HY 300 Section 006: Special Studies in History
Fall 2011
3 Credit Hours
Primary Instructor: Dr. Renee Raphael
Syllabus subject to change.
Science and technology are ever-present in today’s world, defining not only what we can do but also shaping our conceptions and evaluations of modernity, civilization, and progress. Where did they start? How did they develop? This course is open to all majors and provides an introduction to the history of science from ancient Mesopotamia through the seventeenth century. Although it focuses on Western science, comparisons are made to other knowledge traditions, including the Americas and Asia. It is not primarily methodological or skills-based. This course will explore the origins and evolution of science and technology and the relationship both had to the societies that produced them. In addition to reading foundational texts in the history of science, like Aristotle and Galileo, we will address larger themes, including the relationship between science and religion and the role of science and scientists in the societies that produced them.
Common University Outcomes:
At the conclusion of the course, you will …
1. Students will be able to identify key concepts in the arts, sciences, and humanities to provide a broad perspective on the human condition.
2. Students will be able to interpret, analyze, and evaluate evidence, historical questions, and visual evidence.
3. Students will be able to demonstrate effective written communication skills and media literacy.
Course-specific Outcomes:
At the conclusion of the course, you will be able to …
I. Setting the scene
Week 1: Introduction/ ancient astronomy and astrology
Wed. 8/24 Course introduction: What is the history of science?
Fri. 8/26 Science and technology in ancient Mesopotamia
Background reading: Barton, Ancient Astrology (New York: Routledge, 1994), ch. 1. Available online through UA library, Scout.
Week 2: Methodological issues/ early Greek philosophy
Mon. 8/29 Astronomy and astrology in Mesopotamian culture
Read: James Evans, The History and practice of ancient astronomy, pp. 5-17 (esp. 5-8 on “MULAPIN”) (eLearning)
Browse the cuneiform texts and translations available at http://knp.prs.heacademy.ac.uk/teachingresources/primarysourceseminars/ Pick one subtopic (for example, “animals” under “Other omens and portents”) and read the translations provided. Be prepared to present the section you read to the class by reading the translation outloud and interpreting the omen/ portent for us.
Background reading: Barton, Ancient Astrology (New York: Routledge, 1994), ch. 1. Available online through UA library, Scout.
Wed. 8/31 Discussion: What counts as science? Issues in the interpretation of Babylonian
and Greek science.
Be prepared to present your web research from Monday and discuss Rochberg!
Read: Rochberg, “Empiricism in Babylonian Omen Texts and the Classification of Mesopotamian Divination as Science” (eLearning)
Background reading: G. E. R. Lloyd, “Methods and Problems in the History of Ancient Science: The Greek Case” (eLearning)
Fri. 9/2 Greek philosophy through Plato
Read: Plato, Republic, VII (eLearning)
Background reading: Lindberg, ch. 2
II. Science and technology in the Greek and Hellenistic world
Week 3: Ancient Greek Science
Mon. 9/5 Labor Day
Wed. 9/7 Aristotle’s physics and the Greek cosmos
Read: Aristotle, Physics, 2.1-2.3 and Metaphysics, 1.1. (eLearning).
Background reading: Lindberg, ch. 3
Fri. 9/9 Discussion of Plato and Aristotle.
Print out the assigned texts and come prepared for an in-class interpretive exercise!
Week 4: Hellenistic Science
Mon. 9/12 The astronomy of Ptolemy and his predecessors
Read: Ptolemy, Almagest, Book 1, Preface; Book III, Preface and section 1 (pp. 35-7, 131-41 in Toomer’s translation) (eLearning).
Note that the reading on eLearning has more pages than you need to read. You can browse these additional pages to get a sense of Ptolemy’s Almagest.
Background reading: Lindberg, ch. 5
Wed. 9/14 Astrology in the ancient Greek and Roman world
Read: Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos I.1, 10-11
Manilius, Astronomica III.1-217
Background reading: Barton, Ancient Astrology (New York: Routledge, 1994), ch. 2-3. Available online through UA library, Scout.
Fri. 9/16 Discussion of Ptolemy, astronomer/ astrologer.
Print out the assigned texts and come prepared for an in-class interpretive exercise!
Week 5: Ancient medicine and technology
Mon. 9/19 Greek and Roman medicine
Read: Galen, Selected Works, trans. Singer, “The best constitution of our bodies,” “The exercise with the small ball,” “The thinning diet,” pp. 290-5, 299-324 (eLearning)
Background reading: Lindberg, ch. 6
Wed. 9/21 Discussion of Galen
Print out the assigned texts and come prepared for a reading quiz!
