time. The syllabus is anchored in cultural anthropology, but includes units on human evolution, the origins and spread of pastoralism, the history of colonial conservation science, and more. Discussions include gender, race, land grabbing, indigenous knowledge, the commons, the cattle complex, desertification, oil, dams and nationalism. {H}{N}{S}

Fall, Spring, Variable

ANT 248 Medical Anthropology (4 Credits)

This course looks at the cultural construction of illness through an examination of systems of diagnosis, classification and therapy in both non-Western and Western societies. Special attention is given to the role of the traditional healer, the anthropological contribution to international health care and the training of physicians in the United States. Not open to first years. Enrollment limited to 30. {N}{S}

Fall, Spring, Alternate Years

ENG 207/ HSC 207 The Technology of Reading and Writing (4 Credits)

Offered as ENG 207 and HSC 207. An introductory exploration of the physical forms that knowledge and communication have taken in the West, from ancient oral cultures to modern print-literate culture. The main interest is in discovering how what is said and thought in a culture reflects its available kinds of literacy and media of communication. Discussions to include poetry and memory in oral cultures; the invention of writing; the invention of prose; literature and science in a script culture; the coming of printing; changing concepts of publication, authorship and originality; movements toward standardization in language; and the fundamentally transformative effects of electronic communication. {L}

Fall, Spring, Alternate Years

HST 227mm Colloquium: Topics in Medieval European History-Magic in the Middle Ages (4 Credits)

The course uses magic as a case study for exploring cultural transmission in the Middle Ages. The course examines Germanic and Greco-Roman occult traditions, and the way in which the medieval synthesis of these cultures effects understandings of the occult. The course follows the influence of the Arabic and Hebrew influences on western occultism of the High Middle Ages, and flowering of the Renaissance magical tradition. The course challenges and reshapes some of our basic understandings about Medieval society. It problematizes modern division between science, magic and religion to illustrate how occult beliefs were part of wider religious experiences. Enrollment limited to 18. {H}

Fall, Spring, Variable

PHI 211pn Topics in Science and Society-Pandemics (4 Credits)

How do we represent pandemics? How do these representations implicate science, politics and society? The prevalent ‘contagion’ frame is a story about seeing the microbe as the enemy, erasing or downplaying human agency and practices (especially the expansion into new ecosystems), and affirming epidemiology and medical science as the only solution. The frame carries over into politics and culture and provides a way to translate the science of contagious disease into social terms that influence the public and also public policy. This frame and others are used to explore past and current pandemics.Enrollment limited to 40. {H}{S}

Fall, Spring, Variable

PHI 211sr Topics in Science and Society-The Scientific Revolution (4 Credits)

What was the Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries? Did a revolution even occur? If it did, was it really revolutionary? If it occurred, what forces produced it? How did the boundaries of “science,” which was known as “natural philosophy,” change during this time period? Readings are drawn from primary and secondary sources. {H}{N}

Fall, Spring, Variable

PHI 224 Philosophy of Science (4 Credits)

Case studies in the history of science are used to examine philosophical issues as they arise in scientific practice. Topics include the relative importance of theories, models and experiments; realism; explanation; confirmation of theories and hypotheses; causes; and the role of values in science. {M}{N}

Fall, Spring, Alternate Years

PHI 238 Environmental Philosophy (4 Credits)

This course prepares students to understand and critically evaluate various ethical perspectives on human beings’ interactions with nature and these perspectives’ applications to environmental issues. The principal ethical perspectives studied are anthropocentrism, biocentric individualism, environmental holism and environmental pragmatism. We study representative descriptions and defenses of these perspectives and examine in particular whether they can validly and effectively help us resolve environmental problems. We study controversies about biodiversity, wilderness protection, global climate change and pollution. Enrollment limited to 40. {H}{S}

Fall, Spring, Alternate Years