Fri. 9/23 Moving stone monuments in the ancient world.
Guest lecture by Dr. Richard Diehl
Read: www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/easter/ (selections TBA)
Assignment: In addition to the regular passage identification assignment, please come prepared to ask Dr. Diehl one question from the reading.
III. Integrating Greek science and Christianity: the Medieval Period
Week 6: Medieval Learning
Mon. 9/26 The fate of Greek science in the Christian and Islamic worlds
Read: Pliny, Natural history, Dedication + 1 sub-section (see assignment on eLearning)
Background reading: Lindberg, ch. 7-8.
Wed. 9/28 Medieval universities
Read: Thorndike, University records (documents 2, 32, 40, 44, 45, 49, 62, 76, 83, 105, 159) (eLearning and through UA Library Scout)
Background reading: Lindberg, ch. 9-10.
Fri. 9/30 Discussion.
Print out the assigned texts and come prepared for to present on your section of Pliny (as well as to discuss the rest of the texts)!
Week 7: Technology and medieval life
Mon. 10/3 Medieval technology and daily life
Background reading: McClellan/ Dorn, pp. 192-201
Wed. 10/5 Spiritual life and healing
For today’s class, print out the Boccaccio and come prepared to discuss its implications!
Read: Boccaccio, Decameron, Preface (eLearning)
Background reading: Lindberg, ch. 13
Fri. 10/7 Discussion of Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast (selections TBA)
Bring your copy of Bynum and come prepared for a quiz!
IV. An expanding Europe
Week 8: Humanism and printing
Mon. 10/10 Humanism: new methods and texts
Background reading: Dear, ch. 2
Wed. 10/12 Printing and the dissemination of knowledge
Read: Vesalius, On the Fabric of the Human Body (Preface and
Printer’s Note to the Reader). Be sure to browse Vesalius’s images online at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/historicalanatomies/vesalius_home.html. Text found on eLearning. Text and images online at at: http://vesalius.northwestern.edu/index.html
Background reading: Rice and Grafton, The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1460-1559, pp. 1-10 (eLearning).
Thurs. 10/13 Paper 1 due by 4pm.
Fri. 10/14 No class.
Week 9: Expanding frontiers
Mon. 10/17 Trip to Houle Special Collections
Wed. 10/19 European exploration and the New World
Read: José de Acosta, Natural and moral history of the Indies, Book 2 (pp. 77-78, 88-89), Book 4, selections (pp. 197-214); Book VI, selections (pp. 350-356
Background reading: Rice and Grafton, The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1460-1559, pp. 26-44 (eLearning).
Fri. 10/21 Natural history in Europe and beyond
Background reading: Findlen, “Natural history,” CHEMS
Week 10: Discussion and exam
Mon. 10/24 Discussion/ review for exam
* Pass out telescopes and telescope assignment
Wed. 10/26 Exam
Fri. 10/28 Mid-semester break
V. The Scientific Revolution
Week 11: A new astronomy
Mon. 10/31 A new mathematical astronomy: Copernicus to Kepler
Copernicus, De revolutionibus, Prefatory material and Book 1, Introduction (online: http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/renaissance.astro/1.1.Revol.html
Background reading: Dear, ch. 4; Donahue, “Astronomy,” CHEMS
Wed. 11/2 New astronomical instruments (Galileo, Brahe)
Read: Galileo, Starry Messenger
Background reading: Donahue, “Astronomy,” CHEMS
Fri. 11/4 Discussion and telescope reports
Due: Reports of your group’s telescopic observations
Print out/ bring the assigned texts and come prepared to discuss them!
Week 12: Science and faith in an age of religious turmoil
Mon. 11/7 Learning in an age of confessionalization
Read: Jesuit Writings in the Early Modern Period, pp. 33-7, 46-54 (selections)
Background reading: Westman, “The Copernicans and the Churches” (eLearning); Felday, “Religion” in CHEMS
Wed. 11/9 Copernicanism and the Reformation: Galileo’s trial
Read: Special Injunction, Decree of the Index, Cardinal Bellarmine’s Certificate, Special Commission’s Report on the Dialogue, Inquisition’s Sentence, Galileo’s Abjuration (pp. 175-178, 272-6, 288-294 in Finocchiaro (ed.), The Essential Galileo (eLearning)
Background reading: Blackwell, “Galileo Galilei,” in Science and Religion (ed. Ferngren) (eLearning)
Fri. 11/11 Discussion.
Print out the assigned texts and come prepared for an in-class interpretive exercise!
Week 13: The world as a machine
Mon. 11/14 Studying machines
Read: Galileo, Geometric and Military Compass, tr. Drake, Letter to Reader, and pp. 80-2.
Galileo, Two new sciences, tr. Drake, pp. 11-19, 147-9, 153-61, 165-7
Background reading: Meli, “Mechanics” and Bennett, “The Mechanical Arts,” CHEMS
Wed. 11/16 The mechanical philosophy
Read: Descartes’ The World, ch. 1-7, online at http://www.princeton.edu/~hos/mike/texts/descartes/world/worldfr.htm
Background reading: Dear, ch. 5
Fri. 11/18 Discussion.
Print out the assigned texts and come prepared for an in-class interpretive exercise!
Week 14: New approaches to studying nature
Mon. 11/21 Alchemy
Read: Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy (1567), “To the reader,”
Book I: IX, X, XIII, XXII (eLearning)
Background reading: Newman, “From Alchemy to ‘Chymistry’,” CHEMS
Lawrence M. Principe and William R. Newman, “Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,” in Secrets of Nature, ed. William R. Newman and Anthony Grafton (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001)
Wed. 11/23 Thanksgiving break
Fri. 11/25 Thanksgiving break
Week 15: Practitioners and places of early modern science
Mon. 11/28` Baconianism and the new experimental philosophy
Background reading: Dear, pp. 137-144
Wed. 11/30 Women of natural knowledge
Background reading: Schiebinger, “Women of natural knowledge,” CHEMS
Thurs. 12/1 Paper 2 due by 4pm
Fri. 12/2 Science on a global stage
Background reading: Harris, “Networks of Travel, Correspondence, and Exchange,” CHEMS
Week 16: Creating a “mathematical natural philosophy”
Mon. 12/5 Isaac Newton
Background reading: Dear, ch. 8; Meli, “Mechanics” and Blair, “Natural philosophy,” CHEMS
Wed. 12/7 What was science in the 17th century?
Background reading: Dear, chapter 1 and conclusion
Fri. 12/9 Review for exam/ discursive evaluations
Comprehensive final exam: Tuesday, 13 December, 8-10:30am
Informed participation
An upper-level history class requires some passive learning (absorbing material from lectures) and a great deal of active learning (reading material and discussing it). Your enjoyment and experience in this class will improve greatly if you and your classmates prepare carefully for class and participate. To encourage participation (and to indicate its importance), a large portion of your final grade will depend on your participation. Active participation includes asking questions after lecture, participating in discussion, coming to class prepared, responding to classmates’ comments and presentations, and completing the ‘incidental’ assignments specified in class and on the syllabus. You should come to each class having done the reading and having selected a particular passage that struck you for being confusing, interesting, enlightening, etc. From time to time in class, I will call on students to share the passage they chose and why.
In-class assignments and quizzes
Occasionally we will have in-class writing and group assignments, as well as quizzes on the reading. These will be graded on a scale of check-minus (75), check (85), check-plus (95). Students who are absent for the day or otherwise do not complete the assignment will receive an F (65). Students with excused absences are responsible for contacting me to arrange an alternative assignment to make up the grade. Students may miss two in-class assignments or quizzes over the course of the semester without penalty.
Midterm and final exams
The exams provide the opportunity for you to demonstrate your acquisition of the skills and concepts described in the “Course Goals” section of the syllabus and handout. They will involve identification, short answer, and essay questions. Further information, including a study sheet, will be provided before each exam. Note that, if you choose, you can skip the final exam and count the average of your two midterms in place of the final.
One short primary analysis
Your first writing assignment will be a short (3 page) analysis of a primary source read in class. It will be due on Thursday, 13 October. A prompt and specific instructions will be provided several weeks before the paper is due.
Comparative primary analysis
Your second writing assignment (min. 5 pages) will be an extension of the short primary analysis. You will add to and modify your first writing assignment by incorporating analysis of a second primary source into your paper. It will be due on Thursday, 1 December. I will provide detailed instructions several weeks before the paper is due.
20% Participation, including identification of passage of interest
10% In-class assignments and quizzes
15% Midterm
20% Final exam
15% Short primary source analysis
20% Comparative primary source analysis
If you turn in one of the paper assignments late, they will be marked down 1/3 of a letter grade for each day they are late. If you miss the midterms or final exam without permission, see the instructor as soon as possible. Students who are absent for the day or otherwise do not complete an in-class assignment or quiz will receive an F (65) for that assignment. Students with excused absences are responsible for contacting me to arrange an alternative assignment to make up the grade. Students may miss two in-class assignments or quizzes over the course of the semester without penalty.
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The Academic Misconduct Disciplinary Policy will be followed in the event of academic misconduct.
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